Apatheism

[Inevitable Droid]

Yup, Sophus was right.  The term apatheist makes sense as a descriptor for yours truly.  I changed my profile to reflect my new self-awareness.

I am also what I would call a hard agnostic, as I assert that not only the fact but also the plausibility of God's existence are not only unknown but unknowable.  But my hard agnosticism leads instantly to apatheism, because I deem it wasteful of time and energy to focus any attention or base any action on what can never be known.  Stated positively, my maxim would be, All relevance rests in the knowable.  I think apatheism has a positive role to play in society, by channeling resources away from the unknowable, so those resources won't be wasted.  Better by far that those resources be employed to bring earthly benefit to earthly creatures.  A great example would be all the money placed in the collection plates of all those churches out there.  In most cases, only about a tenth of that money goes to the practical good of society or the planet.  The remaining ninety percent is utterly wasted on the irrelevant.  Apatheism zeroes in on that fact and calls it out as important to be considered.

So now I'm wondering if anyone else on the board self-identifies as apatheist.  I could look at profiles, but a lot of us have fanciful ones, like, Leprechaunless.  So I thought I'd just ask.  Plus I'll add an invitation to talk about your apatheism, if you would like to.

[McQ]

Yep, I independently ('cause I'm sure someone else had to have come up with it besides just me) coined the term apatheist and have used it for years to describe myself sometimes. I also self-identify as a naturalist. Naturalist describes my world view better, but apatheist describes my view on how I approach religions and religious people and how I want them to approach me. In essence, I don't care if people want to be religious or not (because I currently don't think humans are out of their religious diapers yet...we just haven't evolved socially enough to abandon religion, much as I'd like us to do so), just so long as religious beliefs aren't forced on me.

There's more to it, and I suppose how deeply I feel about this depends on my mood, or situation from day to day, but that's it in brief.

[EssejSllim]

I would consider myself to be, among other things, an apatheist, but not towards religion. I think religion should be actively combatted due to social and ethical justification. Deism vs. Atheism on the other hand, is in the realm of the unknowable so yes, I am an apatheist in that sense.

[Inevitable Droid]

I think religion should be actively combatted due to social and ethical justification.

The best way to do that, I think, would be to promote the repeal of the tax break for churches.  The Wiccans wouldn't care, as they don't have churches, but I doubt very many of us are concerned about the Wiccans any way.

Deism vs. Atheism on the other hand, is in the realm of the unknowable so yes, I am an apatheist in that sense.

Me too.  Deism is the only theological framework I'm apatheist toward.  Judaism, Christianity, Islam - toward them, I'm hard atheist.  Those frameworks I claim as false.  They're utter nonsense.

[Byronazriel]

I am also what I would call a hard agnostic, as I assert that not only the fact but also the plausibility of God's existence are not only unknown but unknowable.  But my hard agnosticism leads instantly to apatheism, because I deem it wasteful of time and energy to focus any attention or base any action on what can never be known.  Stated positively, my maxim would be, All relevance rests in the knowable.  I think apatheism has a positive role to play in society, by channeling resources away from the unknowable, so those resources won't be wasted.  Better by far that those resources be employed to bring earthly benefit to earthly creatures.  A great example would be all the money placed in the collection plates of all those churches out there.  In most cases, only about a tenth of that money goes to the practical good of society or the planet.  The remaining ninety percent is utterly wasted on the irrelevant.  Apatheism zeroes in on that fact and calls it out as important to be considered.

The search for knowledge is never wasteful, only one lesson is learned in victory but a thousand are learned in defeat. Only by questioning things can we evolve our understanding of the universe. If we just accept things as they are we stagnate, we can never know if something is impossible or not as we only have a finite understanding of the universe.

Take cancer research for example. I'm sure that people have been trying to find a cure for cancer since cancer was first observed, and we've advanced a lot since then but cancer still claims the lives of too many people each year. Even if cancer is never fully eradicated, it can not be said that the research and resources put into it were a waste.

I would consider it highly unlikely for the people at SETI to receive a transmission that proves the existence of extra terrestrial intelligences, but who knows what radio signals would be missed if no one was listening for them?

Philosophy is important, maybe there are more important things, but the world would be a lesser place if there was no one to ponder the great questions.

