In that sense you must not even believe in scientific evidence because you could be a brain in a vat which hallucinates all the evidence, or you are deceived by a evil demon. "Very ambitious hypothesis" and "very little reason to suppose that it's true" claims, beliefs, asserting probabilities, and preponderance are all necessary to even speak of "scientific grounds". Why? Because no explanation can conclusively be proven by evidence. There is always a different explanation which explains the same evidence (Duhem-Quine problem). But that does neither mean we shouldn't believe anything nor that we should believe everything to the same degree. Some explanations are more adequate, simple, internally consistent, conherent with other beliefs, and explanatory powerful than other explanations. Of course you could agnostically assume that Mickey Mouse might exist because maybe it doesn't exists and maybe it does. But that's ignoring the fact that explanations which predict the non-existence of Mickey Mouse are much simpler, coherent etc than other explanations which do predict its existence. Similar thing for the explanation that you are deceived by a demon to falsely believe all the scientific explanations. It's much simpler to assume that scientific explanations, which adhere to the criteria of simplicity and so on, are closer to the truth than the evil demon, or the brain in a vat, which all are ad-hoc hypothesis which do nothing to increase explanatory power.

The agnostic is still without theistic belief.

Semantics. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God. That’s all

Jon Utter nonsense. Pure opinion. And lost all credibility with the retard remark.

@@latenightlogic Lets put it this way, our planet is merely a speck in all reality and we're asking a broader question that defines existence. Do you think any living human being past or present can prove or disprove how this universe was created? Even in the furture I see this question not being ultimately answererable.

@Benama Maybe he doesn't like asses. So he kicks them.

Good point, but what is that claim "weaker" than?

Well said!

Well said!

Instead of accepting the imperfect world and trying to make it more beautiful

Creation, Creation, Creation...who or what created it all? We exist....therefore we were created!

Man does NOT and NEVER will have dominion over microorganisms ... Seems the bronze age did NOT know about microorganisms.... We all admit we don't know what happens after we die. We can't know. In the history of the world, no god has ever spoken a single syllable! Jesus Rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees. Somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist. All religions say they are the TRUE religion. All religions are man made. All religions are all lies. Yes. All religions were formed by humans. There is some evidence that even early hominids had some form of religion, as evidenced by how they buried people. It wasn't until the dawn of civilization that religion really flourished. Even the Sumerians had a form of religion. Religion really took off with Judaism. It was then, for the most part, that the monotheism had its beginning. Religion diverged into different branches (different beliefs) based on geographical dispersion. The Jews had their god, the Hindus had there god, so forth and so on. Those religions branched out as well. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism. Even today new religions pop up. Christianity has diverged (ex. Protestants, Catholics). In the 20th century you have Mormonism and Scientology, to name just a couple. Religions will continue to be created, but most will have their roots in existing religions. Religion is like a virus. It mutates and adapts to the social expectations of the time. The major religions of the world were brought into existence through LIES. beyondallreligion.net/2012/03/20/religion-based-on-a-bedrock-of-lies/

Lol. Really? So what you are saying, is ignorance is bliss.

Yes, that was total bullshit. ;-)

I too have noticed this. I think when one takes all sciences (formal included) into the picture you see more clearly. There is no default proposition, and there is no default position. Suppose we have the proposition: God exists. A lack of evidence or proof doesn't make the negation true. Similarly, suppose we have the proposition: God doesn't exist. A lack of evidence or proof doesn't make the negation true. Its not that easy, the proposition is either true or false, but in this case its unanswered. A simple, I don't know, is all one can say. Sure we make our minds up on many things where we may have reasons to believe them (faith). Things one believes out of the blue would be defined as blind faith. In this sense, Atheists and Theists both have faith. Both lacking full justification but providing their own reasons for choosing to believe what they do. I must admit, I have faith that Thor doesn't exist, that there is no floating tea-pot or that Zeus doesn't exist. I am reminded of the scenario of the Fermat Numbers, which were thought to only produce prime numbers. There was no proof, but there seemed to be a (weak) reason to believe it was true. You could argue that this would be faith, an implicit answer. The first five Fermat Numbers were indeed prime. No proof of this was found however, and a lack of this proof didn't make the logical position to reject the conjecture. It had to be shown or proven that the conjecture was wrong. Indeed, this was done by counter-example due to Euler.

