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Larry Brand, a documentary film maker, just interviewed me for a film he's making about atheists. Our discussion got me to thinking about agnosticism. Here's a clearer statement of my view of it than I think I've given of it before.
There are a lot of thoughtful people out there who claim to be agnostic about the existence of God. They will acknowledge that many of the more evangelical and traditional conceptions of God do not make sense. They are not comfortable with the more literal readings of various religious texts or with a strongly anthropomorphic god because they acknowledge the host of problems associated with that position.
But as they see it, there is still a live possibility lingering here that the atheist has been too quick to dismiss. It's the idea of an absolute ground of being, a source of meaning, a force, a power, or something that exerts influence on the universe with some purpose in mind. It is something that is greater than us, and it is more than can be explained or understood in merely naturalistic or material terms. We'll call this a supernatural force, or SF. And the omni-God that so many people believe but that this agnostic doesn't accept is the OG.
First, we should note that we're not really talking about any sort of recognizable belief in God any more. We'd be hard pressed to even call a belief in an SF a kind of theism. In mainstream religious movements in the West, God has (at least) five essential features. He's all powerful, all knowing, all good, there's just one of them, and he's a personal, conscious being. This last one is the most important for this discussion. Traditionally, God is anthropomorphic—he has a mind or thoughts, he has a plan, and he forms personal emotional and loving relationships with humans. And it's really this aspect of God that the SF agnostic has moved the furthest away from. This is probably because to the extent to which we endow God with personal, caring, teleological, and conscious motives we make it harder and harder to reconcile that God with the facts. In many people's minds, suffering, evolution, randomness, and the relative unimportance of humans in the big picture seem to indicate that the world just doesn't have one of those sorts of beings in it. If it did, there are too many things about the world that would be different. So the SF agnostic has, more or less, conceded the atheist's point about the sort of God that the vast majority of humans believe in. The SF agnostic is actually an atheist about God, Allah, Jehovah, Zeus, Thor, Sobek, Puluga, and all the rest. She only has reservations leading to suspension of belief about some much more nebulous, non-traditional and non-anthropomorphic thing. If she and the wide atheist are disagreeing about anything, it is about the conditions under which it is reasonable to suspend judgment about a hypothesis vs. simply disbelieving it.
We should allow that some of the difference in epistemic policy here can be legitimately due to different personal preferences. Experience may have led one person to want to be more cautious about lending her assent (or dissent) to hypotheses and generally taking her time in gathering evidence and formulating opinions. While another person may have more of a shoot first, ask questions later approach and be less inclined to suspend judgment about anything unless some relatively specific conditions are met. But if the former person's policy leads her to think she should be agnostic about Zeus, Sobek, and Gefjun (the Norwegian goddess of agriculture), instead of simply disbelieving them, then she's being too skittish, unrealistic, or just pretentious. And if the latter person is inclined to just reject everything unless some substantial evidence can be produced in its favor, then he's being thoughtless and injudicious.
Personal preferences aside, what should it take for a hypothesis to warrant a serious agnosticism? I cannot be merely that it is might be true or it is some conceivable possibility. There are a host of other things that are possible, but reasonable people are not agnostic about them: elves, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and Chupacabras. It is possible that the Holocaust didn't happen, or that opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck. But it would be silly to be agnostic about any of these on the grounds that they are possible. In order to warrant a considerate agnosticism, there must be more in favor of a claim. There has to be at least enough evidence in its favor to elevate its likelihood from the merely possible into a range where it could turn out to be true. If the probability that a claim is true ranges from 0 to 1, and the tipping point from probably not true to probably true is .5, then surely the reasonable range for agnosticism for a hypothesis is in the vicinity of .5. Let's just stipulate that it's .4 to .6. Greater than that and you've got grounds to believe it, and less than that you should disbelieve it. You wouldn't assign a .5 probability to the existence of Santa, or to the claim that wearing a raw steak hat wards off illness. Those are probably way down in 0 to .1 range. And you would assign a very high probability to the claim that Barak Obama is the President of the U.S.