[Inevitable Droid]

The search for knowledge is never wasteful, only one lesson is learned in victory but a thousand are learned in defeat. Only by questioning things can we evolve our understanding of the universe. If we just accept things as they are we stagnate, we can never know if something is impossible or not as we only have a finite understanding of the universe.

I strongly agree but only so long as what we seek to know can be known.  God cannot be known, if by God we mean, that which, not of nature, is nature's author.  It's the not of nature attribute that makes God forever unknowable, since our bioliogical senses and our technological sensing devices are all of nature, and thus are limited to nature as their domain of functionality.  
 
I notice you self-identify as eclectic pagan.  You may very well, then, define God, god, or gods, in some manner that excludes the not of nature attribute, or that bypasses the question of knowability by rejecting any claim for objective existence.  Which of those three words do you employ as denoting something meaningful to you, and how do you define that word, or those words?  Obviously I'll be analysing your definition from the perspective of (1) naturalism versus supernaturalism and (2) objective versus subjective existence.

Some pagans view the gods as psychological archetypes.  These pagans would deny that their gods in a literal sense created the universe, and also would deny that their gods have objective existence, although the existence claimed for these gods would be universal to Homo sapiens as a factor in personal fantasy, dreams, hallucinations, storytelling, and tribal myth, all of which are subjective phenomena, but all of which can be studied in something approaching a scientific manner by psychologists and anthropologists.
 

Take cancer research for example. I'm sure that people have been trying to find a cure for cancer since cancer was first observed, and we've advanced a lot since then but cancer still claims the lives of too many people each year. Even if cancer is never fully eradicated, it can not be said that the research and resources put into it were a waste.

I actually find it hard to imagine that cancer, a hundred years from now, will still in any sense be mysterious, barring nuclear or other cataclysm to set science backward.  I strongly support cancer research, as I think anyone sane and competent must.

I would consider it highly unlikely for the people at SETI to receive a transmission that proves the existence of extra terrestrial intelligences, but who knows what radio signals would be missed if no one was listening for them?

SETI seeks to know what at least hypothetically can be known.  I strongly support SETI, though I can understand how someone else sane and competent might not, out of apathy toward the question under study.

Philosophy is important, maybe there are more important things, but the world would be a lesser place if there was no one to ponder the great questions.

Philosophy is such a broad topic that generalizing around it can be hazardous.  Many of my posts on this message board delve into epistemology, a branch of philosophy, while other posts delve into the philosophy of science.  I also delve into metaphysics, but only to the extent that I explain my apathy toward it, which I base on epistemology.  I incidentally consider morality to be a metaphysical topic, since it can't be a physical one, as the material world is one of force, not idea, and morality is a domain of ideas.  Mathematics and formulational logic are also domains of ideas, and thus metaphysical, but they are special cases, as their questions can be answered definitively, due to the tautological nature of their propositions, and the answers they provide can be applied to the useful analysis of physical domains as well as to the design of useful tools and methods.

[Byronazriel]

Creator gods are only one sort of god, there are many more.

As far as I'm concerned if there ever was a creator god it's probably not concerned with us. In that sense you could say that I'm an agnostic deist, but I do believe that there are gods or rather a god that exists as a force or forces that may or may not be sentient.

I've had some pretty spiritual experiences in my life, for example I've sat under trees and felt the energies of the Earth flow around and within me, but I don't claim to know anything about the nature of the universe. All I have are my perceptions, but this doesn't mean that it is unknowable. Only that I do not currently know it. I keep my ear to the ground just in case the universe wishes to reveal its mysteries to me.

As for non-creator gods: I think of them as personifications of forces, like Neil Gaiman's Endless. They exist both as the phenomena they represent and as the concepts that we've envisioned them as.

There are also spirits which are also gods in a sense, and may or may not be related to the above.

What if a god, for whatever reason, decided to reveal itself to us, could we still not know it?

What if we, in say a thousand years, discover a way to leave our universe and discover a greater universe in which there is a guy who looks like Santa who is making little snow globe universes and introduces himself as God, do we still not know?

[Inevitable Droid]

Creator gods are only one sort of god, there are many more.