@Jon Ahh, epistemology. To be honest, you are almost talking about certainties here. We don't really prove or disprove anything in the sense you are talking, its all about probability really.

You are mixing up deductive and inductive science. In mathematics, you start with a set of definitions and unproved but plausible assumptions called postulates or axioms, and from there you can prove that there's no largest prime number. On a side note, Kurt Godel proved that in any sufficiently powerful set of axioms you can always produce valid statements that you can't prove or disprove. Then there are the intuitionists, led by Dutch mathematician Brouwer, who deny the validity of the reductio ad absurdum. They asked whether the sequence "123456789" occurs anywhere in the decimal representation of the number pi and claimed that you can't answer that question - if it doesn't occur anywhere, you will never be able to prove that by calculating digits. But mathematics doesn't necessarily describe the world that we live in, so in order to prove or disprove God's existence, you have to use induction, not deduction. Then you get the example of the perfectly black, light-weight, non-metallic tea pot that orbits the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn. In order to prove that it exists, all you have to do is scan that area and find it. But woe unto them who have to prove that it doesn't exist - they'll have to scan the area and prove that they scanned it entirely and didn't find it. But who knows what parts they overlooked?

@@thejiminator8816 probably is a cop out for im not sure, but pay me the money anyway.

Mind-independent entities are different from math

That kind of claim warrants some defense, and you give none.

Why would it? Were you created by the ape-like creatures that you evolved from? Were they created by the tiny mammals that survived the asteroid impact? Life evolves. Evolution is not a linear process. This time around it will simply make a technological step. Having said that, go and "talk" to chatGPT. You will find that it's a lot of things, but it's not intelligent. It's more like a broken record collection. There are a lot of different records in there, but as soon as you ask for the specific music on one of them, it will keep repeating that same music over and over, again. It can't learn, no matter how hard you try to teach it. That's not intelligence, at least not yet.

@@lepidoptera9337 technically i was created by the ape-like creatures and so has the AI and so have YOU. Darwin's evolution theory is no longer relavant either as it turned out.

WLC is a study in logic fallacies who has nothing important to say in an intelligent conversation.

Bob S Also... he’s been published in the world’s most prestigious philosophy journals in the world, and he has multiple books with respected presses.

@@bobs182 Define logical fallacies and give a specific example in either on of WLC books or videos where he commits the supposed "logical fallacy".

@@1974jrod Give me your favorite WLC argument. Here is a list of logical fallacies to get you started learning about fallacies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

@@bobs182 We could start with the Kalama Cosmological argument for starters.

@Man From Andromeda lol no. First of all "lack of knowledge" is the same thing as no knowledge, so that is a dumb thing to argue. Second, if you don't know then the default position is to not believe until you've been shown sufficient evidence, IE agnostic atheist which does in fact make sense, and is in fact logically consistent. An Atheist can most definitely say they don't believe, but also say they don't know. For example if a guy tells you he can do a double backflip but doesn't show you, you can say you don't believe him, but still leave it open for him to prove it. You wouldn't straight out say he can't do it. That isn't an in the middle position at all. Now as for agnostic theists, yeah it isn't a logically consistent position to hold, however they could be saying they are agnostic to the description/definition of god. But you missed my entire point in the first place. I was saying that if you don't believe, then you are in fact an Atheist. If I ask you whether you believe in god/gods or not and you answer agnostic, that's a non answer. I didn't ask if you knew, I asked if you believed.

