Agnosticism requires faith

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Keith Hamburger What is your evidence that Santa Clause doesn't exist? What is your evidence that underwear gnomes don't exist? What is your evidence that flying monkeys don't exist? Keith

1. Santa Clause did exist

2. It all depends on how you define them. You can't just apply some ridiculous terms and expect me to disprove them.

[Cephus]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 1. Santa Clause did exist

Santa Claus never existed. Saint Nicholas existed and served as, at least to some degree, a template for some of what we currently understand about the Santa Claus myth. The modern idea of Santa Claus was cooked up by Coca Cola as an ad campaign.

2. It all depends on how you define them. You can't just apply some ridiculous terms and expect me to disprove them.

Why not? Isn't that exactly what people are doing with God?

In the end, while it is not possible to completely disprove any of these concepts, it is certainly ludicrous to take any of them seriously. All of them lack any credible evidence that they are even remotely true.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Cephus Santa Claus never existed. Saint Nicholas existed and served as, at least to some degree, a template for some of what we currently understand about the Santa Claus myth. The modern idea of Santa Claus was cooked up by Coca Cola as an ad campaign.

Party pewper.

Why not? Isn't that exactly what people are doing with God?

No. I've offered a definition. Unfortunately, "underwear gnome" can't be found in the dictionary.

In the end, while it is not possible to completely disprove any of these concepts, it is certainly ludicrous to take any of them seriously. All of them lack any credible evidence that they are even remotely true.

One concept is defined. One isn't - you've just exploited a ridiculous name. There's hardly a similarity.

[Cephus]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 No. I've offered a definition. Unfortunately, "underwear gnome" can't be found in the dictionary.

So? I can write a dictionary and include "underwear gnome". Dictionaries are just written by people, after all. So we can define it, just as someone defined God. Same thing.

[Fonceai]

You can even add "underwear gnome" to urbandictionary.com

In fact, there's lots of stuff on Urban Dictionary.

Take this article... it's 6 months old...

Urban Dictionary: zhavric

[Keith Hamburger]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 No. I've offered a definition. Unfortunately, "underwear gnome" can't be found in the dictionary.

Underwear gnomes are the creatures that sneak into your house in the middle of the night and steal your underwear and one (never more than, just one) sock out of a pair. Eventually, unless you buy more underwear or socks you are left with no underwear and/or only mismatched pairs of socks.

Their plan is ...

1. Steal underwear.
2. mumble-mumble-mumble.
3. Make a profit.

Now, prove using pure logic, that these creatures don't exist.

Keith

[LetThereBe]

This is the primary difference between a supernatural being such as a God, and beings such as unicorns, underwear gnomes, what have you.

Evidence is by its very nature part of only our plane of existence. Any being that dwells above or beyond it would not be perceivable, and therefore would fall outside the realm of evidence and hence we could make no educated statements about such a being. Only through interaction within our realm of observation can we begin to make probability statements about whether or not such a thing exists.

Unicorns are by definition a species of animal, and therefore are bound to the three spatial dimensions we are familiar with. Since there have been no trustworthy claims of unicorn sightings where we would naturally expect unicorns to be, it is safe to say that the odds of unicorns existing are low.

Underwear gnomes are also a type of creature (I hesitate to say animal). Therefore they are able to be seen, smelt, heard, felt, (tasted?) and we should therefore expect to see them and the predicted effects of their existence (missing underwear).

Any being that is purely supernatural is free from such scrutiny. Saying that we have not seen God as an argument against Him is as sensible as saying that not finding unicorns on the moon is evidence that there are no unicorns in Greenland. Many (if not all) definitions of God describe something that exists above the natural universe. We can only make claims of probability regarding specific interpretations of God (individual religions) based on the claims of the particular deity interacting with the natural world (miracles, scripture, etc).

Therefore the concept of a God will forever be beyond the reach of both disproof and improbability, while creatures such as those you have mentioned can safely and rationally be doubted and found unlikely to be (though no absolute disproof will ever exist)

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Keith Hamburger Underwear gnomes are the creatures that sneak into your house in the middle of the night and steal your underwear and one (never more than, just one) sock out of a pair. Eventually, unless you buy more underwear or socks you are left with no underwear and/or only mismatched pairs of socks. Their plan is ... 1. Steal underwear. 2. mumble-mumble-mumble. 3. Make a profit. Now, prove using pure logic, that these creatures don't exist. Keith

I can't prove anything with evidence I've already acquired, but I can go about testing to see if underwear gnomes exist.

Such is not the case for a deity - there are no established tests that come to a conclusive answer, at this point.

Quote by: Cephus So? I can write a dictionary and include "underwear gnome". Dictionaries are just written by people, after all. So we can define it, just as someone defined God. Same thing.

I'm saying that I didn't have a definition to work off of, not that being in a dictionary validates a term.

[Jack]

Any being that is purely supernatural is free from such scrutiny.

This assumes that the supernatural is a reality. So I guess we should first establish if there's any reason to assume there is a supernatural realm of reality.

[Keith Hamburger]

Quote by: LetThereBe This is the primary difference between a supernatural being such as a God, and beings such as unicorns, underwear gnomes, what have you. Evidence is by its very nature part of only our plane of existence. Any being that dwells above or beyond it would not be perceivable, and therefore would fall outside the realm of evidence and hence we could make no educated statements about such a being. Only through interaction within our realm of observation can we begin to make probability statements about whether or not such a thing exists. Unicorns are by definition a species of animal, and therefore are bound to the three spatial dimensions we are familiar with. Since there have been no trustworthy claims of unicorn sightings where we would naturally expect unicorns to be, it is safe to say that the odds of unicorns existing are low. Underwear gnomes are also a type of creature (I hesitate to say animal). Therefore they are able to be seen, smelt, heard, felt, (tasted?) and we should therefore expect to see them and the predicted effects of their existence (missing underwear). Any being that is purely supernatural is free from such scrutiny. Saying that we have not seen God as an argument against Him is as sensible as saying that not finding unicorns on the moon is evidence that there are no unicorns in Greenland. Many (if not all) definitions of God describe something that exists above the natural universe. We can only make claims of probability regarding specific interpretations of God (individual religions) based on the claims of the particular deity interacting with the natural world (miracles, scripture, etc). Therefore the concept of a God will forever be beyond the reach of both disproof and improbability, while creatures such as those you have mentioned can safely and rationally be doubted and found unlikely to be (though no absolute disproof will ever exist)

But, what if the being is only partly supernatural? Unicorns are intelligent and very special, magical creatures. You only get to see a unicorn if the unicorn chooses to let you see him. Some 1000 years ago, or so, some unicorns chose to let some people see them and those people wrote about the unicorns they saw, which is why we have stories about them today.

However, if you fail to believe in unicorns, one will impale you on its horn after you die. :eek:

Keith