So what does it take to elevate a claim into the .4 to .6 range? The agnostic we are considering has granted that the anthropomorphic, traditional conceptions of God that so many other people believe in are not real. So those fictions, and those people's beliefs in them shouldn't count as someone boosting the supernatural force hypothesis up into the suspension-of-judgment range. The widespread beliefs in Santa, or ghosts, or the view that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV don't do anything to make those claims even slightly more likely to be true. So widespread belief in an OG shouldn't influence the probability that we assign to an SF.
This hypothesis will seem ad hoc, nevertheless, I'm going to put it out there because I think it really is at the heart of agnosticism that some people claim to subscribe to. Some agnostics are actually people who want to be believers, but they just can't bring themselves to disregard all the counter indications.
To be honest, I think that what happens for a lot of agnostics is that they started out believing in an OG. They were raised religious, participated in religion with their friends and family, and they even enjoyed it or found it fulfilling. But as they explored the question intellectually they came to acknowledge that really what's entailed by those religious doctrines can't be true. They couldn't reconcile the religion that they knew with the rest of what they know about the world. So they, perhaps grudgingly, gave up on that notion. But a desire to be religious in some form lingers, and there is still a great deal of appeal in the idea of some transcendent, supernatural force that holds out hope for something more than just matter and the reality we are faced with here. So these agnostics back off of the traditional notion of a thundering, judging, Biblical creator God but hold some optimism for an SF. They remain agnostic about that possibility because that idea doesn't have the glaring inconsistencies that sabotaged traditional belief for them. If it is these sorts of personal desires that have led to a person's elevating the possibility of an SF to the agnostic range, then I think this sort of agnosticism is ill-founded. If what's really going on in their heads is that they wish they could believe in God, but they can't bring themselves to buy into the deeply problematic being who is the center of belief for so many other people, then they don't really have any evidence that would warrant suspension of belief about an SF; they are, more or less, religious believer wannabees. Subjective motivations like desire, need, hope, or psychological affect should not be permitted to influence the objective probability value that we assign to some claim about reality. My wanting to win the lottery, no matter how bad, doesn't actually change the odds in the slightest—Oprah and The Secret notwithstanding.
Maybe if we consider a paradigm case of suspension of belief about some other hypothesis it can shed some light on the appropriate circumstances for agnosticism about God. Not everyone will agree with me, but the existence of intelligent alien life seems like a hypothesis that it would be wise to be agnostic about. It is certainly possible that it exists, and there are many considerations that lead us to think that the probability could be much higher than zero. We know life developed in our case, and given the enormous numbers of stars and planets in the universe, those conditions could be found in many other places. But there is too much we don't know about the prevalence of planets with life conducive conditions. Even when life develops, it may be extraordinary for it to develop into intelligent life. Evolving to the point where they can engage in space travel or interstellar communication may be very, very difficult even if life turns out to be relatively common. Some thoughtful people conducting the search for extra terrestrial intelligence are divided about the issue. And so on.
What does this example show us? The idea can't be merely consistent with what we know. If we make goblins undetectable, or give Santa a cloaking device, those hypotheses can be made consistent with everything else we know. There has to at least some plausibility to the hypothesis such that it could fit in with the known facts. We need to have, at least in outline form, a sketch of how that thing could be true and how it might dovetail with the rest of what we know about the world. We can anticipate several different ways in which aliens could fit in the world we know. Xeno-biologists (how about that for a cool job?), physicists, chemists, and cosmologists can give us a number of plausible accounts for how they could exist (not merely that they might possibly). Liquid water does appear to occur naturally on other planets in the universe. And some of those planets and stars appear to be the right temperature, age, and type to support life. The molecular construction of life could take a number of different forms, and so on. All of those considerations lead us to give it higher initial probability than we would to an invisible elf hypothesis.