@Man From Andromeda I'm not reading all of that. If you have no knowledge, do you not lack knowledge? Again, stupid thing to argue. Belief: an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Disbelief: inability (ignorance) or refusal to accept that something is true or real. These are not choices. The only way to come to a belief is to become convinced that it is true, if you are not convinced that it is true than you do not believe it by default lol yes ignorance is a part of that position. But there is a difference between someone who believes with/because of ignorance, then someone who doesn't believe and are aware of their ignorance. What is so hard to understand there? "I do not disbelieve in things I am unaware of; I am ignorant of things I am unaware of. Is what I have just said true? In order to disbelieve, I would have to have some sort of knowledge of the thing. If I possess no knowledge of the thing, how can I be at a default of disbelief? I cannot." Are you serious right now? If you have no knowledge of something then you can't logically believe it. An agnostic Atheist is someone who does not believe in any gods, but also understands that they couldn't possibly know if there is some sort of a god out there. You can disbelieve in specific definitions of gods, but still be ignorant to definitions you don't know about, or don't exist yet. It's as if you haven't even tried to think about this stuff, your just randomly arguing against points you clearly don't even understand.

@Man From Andromeda Yeah I completely disagree with your definitions, and conclusion. You can in fact be in the neutral position {Agnostic} but still not believe. If you are in a neutral position then you haven't been convinced right? so again, the default position from there is non belief.

Because it disproves a so called loving and compassionate God, work it out!

Well it's likely a reference to theism not deism,;theism is a massive paradox, why would an all, all knowing ,all powerful and all loving god allow needless suffering to exist ? Especially if those who suffer are helpless and innocent? However the idea than an non-loving god or a oblivious or indifferent god wouldn't apply here but to be fair his argument is varied and he talks about more than one religion.

I'm an agnostic u idiot, if anything if there is a god, he must be evil and vindictive, u know nothing about my religious upbringing, views or experiences and as for delusional, I'm far from it more than you'll ever know pal, so instead of being a judgemental arrogant prick, maybe next time u should think before u attack

@GREG GMW Why would he be called loving and compassionate if you can just say "oh but to god love and compassion is what we call evil, but he plays by different rules". Like why make it so confusing? If I were to torture you, but told you I was actually loving and compassionate, would you believe me? It's word salad. We all know what love and compassion is... If love and compassion are famine, disease, and pain... Words just have no meaning.

Why do so many idiots believe in a loving God when life is suffering??

Well that's your opinion.

@@edmundburke8490 not exactly

@@noelkinz what word, would you like to replace for God then? Just curious. Thanks.

@@edmundburke8490 none

it does not matter, all religions and gods were created by men

Some people think that admitting that can't be certain is better than fully believing in an uncertainy.

@@ruurddejong1939 What does it mean to fully believe in an uncertainty? Does it mean that you believe it is uncertain or you believe something is certain that is not?

+SeanMauer Do you really not see the circular and tautological nature of what you're saying? Of course no one "decided" that the universe should exist in such a way as to facilitate life, but there would be no life here if it didn't exist in that way. You're simply projecting your conclusions onto particular facts about the natural world, but they simply don't support your thesis. The late author Douglas Adams used the example of a puddle that had suddenly gained consciousness. The puddle looks around at the hole it's in and says to itself, "Wow, look at this! This hole is just right for me. In fact, it is perfectly the right size for me to exist in it. Someone must've made this hole with me in mind. Lucky me!" Now, you see the silliness here, I hope. It's just a tautology. As for this being a "super intelligently engineered system," I would suggest you aren't too familiar with actual intelligent engineering. The natural world, from the cosmological level to the most infinitesimal biological systems, is riddled with waste and destruction on an unimaginable scale. I have to conclude, frankly, that you don't really know anything about science but have merely read and are parroting here nonsense from Christian apologists. There is nothing about the natural world which is suggestive of highly intelligent design. Nothing.

Love & Division perhaps autocorrect got some of your words wrong here.... you seem to have made the exact opposite case regarding what the evidence does and doesn’t show. Maybe go back and edit!

This doesn't necessarily mean the God of the Bible. The universe could have originated from any of the thousands of creation stories in the thousands of religions that have been created by humankind (both still with us today and long forgotten). It could've been some super-intelligence for whom we were just a science project for some hyper-advanced science funfair, and then thrown away and forgotten. The point is, we don't know even a sliver of info to even begin to be certain, existence has vastness and complexity beyond our total comprehension, and we're just a gaggle of dumbasses on a tiny floating rock. That's the point of Agnosticism.

