Why I'm Not an Atheist: The Case for Agnosticism

[eomer]

182. The answer for some people is neither definitely yes nor definitely no.

Last edited Sun Jun 2, 2013, 07:59 AM - Edit history (2)

No matter how much you want it to be, it isn't.

Edit to add:

A theory (an explanation) should be as simple as it can be but no simpler.

Your explanation is too simple, simpler than it can be because there are demonstrable cases that it can't handle. Here is another example:

Take a person who grew up in a Baptist church, learned the Baptist teachings, and stated that he believed in the God that Baptists do. Then one day he stumbled onto information about the history of Christianity and the history of the Bible that shattered his belief system and threw him into confusion. If you asked him at this point whether he believed in God he would say that he really doesn't know, that he needs to rethink and do more research before he can decide what to believe.

Which of your two choices, 0 or 1, do you assign to that person at that time?

Any explanation to be plausible must handle every possible case one can think of. That's the 'no simpler' part. When someone raises a case, any case, you must be able to say how your explanation handles it or else the conclusion will be (whether you want to admit it or not) that your explanation is too simple (or perhaps merely wrong, but yours seems to be a case of too simple).

You really do need to address the cases I raise and explain how it is that they don't break your model. If you can't then your model has been shown to be faulty. To just keep insisting, especially by resorting to ALL-CAPS yelling and Dot. Separated. Emphatic. Phrases, would seem to show you have no explanation for these cases. If I'm wrong and you do, please offer them. How does your explanation explain that person who's in confusion and really doesn't know? How does it explain that previous example of a person who has thought about it a lot and still just isn't sure. How do you assign a 0 or a 1 to either of those people?

Second edit:

The key to this latest example is 'confusion'. In other words, cognitive dissonance. The person still has some feelings of belief but at the same time has thoughts that he is beginning to perceive (but isn't sure) are incompatible with belief. His belief is in a state of uncertainty, flux, and needing resolution.