OK.  That jibes with polytheim, which typically jibes with paganism.

As far as I'm concerned if there ever was a creator god it's probably not concerned with us. In that sense you could say that I'm an agnostic deist, but I do believe that there are gods or rather a god that exists as a force or forces that may or may not be sentient.

Supernatural forces?  I'll presume so, especially in light of some of your later comments.

I've had some pretty spiritual experiences in my life, for example I've sat under trees and felt the energies of the Earth flow around and within me, but I don't claim to know anything about the nature of the universe. All I have are my perceptions, but this doesn't mean that it is unknowable. Only that I do not currently know it. I keep my ear to the ground just in case the universe wishes to reveal its mysteries to me.

Some of what you describe would be classified by me as intuition, which can take a variety of forms.  I view intuition as a potent source of hypotheses.  I merely require that those hypotheses be tested by logical empiricism.

There are also spirits which are also gods in a sense, and may or may not be related to the above.

Elementals, for example?

What if a god, for whatever reason, decided to reveal itself to us, could we still not know it?

We would never be able to know it was a god.  The communication would have to either be matter, energy, or direct neurological manipulation, all three of which could be accomplished by the super-science of extra-terrestrials or time travelers - my point being, the communicating entity could be lying.  Absent a way to rule out deceitfulness, any claim that can't be verified must be assumed deceitful if outlandish or astonishing.  If I (as I now am) had been Moses, I would have assumed Yahweh was an extra-terrestrial or a time traveler.
 

What if we, in say a thousand years, discover a way to leave our universe and discover a greater universe in which there is a guy who looks like Santa who is making little snow globe universes and introduces himself as God, do we still not know?

It could always be a trick.  How would we rule that out?  Trickery, if impossible to rule out, must be assumed, if the claim is outlandish or astonishing.

[Byronazriel]

How is a super advanced time traveller or alien any less outlandish than a god?

I can understand what you're saying, if I saw a guy with pointy ears I'd think he was a human with a genetic anomaly before I would think that he was an elf or a vulcan, but if it was proved that he wasn't in fact human then which would be least outlandish elf or vulcan?

At some point describing something as godlike would be the least outlandish, what then... or are all outlandish things to always be disbelieved? If so what is outlandish exactly, are there different levels of outlandish such as the elf/vulcan thing, how much and what kind of evidence would you need to believe in an outlandish thing?

Also, and most importantly, how do you define knowledge?

[Asmodean]

If religion stayed away from me, I'd be an apatheist too. You see, I only care as long as it affects me personally by for instance being an annoyance.

[Byronazriel]

Also what about pantheism? The idea that the universe is a god.

[Asmodean]

Also what about pantheism? The idea that the universe is a god.

We already have a word for the Universe. Begins with a Uni and ends with a verse.

[Inevitable Droid]

How is a super advanced time traveller or alien any less outlandish than a god?

A god, being supernatural. is literally outlandish in the sense of being external to the land - all land, every land, everywhere.  A supernatural being belongs nowhere, is at home nowhere, as even space itself is natural.

To enter the supernatural we must exit the universe.  Nothing is more literally outlandish than that.

I can understand what you're saying, if I saw a guy with pointy ears I'd think he was a human with a genetic anomaly before I would think that he was an elf or a vulcan, but if it was proved that he wasn't in fact human then which would be least outlandish elf or vulcan?

Vulcan.  By far.  But still a thrilling discovery!  How I yearn for the day we first encounter extra-terrestrial life!

At some point describing something as godlike would be the least outlandish, what then... or are all outlandish things to always be disbelieved?

All supernatural things are to be disbelieved, though their concepts can be taken as beautiful and employed as ideals by which to live one's life.  If leprechauns as a concept inspire me to live my life with a twinkling eye and a crooked grin, a spring in my step and a joke on my tongue, then the concept has added to my happiness, and I am wise to value it.  But to think I might actually find one at the end of a rainbow - if rainbows had ends - would be silly and make me prone to a lifetime of disappointment.

Vulcans, on the other hand, while of course fictional, might one day be discovered, albeit most likely under a different name, and with a much different history than was described on Star Trek - unless Gene Roddenbery was privy to secrets!