So if we can take a lesson from the example, what the SF agnostic owes us is some account of an SF that fits comfortably with the rest of what we know or experience. Or put less confrontationally, if order for the SF hypothesis to warrant agnosticism, there must at least be enough evidence in its favor and some account of how the existence of such a thing could comfortably fit in with the rest of what we know.
What do we have regarding an SF that might lead us to give it this status? We've already seen that it cannot be the prevalence of belief in an anthropomorphic God among other people. And it can't be our hoping that there is something else that leads us to give the real thing a greater probability. Are there phenomena, experiences we have, or other evidence that could be explained by an SF? Here the SF agnostic may say yes. She may point to internal phenomena: human consciousness, feelings of the sublime, transcendent experiences, our moral facilities, or religiousness. Or she may point to external phenomena: the advent of life on Earth, fortuitous circumstances, or the alleged fine-tuning of the cosmos.
But it cannot be merely that it is possible that these things are brought about by an SF that will warrant agnosticism about it—they could possibly be the work of Sobek too. There has to be sufficient evidence in favor of the SF hypothesis over the others to elevate it to the neighborhood of .5.
Do we have that? Here's why I don't think we do. We have many natural (non-supernatural) hypothesis that are either the probable explanation of each one of these phenomena, or we know enough about them to know the vicinity where the natural explanation will be found. None of our substantial efforts to understand these phenomena and others in natural terms have pointed in the direction of a supernatural explanation. Quite the contrary, in every case where we thought there was some supernatural force or cause at work, investigation revealed a natural one. There are no ghosts, no evil demons, no spiritual possessions that cause disease. The alleged miracles that we have investigated have turned out to be the result of human fallibilism, enthusiasm, or deceit. 10,000 supernatural hypotheses have given way to natural explanations.
So the burden on the SF agnostic is to point to evidence that would warrant our not lumping the SF hypothesis in with all the rest of the non-natural forces or beings that have failed. The world, all of it, looks to be a natural place where everything can be accounted for in natural terms. What's left to be agnostic about?
Monday, December 7, 2009
What's Left to be Agnostic About?
43 comments:
- Explicit Atheist said...
Of course, you are correct about this. I would add that the likelihood we would ever ignorantly guess the right answer to any complicated mystery for which we lack any evidence is vanishingly small. What are the odds that someone would ignorantly guess how the sun gives off light and heat without having any evidence of how that happens? Even now that some scientists have acquired a good understanding of that process it would take years of study to acquire the knowledge to understand how that works. It should be obvious that any ignorant guess absent any evidence of how the universe was created is not going to be correct, the odds are astronomical against that happening, something like that has never happened in history. It should be obvious by now that supernaturalism has always been the fallback position of ignorance, that its a symptom and product of our own ignorance paired with our own intellectual limitations and not a concept that carries any weight as a source of non-fictional content.
- December 7, 2009 at 5:03 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
Very nice points Explicit Atheist.
MM - December 7, 2009 at 7:59 PM
- Web Wanderer said...
Thanks for the post. I agree with your basic point. But agnostics aren't the main problem. I'm a lot more concerned about fundamentalist Christians and the problems they cause.
- December 8, 2009 at 4:12 AM
I think that, after a recent discussion with an agnostic, is that some of the people in the agnostic category never held religion in much regard, but through meditation or psychedelic drugs or "something" they feel like there's a force or something bigger than us.
I don't wish to discount meditative spiritual experiences, so I call myself a spiritual atheist. But I point out to the agnostics, Sam Harris often repeats the point that anyone can go into a cave and meditate. It's not a theist-only activity.
As for the "force bigger than us", if it's not telling you what to do or that it gives a darn or that it can do anything about it, it's not worth believing in anyways. - December 8, 2009 at 9:33 PM
I'm often curious about this agnostic thing that atheists have.
I consider myself an agnostic. I can't say that I've ever had a true belief in God although I was raised in a religious family.
I can't call myself an atheist because I can't say for certain how the world was created. I'm comfortable knowing that I have no ability to know how it was created and that no one else knows how it was created either.
