Dialogue

[Interbane]

TH: "The gnostic is confident because of direct, personal intuitive experience."

The problem here is that this type of confidence has been shown time and again to be misplaced as often as naught. If intuition is the surfacing of the feeling of knowing(which can rightly be called an emotion) prior to the deliberation of a concept, then there is nothing more special about it than an ordinary thought. Unconscious detection from such things as subliminal images add a layer of mystique, but even this experience does not lead in any way to knowledge we should be confident about.

The way the word gnosis is defined by wikipedia makes me realize it's only applicable to theists and not atheists. The term was coined in ancient times when people believed it was possible to have divine knowledge.

[Chris OConnor]

Another complication with trying to place everyone on a chart is that one can be a strong atheist with regard to a specific well-defined deity, but agnostic with regards to any and all deities.

As an example I am a strong atheist with regards to the Christian God, as defined in the Bible, but a weak atheist with regards to any and all gods. There could be some sort of deity somewhere in the vast expanses of our cosmos and I'm not willing to be so arrogant as to claim to know that no gods of any sort exist. So I'm agnostic, or "without knowledge," of the existence or lack of existence of a God or gods, but because I lack knowledge I also lack belief. without knowledge of something faith in it is rather irrational.

The chart I created seems easier to understand than Dawkins chart. Sure, Dawkins is attempting to quantify the percentages of people that fall into each category, but this is speculation and my chart skips that impossible task. My chart is more meant as a quiz for people to identify what they should label themselves. I'm going to work on a page on BookTalk.org, linked to from the FACTS page, where people can answer the two questions and be led through the steps/pages up to the point where they are told what label is best fitting.

I think it will be important for me to explain that when asking oneself the two pertinent questions one must first tighten up the questions.

Example:

Question 1: Do you believe in the Christian God as defined in the Bible?

Question 2: Do you claim to know whether the Christian God, as defined in the Bible, exists or does not exist?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

These two questions may elicit completely different responses than the following two questions:

Question 1: Do you believe in a God or gods of any sort?

Question 2: Do you claim to know whether a God or gods, of any sort, exist or do not exist?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Personally, I would answer the top questions with...

No, I don't believe in the Christian God and YES I claim to know this God doesn't and cannot exist as defined in the Bible. These answers would make me a gnostic atheist or "strong atheist," but this label is misleading. It is only valid when dealing with a specific well-defined God or gods.

The moment I am asking the lower set of questions my answers change to NO I don't believe in a God or gods of any sort, and NO I don't claim to know whether a God or gods of any sort does or doesn't exist.

To know that no deities of any sort exist anywhere in the entire universe would be a god-like knowledge in itself. Have I traveled a billion light-years away and looked under each and every boulder for a god? Of course not.

Now, if you ask me how improbable I feel it is that a deity of any sort exists I would say it approaches infinity. I'd actually gamble my very life that no gods of any sort exist. Or at least that no gods that communicate and interact with humanity exist. I would not gamble my life that there isn't some sort of force out there that created us and is watching us under some sort of cosmic microscope. Maybe an alien life created us? Perhaps we arrived through panspermia? Who knows. I just find any and all current religious stories to be utter bullshit.

[Chris OConnor]

The way the word gnosis is defined by Wikipedia makes me realize it's only applicable to theists and not atheists.

This is true....which is why my quadrant also uses the label "strong atheist." A strong atheist is the equivalent of a gnostic atheist.

[Thomas Hood]

Let's tweak this spectrum/quadrant idea (I love technical terms!):

Persons who have seen a UFO.
Persons who think they might have seen a UFO but aren't sure.
Persons who think nobody has seen a UFO.
Persons who would not believe in UFO's even if they saw one.

I think what I'm trying to show here is that actual belief in UFO's doesn't really matter, but rigidity of belief does. A person with a rigid or fixed belief system tends to have a limited worldview and resists new ideas or anything that might contradict his/her beliefs. And I think, as we see with various fundamentalist movements, there is a tendency to impose these beliefs on others.

I have met more persons who believe in UFO's than atheists and agnostics put together, and likable as they are, their problem isn't "rigidity of belief" but excessive imagination.

Tom

[geo]

Wow that graphic is difficult to understand.

Just to clarify, I think the graphic is from the Dawkins' forums and not from the web site, so it's a hack job, just like mine.

Another complication with trying to place everyone on a chart is that one can be a strong atheist with regard to a specific well-defined deity, but agnostic with regards to any and all deities.

I hadn't thought of this and it seems to make my concept much too simplistic to be of any use. However, on second thought, maybe the very concept of God changes with strength of belief. A rigid, fundamentalist belief is also the a Fundamentalist God (as described in the Bible), while an agnostic theist will believe in a more vague notion of "God" one akin with "The Cosmos" or "The Universe." This would make sense because an agnostic theist will not feel so attached to this "God" since it's so vague in the first place.

