Against the Gods? Atheism Versus Agnosticism: The Great Debate (Hour 1)

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio - the largest and most popular philosophy show in the world - takes the strong atheist stand against agnosticism, defended by Johnson Rice of Free Talk Live. Podcast audio: http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_1691_Agnosticism_Debate_Free_...

This debate originally aired June 25, 2010, at the Porcupine Freedom Festival in New Hampshire.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• atheist
• atheism
• agnosticism
• religion
• religiosity
• Jesus
• God
• Christian
• Christianity
• Judaism
• harris
• dawkins
• hitchens

[dougtraceur]

Could someone explain what my belief is? I'm a physicist so naturally I feel if I can't measure something like whether a god exists or not or I can't fit it into a standard model of science, then it doesn't make sense to argue whether it may or may not be true. Like in quantum physics, a particle doesn't have a definite position until you measure it, experiments and models can't show where that particle might be before so it debating about where it was is essentially meaningless.

[stefbot]

@dougtraceur It sounds to me like you are an atheist, or someone who accepts that contradictory entities with no physical manifestation do not exist. :)

[trick0171]

In those comments I explain the difference between atheism/agnosticism, and that agnosticism is really only against these positive affirmations that state absolute certain KNOWLEDGE without evidence for such.

I think the notion of god EXTREMELY improbable, but to state you know "god does not exist" for any and all definitions is a big whopping argument from ignorance fallacy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So excuse me if I fail to take your fallacies seriously.

(END 2)

[Doubter5]

I've listened to 25 minutes so far, and nobody had defined Atheism and Agnosticism. They're not mutually exclusive. I am an Agnostic Atheist. I don't KNOW that there is no god (agnostic), but I don't belive in one (atheism).

[bobthechipmonk]

Could it be possible to have Mass without Gravity? or Matter without Consciousness?

[jamesregmorris]

I'm an atheist, I too don't discount the possibility of stef's definition of a god, consciousness without mater, etc, because I don't know and can't prove it, but I wouldn't call it god. I would call it a product of nature we don't know about, life as we don't know it. Maybe you can have consciousness without matter, but it would be a complete unknown, so how can I say I know about a complete unknown. It's very unlikely to exist and if it does I definitely dont beleive in religion,100% on that

[maxpower789z]

Atheists and religious folk are peas in the same pod, IMHO...both deal with absolutes...in essence, the acknowledgement of absence of a diety is the same as believing in one because one way or another, you think you KNOW.

One thing that human history can teach us is that we don't know jackshit

[unak78]

I have to disagree with Stef here. He uses laws of nature as we currently know them, but I would contend that we do not understand a tenth of what there is to truly know about the laws of nature and the true form of the universe. We are barely scratching the surface. In our reality consiousness may require physical form but this discounts the possibilities presented by string theory & M-theory and parallel dimensions which may have other physical realities. That's is why I'm agnostic.

[americaninkorea]

But Stef, if we go with the definition of God you offered at the beginning, and if there were such an all powerful God (the origin of all things and the author of the laws of nature) it sounds rational to admit that that God could violate the laws of nature. Hence there would be contradiction with the existence of a consciousness independent of matter.

[wormusicisticsound]

read the definitions of the words and pick one. no need for debate. everyone is agnostic!!!

[osheaad]

Panentheism is really the belief in an ultimate totality which one names God, without interjection of the supernatural or theism.

[osheaad]

I do not know the ultimate nature of reality; God is proposed as an ultimate nature, thus I know not whether God is real. So, to answer the question "does God exist?", I say "I cannot answer that question, and to do so is a delusion that one is knowledgable, where one is ignorant." Do you believe in God? "I cannot judge honestly, but it seems inconsistent to say 'there exists God', so I don't believe per se." Do you not believe in God? Yes, but I cannot say, "God does not exist" either.

[kmica2008]

a black hole is an inverted god hypothesis. it can be measured, calculated but don't actually exist because singularity can't exist in reality. it's a math trick to cover all the dead ends no one can answer without it.

when you look at the universe you can't see beyond the horizon. floating in the middle of the ocean, all you can see is water. there is a horizon you can't breach. leave a possibility that there is something beyond. we don't know and until we do no one can truly be an atheist.

[kmica2008]

stef says a square circle can't exist but at the beginning he defined god as a omnipotent, eternal consciousness without material form and later says it has to be a supernatural being that you can measure which is a square circle definition by itself.

a god people usually talk about is the creator god. the fact that stuff exists something had to make the stuff. if people in space are to god what bacteria in petri dish are to a lab technician how can we ever be aware of god/lab technician?