I don't attribute it to any specific SF force but I can't say with 100% certainty that it didn't happen that way.
I think the best religious argument is that something cannot come from nothing. But, of course, this God apparently comes from nothing.
How did it happen? I don't know. Can't say. Wouldn't know where to begin. It's all a mystery, and I'm fine with it. I don't need to make a decision about it because it serves no purpose. - December 9, 2009 at 5:32 PM
- Explicit Atheist said...
Its not literally true that "something cannot come from nothing". Pairs of particles briefly come into existence, although they do so under strong time and distance constraints. In effect, "nothing" is an unstable status, it really isn't "nothing", its boiling with these virtual particles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle. I think its reasonable to conclude that this notion of a stable "nothing" as an initial default state is wrong. We have conditions that suggest there is something close to a balance between negative and positive energy as would be expected if the universe originated naturally.
- December 9, 2009 at 6:06 PM
- Explicit Atheist said...
Web Wanderer said...
"Thanks for the post. I agree with your basic point. But agnostics aren't the main problem. I'm a lot more concerned about fundamentalist Christians and the problems they cause."
Although his argument was expressed here in the context of a contrast to agnosticism, the argument is generic and can be expressed without any reference to agnosticism or in the context of a contrast with theism. As such it is a general argument for philosophical naturalism.
I don't share the view that we should restrict or narrow our focus to addressing any one subset of the public and their beliefs. There are number of reasons why that isn't a good strategy. Some atheist have difficulty articulating their atheism. Some agnostics misunderstand and are antagonistic to atheism. We benefit if we reduce that problem. There is almost no audience that would not benefit from better understanding atheism. If we are going to break the circle of popular antipathy towards atheists and the resulting legal establishment of monotheism and discrimination, we have to address every source of that antipathy, promote better understanding among everyone, seek potential allies everywhere. It seems to me to be completely counterproductive to say we should restrict ourselves to some subset of the american public when we compare beliefs or explain and defend our atheism. - December 9, 2009 at 6:24 PM
The whole atheist/agnostic distinction, to me, seems moot.
Construe atheism as "The lack of belief in God" then both atheists and agnostics are in there.
Construe atheism as "The belief that God does not exist" then you just get into a gradient problem.
No rational atheist is absolutely, 100% positive no supernatural being exists, so you get into a percentage problem. At what 'percentage' of certainty is one an atheist or an agnostic? I may be willing to state that at a true 50-50 belief, you would be an 'agnostic' but I don't believe that's a common, if at all possible, occurrence.
I've rarely met an agnostic who believes that there is an equal chance of the Christian god existing or not existing. Often times, it's just they fall upon the "Well, I'm not absolutely sure" card. Well, of course not, very few people are (or rather, should be) 'absolutely sure' about much of anything. How does that render your non-belief in God into something different?
So, how much 'disbelief' do you need to be an atheist, rather than an agnostic? 98%? 95%? 75%? 60%? 51%?
If you're below 50% on the 'disbelief' scale, are still an agnostic, or merely a theist with doubts?
At the end of the day. the answer to the question, for any agnostic, "Do you believe that God exists?" would be 'No.' Just as the answr to Zeus existing, or unicorns and dragons and any other mythical being you wish to name would be. The fact is, possibilities of existence aside, you don't have a belief that those beings exist.
So, then, where is that line between atheist and agnostic? To me, it seems to be (on an anecdotal level) the line between 'Don't want to cause a fuss' and 'Damned if I'll be ashamed of my belief' - December 9, 2009 at 6:54 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
A couple of comments, RA. First, it sounds like you're requiring that we know things with absolute certainty before we can claim to be justified in believing them or claiming that they are true. That's patently false. Consider every medical diagnosis that you or anyone in your family has ever gotten. Consider your justified, true belief that your car is sitting in the driveway where you left it. Put the other way, merely lacking absolute certainty about the origin of the universe doesn't justify someone in declaring agnosticism. Second, I've got no way to address your apathy. If you don't care about the matter, there's not much I can do to get you to acknowledge the importance of it, or see that it really matters what people think.