[Thomas Hood]

The problem here is that this type of confidence has been shown time and again to be misplaced as often as naught.

Not so, Interbane, because some knowledge is self-verifying. "Sugar is sweet" is such knowledge. Taste and see. Gnostic knowledge is knowledge of spirit, and it too is self-verifying qualitiatively, as with sugar, and also because it integrates the self of the observer, which is the source of the emotion. "O taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalms 34).

Tom

[Interbane]

Sugar can be said to be sweet because first it is experienced. If Gnostic knowledge is knowledge of spirit, where is the initial experience? If this experience is perceived intuitively, then there’s a problem.

“Sugar is sweet” is what is known as propositional knowledge. It is a statement describing a characteristic of sugar. The experience of “sweetness” is different than the knowledge that “sugar is sweet”. One is a proposition, the other is an experience. The taste tester can be confident because of direct, personal, sensory experience.

The experience of spiritual truths, however, is not sensory nor is it empirical. It is, as you say, intuitive. The problem is that intuition can fail us as often as naught, and this is what I was referring to. The reason here is due to the nature of intuition. It is not “divinely inspired knowledge” as some people might believe. Rather, it’s a ‘feeling of knowing’ on an idea that is not preceded by conscious deliberation. It’s accuracy for arriving at the truth is no greater nor less than if you were to consciously reason something out.

So intuition isn’t a sense, it’s a mode of thought. Although there is much to be said of such sensory experience as subliminal imaging, and the intuition can inform a person based on these experiences, where conscious reasoning cannot.

[Thomas Hood]

Sugar can be said to be sweet because first it is experienced. If Gnostic knowledge is knowledge of spirit, where is the initial experience?

Spirit is universally and empirically present, but typically people are unaware of it. There is nothing that does not possess it. Sugar in the mouth, you are likely to be aware of. If someone handed you a piece of candy you wanted, you may have felt gratitude and reassurance. You felt visceral reactions of which you were unaware, and also you experienced kinesthetic changes of tension and relaxation, reactions apparently controlled by the amygdala. This whole-body knowledge is peripheral and obscure as compared to the concrete piece of candy, but carries moral force. This reaction is wiser than you are, so you are mistaken that "It’s accuracy for arriving at the truth is no greater nor less than if you were to consciously reason something out." That's like saying a person can be deceived about sugar being sweet. Normally, you can't.

Tom

[Interbane]

TH: “Spirit is universally and empirically present, but typically people are unaware of it. There is nothing that does not possess it.”

You’re using the word ‘spirit’ in the sense that describes the emergent properties of a physical system qualitatively. Similar are the findings of chaos theory, where it describes the emergent properties quantitatively. Since there is no need for the addition of things metaphysical, I’m okay with this definition.

TH: “This reaction is wiser than you are, so you are mistaken that "It’s accuracy for arriving at the truth is no greater nor less than if you were to consciously reason something out."”

I believe you’re speculating again Thomas, without any support.

Intuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred. [16] In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of nonintuitive subjects.

AJ Giannini, J Daood,MC Giannini, R Boniface, PG Rhodes. Intellect versus intuition--dichotomy in the reception of nonverbal communication.Journal of General Psychology. 99:19-24,1978

Perhaps what you mean isn't intuition, but a mix of intuition and emotional intelligence, or perhaps something else?

TH: “That's like saying a person can be deceived about sugar being sweet. Normally, you can't.”

No, as I’ve explained, the concepts are entirely different. You’re comparing the relationships of of “sugar = sweet” to “glories of nature = god”, but the mechanism whereby each of the perceptions leads to a propositional conclusion is very different.

In the end, I know you’d simply explaining what Gnosticism is, and I appreciate that. It’s not a tenable position however. It’s a wishful thinking label it seems, and little more. I wonder what the reasons were for the person who coined the term “agnostic”, and if he had the same reasons as myself.

[Thomas Hood]

TH: “This reaction is wiser than you are, so you are mistaken that "It’s accuracy for arriving at the truth is no greater nor less than if you were to consciously reason something out."”

I believe you’re speculating again Thomas, without any support.

How many corpses do you require, Interbane? In the "CBS poll on superstition" thread I gave you an example of empirical intuition -- the case of the torn meniscus -- and you did not realize the import. I have no ideas what the folks at Yale were testing. They weren't testing what I experience. But a person like myself who is only slightly alert will have many intuitive experiences crucial for the conduct of life. For example, the recent examination I have made of fallacies is interesting, but one always has intuitive knowledge when one is dealing with a deceiver, the problem being to become aware of it.

Tom