Well the problem Brad is that a lot of us did not receive that computer chip that was implanted in some brains by the government that helps some people hear all those little voices like the beast who I'm sure have much to tell us about computer design & implementation,so a lot of us, sadly ,will never know of such things but please don't hold back when the voices move you

Jgeorge...Maybe or maybe not. As Searle states, we can’t prove a negative. If God does exist, its existence and essence is far beyond our intellectual capacity to understand it.

Then it would no longer be called faith now would it?

Physics and chemistry describe the specificity of action(information) of material. Evolution is dependent upon these forces of nature while itself is entirely passive. We accept our world as it is and describe it. Why blindly accept an invisible being as the source of anything when it is much simpler to accept the world as it exists? If God can just exist then the world can just exist.

where is the verifiable 100% proof of a creator?

"Stick to what you know" Well yes, that's what they're doing when they talk about religion.

he's area of expertise is mind, not religion

JohnFisherChoir Nonetheless, he's sticking to what he knows, in the sense that he can't know whether or not there's a God and he isn't going further than stating that fact. - Everyone has *an* interpretation of the topic. Furthermore, he's clearly given it some thought, and that's already quite a lot more than is demanded of those who make the positive claim that there *is* a God. I suppose, what I'm trying to say with this latter point is: Would you have the same complaint - that Searle should "Stick to what he knows" - if he had asserted there *was* a God? To give you a sense of the direction of my questioning - What I'm presuming is that you're a Christian who is more upset with his arguments against the idea of a God, rather than a rigorous academic who is simply stating that everyone keep their statements to very specific disciplines within which they've either published work or received a degree.

You're presumption is wrong I'm not a theist, it wouldn't have made a difference if he said God exists or does not exist, it's that he said his only reason for not being an atheist is that' you can't prove a universal negative', which is obviously false, even to the non-philosopher, so he should know better than that given his influence in philosophy of mind. He can have any views that he likes outside of philosophy of mind, but they aren't his specialty and he doesn't show much more familiarity with philosophy of religion than do non-philosophers and laymen in the field like richard dawkins or christopher hitchens. For a significantly more rigorous defense of agnosticism see Graham Oppy, and for atheism: J L mackie, william rowe, Quentin Smith. And to dismiss the theistic arguments as he does as if they were nothing is ridiculous. Many theistic arguments in contemporary philosophy of religion are taken very seriously by non-theist philosophers

Indeed, I can empathize with another example Pinker trying to dabble in futures studies/human security and geopolitics, when area of focus was... clinical psychology and longitudinal studies? I will go to my plumber or mechanic when my blood vessel have problem, its all the same eh? (just as the OP have to make explicit he is not of belief, I too have to state a bias - on many other subject, I enjoy seeing Pinker's perspective, pinker have a lot of emulatable trait eh? it is only on these area I have to put concrit first eh?) 'toynbee-huntington thesis', 'geopol realism', "stochastic 'wildcard' ala Zubrin, what are those? don't ya know, imposing "End of History" cosmopolitanism, has meant everyone hold hands with kumbaya and there is a decline of violence, QED. resource abundance, rate of innovation, and supranational relations aren't the driving factors facilitating the peace period... it's just a fundamental shift in the human condition, which is a permanent transformation that can never change back or revert etc... it is clear what side of the malthusian v cornucopian debate pinkerites or transhumanists are on eh? J Searle most identify self as 'ignostic' or 'theological non-cognitivist', (see the Searle room thought experiment, and searle's musings on the Boltzmann brain eh) though has entertained some definition or claim in some past, have found the gap between what is claimed and what is observable wanting. it is the context Searle elucidate which is insightful, showing these standpoints as distinct from the false dichotomy of "TAP V PAP" others would impose eh? at least J Searle or D Dennett are multidisciplinary, and have some experience in the other fields they reflect on eh? J Searle or D Dennett also don't make huge winded books on some assertion they tenuously sorta prove... J Searle et D Dennett do consider different definitions or claims which they could find plausible, across many different kind of belief or thinking, moreoften being a type of corporeal being, or a metanarrative construct analogous to a nationstate, or mass delusion, or fictional character. bonne chance a vous mon librepenseur!

What makes you say Searle is "utterly ignorant about philosophy of religion"? That seems to be a baseless accusation. And Craig is not even a footnote next to John Searle.