Explicit Atheist, who's proposing that we limit our focus or our comments to one little subset of the population? Web Wanderer said he's more concerned about fundamentalists. I am too. I've got almost 200 posts to cover the other topics.
Thanks all for your comments.
MM - December 9, 2009 at 6:57 PM
Matt, I think you are absolutely right. And I totally agree with Chris AC.
I think a lot of the disconnect is in one's definition of what an agnostic and an atheist is and one's preconceived notions on the subject.
I define agnostic differently than you do and others have the idea that agnostics are holding out some hope for a God and can't quite give up the idea.
To my way of thinking, an atheist has their mind 100% made up that there is no God or any chance of one. But from what I can tell that is not how many atheists see atheism.
Some of us prefer the term agnostic while others want a more certain label and go for atheist. The reality is that they are one and the same a lot of the time.
From the strict definition, I think my position is agnostic which is what Robert Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell considered themselves. You may define it differently. - December 9, 2009 at 7:10 PM
That last anonymous post was mine.
- December 9, 2009 at 7:11 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
If naturalism has taught us anything it's that no one should ever claim to be 100 certain about anything. And you can certainly have the reasonable belief that no god exists without being dogmatic or without having deductive certainty. You'd be way out of sync with the rest of the philosophical and theological discussion if anyone who lacks 100% certainty is an agnostic.
MM - December 9, 2009 at 8:04 PM
So your definition of my belief would be atheism even though I consider the answer basically unknowable?
I'm not sure that qualifies as "a reasonable belief that no god exists."
It seems to me that what you consider an agnostic to be is actually a Deist which is a term that is no longer used and is now being assigned as agnostic. - December 9, 2009 at 8:23 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
Well, you can't have it both ways. If you don't know, then you don't know. That makes you an agnostic. But thinking that you cannot be absolutely certain about some matter is not grounds to think that you don't know, and it certainly isn't grounds for thinking that the answer is unknowable. We know that smoking causes cancer, but there is an outside chance that we've gotten it wrong. It would be silly because of that to conclude that we don't know that smoking causes cancer, or that it cannot be known in principle.
A problem with the "It's unknowable" position is trying to justify how it is you know so much about what can and cannot be known.
Deism is a form of theism. It's the belief that a particular sort of god exists. That's not relevant to this discussion.
MM - December 9, 2009 at 9:01 PM
- Explicit Atheist said...
RA said..
"To my way of thinking, an atheist has their mind 100% made up that there is no God or any chance of one. But from what I can tell that is not how many atheists see atheism."
That is just wrong. There is no 100% proof, this isn't a tautology or a logical proof, and it would be nuts to think that way. This is about weight of the evidence. Its exactly like Matt McCormick is saying, we reach conclusions based on weight of the evidence and it would misleading if we were to reply "we don't know" when we have sufficient evidence to favor one particular conclusion. That doesn't mean we have proof, that we know for sure what is absolutely and totally factually true about something we don't have and can't claim to have complete knowledge about. It just means that we have a conclusion justified by weight of the evidence. If we the weight of the evidence available to us changes then we change our conclusion accordingly. - December 9, 2009 at 10:32 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
Damn straight, Explicit.
- December 9, 2009 at 10:46 PM
- Explicit Atheist said...
ChrisAC said...
"The whole atheist/agnostic distinction, to me, seems moot.
Construe atheism as "The lack of belief in God" then both atheists and agnostics are in there.
Construe atheism as "The belief that God does not exist" then you just get into a gradient problem.
No rational atheist is absolutely, 100% positive no supernatural being exists, so you get into a percentage problem. At what 'percentage' of certainty is one an atheist or an agnostic? I may be willing to state that at a true 50-50 belief, you would be an 'agnostic' but I don't believe that's a common, if at all possible, occurrence."