If so what is outlandish exactly, are there different levels of outlandish such as the elf/vulcan thing, how much and what kind of evidence would you need to believe in an outlandish thing?

If a Vulcan were discovered and biologically studied, we presumably could quickly determine it wasn't human, nor even terrestrial.  Where it came from would be an open question, but that it didn't come from here, presumably would be clear.

The problem with the supernatural is precisely that it can't be studied.  Only its alleged effects on the natural can be studied.  Whether the cause of those effects was supernatural would forever be unanswerable, unless definitively disproven by finding the natural cause.

Also, and most importantly, how do you define knowledge?

Knowledge is any proposition whose probability of being accurate has been determined by logical empiricism to be one hundred percent.  If I saw you punch your wall, then I know you punched your wall.  If I didn't see you, but someone else did, and I find traces of your flesh on the wall, and bruises on your knuckles, and traces of paint in the bruises, and the paint matches that on the wall - then the probability that you punched the wall is close enough to one hundred percent for me to accept that you punched it, but, strictly speaking, I don't know that you punched it.  Nevertheless, a strong surmise is sufficient for most purposes.

Logical empiricism cannot assess the accuracy of any statement regarding the supernatural, beyond tautological ones, such as, "The supernatural isn't natural."  What logical empiricism cannot assess must forever be doubted.  Yet its beauty may nevertheless inspire.  We merely need to distinguish sharply between beauty and truth.

[Byronazriel]

Why must a god be supernatural? the ancient Greeks believed that their gods lived on  Mount Olympus, and that if they were bold enough they could go visit them.

I've not once thought of gods as being supernatural, but rather as being one with nature. As creatures brought about by natural forces, our the natural forces themselves given life.

To enter the supernatural we must exit the universe.  Nothing is more literally outlandish than that.

If you exit the universe then the place that you are in currently becomes part of the universe by definition. Once observed the supernatural ceases to be supernatural, and becomes a part of the observable universe.

Also there are lots of things in science that are understood only by observing their effects, and the last time I checked that was actually a huge part of science in general.

Take gravity for example!

[Inevitable Droid]

Why must a god be supernatural?

Well, first, to be natural, something must either be matter or energy or else the result of matter or energy.  Space is the result of matter and energy.  Motion is likewise.  Gravity is what happens when matter comes near enough to other matter.

If something claimed to be a god, yet was matter or energy or the result of matter or energy, would you entertain the notion that the thing might be stating an honest and accurate fact?  If so, then OK, for you a god can be natural.  But what would make it a god?  Its relationship to man?

The ancient Greeks believed that their gods lived on  Mount Olympus, and that if they were bold enough they could go visit them.

Got a source for that?  A link, hopefully?

I've not once thought of gods as being supernatural, but rather as being one with nature. As creatures brought about by natural forces, our the natural forces themselves given life.

Given life by whom?  Or by what?

If you were saying the gods were psychological archetypes I'd be willing to nod my head at that.  There really do seem to be certain symbols that pop up in most if not all cultures.  These symbols inform myths, but also dreams, personal fantasies, and hallucinations.  When the myths, dreams, personal fantasies, or hallucinatons are beautiful, they inspire, and when they're ugly, they still inspire, just in the opposite direction.  When they inspire actions of earthly benefit to earthly creatures, they are good, since earthly benefit is the definition of good.  But they are never true.  If only we could admire the beautiful and laud the good without having to claim them as true!

If you exit the universe then the place that you are in currently becomes part of the universe by definition.

Drat.  I wish hackenslash were still around.  He would totally agree with you!

Once observed the supernatural ceases to be supernatural, and becomes a part of the observable universe.

If observed then it wasn't supernatural to begin with.  The supernatural can't be observed.  Our biological senses and technological instruments can only respond to the natural.

Also there are lots of things in science that are understood only by observing their effects, and the last time I checked that was actually a huge part of science in general.

Take gravity for example!

See above regarding gravity.  Other examples would be dark matter and dark energy, whatever the heck they really are, which may well be neither matter nor energy.  But if you said to me* that gravity, or dark matter, or dark energy were gods, I would ask you why you said that.  What would make them gods in your eyes, if indeed in your eyes they were gods?

* I know you didn't say this.