I argue that God is not a special case. He's part of what's been said to us, and has over time tried to sneak His way in through the actual trouble areas.
Here are the special cases:
1. As mentioned above: the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) knowledge can happen, beyond the basic Cartesian knowledge that a difference is in progress.
2. Granted that a more articulated knowledge is possible because of an "internal" reception setup (we're at Kant now, where experience is refracted through his organizational categories): the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) the complexity that we know we perceive relates directly enough to a source to give us knowledge of that source. Forgive my hideous phrasing, but I assume you're familiar enough with this one.
3. Granted that some degree of reliable knowledge of an outer world is possible: the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) that world is itself a mediation or distortion of something prior (e.g. the past, laws of physics, something entirely foreign).
The assumption of an organism, personality, intelligence or what-have-you as being responsible for the presence of absence of these uncertainties is completely impossible from these premises. Though the existence of a cause has to be part of the flowchart of possibilities we keep alive, there's nothing in any of this to indicate the nature of such a potential cause.
Traditional understandings of God are tossed onto the menu of unhelpfully-infinite possibilities because we've heard so much about them. And it's rather clear, from the empirical end, that these understandings have come about because of their imaginability, as compared to most of the rest of that menu. Given an absence of sensory, logical, or conceptual resources, we take the route of honest silence or we end up treating the world like a Rorschach test.
To the extent the evolution of a God-lie makes empirical sense to you, to that extent his menu entry shrinks down in proportion to the infinite others. Hence any time you're posed the question, do you believe in God, and by someone who gets the basic "dude I know nothing" thing, the information you'll want to convey is the extremer than extreme unlikelihood of His existence. It is crucial to distinguish among levels of certainty. Probably more crucial than keeping the reminder afloat that we're ignorant of the degree of our own ignorance.
The day you claim the NOT symbol (the a- in atheism) for rationally absolute denial you have to give me a new one for absolutely-absolutely-absolutely-almost-absolute. Maybe "u", "utheism". Swing this in the language at large and I'll go along. Until then, since in speaking at all we're breezing right through the 3 uncertainties listed above, I am going to appropriate that a- with no qualms whatsoever. My asterisk is written on the bottom of my shoe.
no subject
Here are the special cases:
1. As mentioned above: the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) knowledge can happen, beyond the basic Cartesian knowledge that a difference is in progress.
2. Granted that a more articulated knowledge is possible because of an "internal" reception setup (we're at Kant now, where experience is refracted through his organizational categories): the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) the complexity that we know we perceive relates directly enough to a source to give us knowledge of that source. Forgive my hideous phrasing, but I assume you're familiar enough with this one.
3. Granted that some degree of reliable knowledge of an outer world is possible: the unknowability of whether (or to what extent) that world is itself a mediation or distortion of something prior (e.g. the past, laws of physics, something entirely foreign).
The assumption of an organism, personality, intelligence or what-have-you as being responsible for the presence of absence of these uncertainties is completely impossible from these premises. Though the existence of a cause has to be part of the flowchart of possibilities we keep alive, there's nothing in any of this to indicate the nature of such a potential cause.
Traditional understandings of God are tossed onto the menu of unhelpfully-infinite possibilities because we've heard so much about them. And it's rather clear, from the empirical end, that these understandings have come about because of their imaginability, as compared to most of the rest of that menu. Given an absence of sensory, logical, or conceptual resources, we take the route of honest silence or we end up treating the world like a Rorschach test.
To the extent the evolution of a God-lie makes empirical sense to you, to that extent his menu entry shrinks down in proportion to the infinite others. Hence any time you're posed the question, do you believe in God, and by someone who gets the basic "dude I know nothing" thing, the information you'll want to convey is the extremer than extreme unlikelihood of His existence. It is crucial to distinguish among levels of certainty. Probably more crucial than keeping the reminder afloat that we're ignorant of the degree of our own ignorance.
The day you claim the NOT symbol (the a- in atheism) for rationally absolute denial you have to give me a new one for absolutely-absolutely-absolutely-almost-absolute. Maybe "u", "utheism". Swing this in the language at large and I'll go along. Until then, since in speaking at all we're breezing right through the 3 uncertainties listed above, I am going to appropriate that a- with no qualms whatsoever. My asterisk is written on the bottom of my shoe.