Look, its simple. When the weight of the evidence favors one conclusion over another that is when you are no longer undecided or agnostic. We can't put numbers on a tipping point because there is no mathematical equation here. So this distinction is not moot and "The belief that God does not exist" is a perfectly valid position to take as long as we have the evidence to support that conclusion. And we do, we have the evidence. Its basically a combination of a complete lack of evidence for any ongoing interventions by gods, plenty of evidence that everything can be explained by laws of nature, plenty of evidence that gods are god beliefs have fictional origins, and the like. No one has to be certain that it will snow next winter to believe that it will snow next winter in Virginia, we just need weight of the evidence justification. We can all say we don't know if it will snow next winter, and literally we don't know in the sense of being 100% certain, but its more accurate to say we believe it will snow next winter when we justifiably think it will. And we should say what more accurately expresses our view, particularly when our view is justified by weight of the evidence. - December 9, 2009 at 10:46 PM
- Explicit Atheist said...
Richard Carrier does a good job here explaining why naturalism is a better supported and more defensible position than agnosticism and "don't believe anything" atheism http://tabee3i.com/page/interviews/en/Richard-Carrier/index.html
For those who don't have the inclination or time to read his entire interview, I will quote an excerpt here:
"I think the common mistake is to assume that claiming this is equivalent to declaring dogmatic certainty in naturalism. But that's the same fallacy I pointed out above. Saying naturalism is the most probably correct worldview on present evidence (and IMO, it is so by a large margin, no other competitor even comes close, a fact that isn't always obvious to those not well informed of the actual facts) merely means it is more probable than alternatives, not that it is itself decisively or undeniably certain. "More probable" does not mean "100%," or even "80%." It just means more. If the next most probable worldview is 20% probable, naturalism need only be 55% likely to be vastly more credible. I'm just making up numbers. But you see my point. Showing that we have better explanations for each peculiar fact is enough to refute Christianity. We need not assert that those explanations are therefore true, only that of all explanations so far conceived, those are far more likely to be correct than any others. That may change tomorrow as new information comes, showing some other explanation even more credible still. But right now, we ought to believe what the evidence makes most likely. And once you realize that naturalism has a better explanation of everything than Christianity, you'll realize it has a better explanation of everything than any other worldview. Which leads to only one rational conclusion: we all should be naturalists. At least for now. Maybe future evidence will change our minds, but we have to go on what we know now. Leave the future for later." - December 9, 2009 at 11:14 PM
Explicit Atheist -- I'm not sure exactly how you construed my post. From a quick glance at your response you seem to somehow believe I'm attacking atheism, for some very odd reason.
The whole point was that agnostics are atheists, because there isn't some percentage they can point to and say "See, I'm agnostic." That was the whole gradient-problem thing, you can't pick a property that all atheists have and all agnostics don't. Any agnostic which already lacks the belief in God, in a Christian filled society no less, already has a belief state against the existence of a God.
[i]"Look, its simple. When the weight of the evidence favors one conclusion over another that is when you are no longer undecided or agnostic. We can't put numbers on a tipping point because there is no mathematical equation here."[/i]
And I still don't see how you get an agnostic position then.
The whole point is what determines when the evidence is acceptable? You have the same gradient problem. Because, at 49-51% split, the evidence obvious favors atheism. Unless you're claiming every agnostic has an absolutely perfect 50-50 belief state. If you say they don't, then if you believe mere 'evidence favoring' position, then all agnostics seem to be atheists (or theists with doubt, if the stick falls the other way -- I find very few self-proclaimed agnostics have that position)
It seems fairly intuitive, to me, that if you lack the belief in a God existing, despite being surrounded by followers, any claim of 'unsure' seems absurd. Either you're going to be 'leaning' towards one side or the other, and it seems agnostics are going to have a greater weight towards atheism. The gradient problem shows that any distinction between the two becomes blurry.
As such, the central question really should be "Do you have the belief that God exists?" If the answer is 'No' then that person is an 'atheist.' Because "possibly God exists" just doesn't work as an answer, because it applies to *every* rational non-believer, which again leaves us with no distinction. An agnostic seems to me, in seemingly all cases, to be an atheist who wishes to avoid the social stigma with being labeled an atheist -- or simply is ignorant of atheism due to social factors; still I don't believe that changes their ontological status to something other than 'atheist'
Not that they don't have good reason to wish to avoid it, in America, unfortunately. - December 10, 2009 at 12:57 AM
- mikespeir said...
I figure that if I'm sure enough not to adhere to any religion, to not worry about the dire threats supposedly issued by some purported god against doubters, I'm sure enough to call myself an atheist.
- December 10, 2009 at 2:57 AM
- Explicit Atheist said...
"[i]"Look, its simple. When the weight of the evidence favors one conclusion over another that is when you are no longer undecided or agnostic. We can't put numbers on a tipping point because there is no mathematical equation here."[/i]
And I still don't see how you get an agnostic position then."
I think we are arguing over different usages of the word agnosticism. Agnosticism as "we don't completely know and therefore we have insufficient basis for favoring one over the other" is the agnosticism that I am arguing does not qualify as atheism. Agnosticism as "we don't have complete knowledge" is not disputable, and its intrinsic to any "weight of the evidence" approach. In that sense, we should all be agnostics, even theists SHOULD be agnostics. For me, at the risk of nitpicking, someone who refuses to favor one view over the other on this question, for whatever reasons, is a "nontheist" while someone who favors no gods over any gods, for whatever reasons, is an atheist. I can certainly agree to other terminology like implicit versus explicit atheist, non-affirmative versus affirmative atheist, passive versus assertive atheist, and the like, but I think nontheist is actually more accurate for the former. - December 10, 2009 at 7:24 AM
Interesting viewpoints. We've all got our own version which is what I suspected.
- December 10, 2009 at 7:40 AM
- Explicit Atheist said...
Correction: Agnosticism defined as "we have insufficient basis for favoring one over the other", regardless of the reason for reaching that conclusion, is the agnosticism that I am arguing does not qualify as atheism. I can agree with "don't believe in god" as qualifying as atheism provided we exclude the aforementioned agnosticism. However, I don't think there should be any objection or problem with the "belief that there is no god" definition. I think its unfortunate that some people object to that. The people who seem to object to "belief that there is no god" most strongly are "no beliefs" people who call themselves atheists and I consider "no beliefs" to be wrong, even silly.
The proper remedy for addressing the "gradient problem" is to adopt clearer definitions, not more murky definitions. By adopting the latter approach you are importing that problem into the definition of atheism and I don't see how importing the problem into the definition of atheism remedies the murkiness problem. I much prefer remedying the problem by using a different word for people who prefer no belief: Nontheism. - December 10, 2009 at 7:47 AM
- Matt McCormick said...
Hi folks. Thanks for the really interesting discussion. A couple of ideas. We do have a formula and a way to do the math on this: Probability theory and Bayes theorem. In general, the probability that some claim is true can be assigned a value for an agent between 0 and 1 where 0 is certainly false and 1 is certainly true. .5 is the tipping point. I don't really favor ChrisAC's account of agnosticism. It's like Flew's negative atheism--anyone who lacks a belief in God is a negative atheist. That would include agnostics in the classical sense. A positive atheist, on Flew's account, is someone who has the belief that there is no God. I'm fine with calling those people who are not sure and who neither belief nor disbelieve that God exists agnostics. I am just challenging some of the grounds for adopting agnosticism that are typically presented. I think a lot of self-identified agnostics are actually God believer wannabes, or closet theists. But they will rarely admit that to me when I press.
So we could say that people who carefully consider the available evidence and who judge that the probability that God is real falls, say, close to .5 are agnostics. As they see it, there's neither sufficient evidence to justify atheism nor theism. That might be just because the evidence isn't compelling, or it might be, they think, because such things "cannot be known in principle." I think this latter position is bullshit too, but I haven't really elaborated on why here yet. Thanks again.
MM - December 10, 2009 at 9:22 AM
- Explicit Atheist said...
There is an issue of how much weight to place on the fact that we don't, and can't, know everything absolutely. For some agnostics this limitation carries a lot of weight. For me, it is an unrealistic and unbalanced insistence on perfectionism to demand that we can't justify our beliefs unless we are completely certain that the beliefs are completely factually correct. Of course, weight of the evidence provides no guarantee that we are absolutely, totally correct in some unmeasurable, and therefore impractical sense. But its foolish, in my mind, to take that all or nothing approach when there is lots of space in between those two extremes and as a practical matter, we necessarily live in that middle space. To me imperfection here is good enough, if only because imperfection is unavoidable, and I think agnostics are fooling themselves if they think are doing better by ignoring weight of the evidence simply on the grounds that it can't be a-priori guaranteed to achieve perfectly correct results.
- December 10, 2009 at 11:07 AM
- Matt McCormick said...
Well put, EA. There's an asymmetry in the (faux) agnostic's invoking "we cannot know everything" to justify agnosticism about God when he or she would rarely if ever let that worry keep them from believing other things. It's trivial and uninteresting that we cannot know everything, but the agnostic/wannabe believer puts a disproportionate amount of weight on that concerning God and shies away from the obvious (atheism). But the same consideration doesn't lead them to refrain in other comparable cases. In a lot of cases, "We cannot know everything," and "We cannot have absolute certainty," are, I suspect flimsy, ad hoc rationalizations that conceal a longing to believe in God.
- December 10, 2009 at 11:20 AM
I think that, after a recent discussion with an agnostic, is that some of the people in the agnostic category never held religion in much regard, but through meditation or psychedelic drugs or "something" they feel like there's a force or something bigger than us.
Sure, i could name four forces bigger than us. Gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force. It seems a serious mistake though to presume that a force would constitute a person with consciousness, with ideas about how you should live your life.
I had dinner with an agnostic once. He stated that he didn't believe in any of the gods or religions currently on offer, but the Universe is a big place so he insisted on keeping his options open. He even refused to define what would qualify as a god. Since he refused to offer a definition of "godness," I attempted to flesh it out with concrete examples. "How about this pepper shaker here on the table, could this qualify as 'god'?" He said no. I pointed out that if he couldn't offer a definition of this property of 'godness', it was improper to state whether any person or object possessed it. That is not respectable rational discussion. I refer to this episode as "the terrible parable of the pepper shaker." - December 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
Hi Reginald. Good to hear from you.
Agnostics covet the insight, that they think is profound and uniquely theirs, that there could be something out there that we don't know about or understand. Of course, that's a trivial and uninteresting notion. Of course there are things out there that we haven't thought of yet that we will discover. Does that justify agnosticism about the gods that human religions have been presenting to us for centuries? The one they claim to know so well? Of course not. We should think of it this way--if some powerful, knowing, and apparently good being showed up tomorrow, is there anything it could say, any excuse it could offer that would lead us to think that yes, there was an omnipotent, omniscient, and all good being that existed all along. He just kept us in the dark, refused to exercise those powers, and let countless instances of suffering that a good being would have prevented slide by. If there were a God, he would have been here all along. So whoever shows up tomorrow isn't God.
MM - December 12, 2009 at 8:31 PM
The existential remains existential. There is no existence coming out of nonexistence, and existence cannot go into nonexistence. You can ask the physicists. They have not yet been able to destroy a single atom. You cannot destroy anything – and you cannot create anything either. You cannot destroy a grain of sand. Science has progressed so far, so much, but we are incapable of creating a single grain of sand or of destroying a single grain of sand. You can grind it, you can change the form, but it will remain in another form. Only the form changes; life goes on.
- December 14, 2009 at 11:54 AM
- Alexander said...
There's been quite a bit of slapping around of agnosticism here, so let me see if I can't motivate their position a little bit. I'll try and come at it from two different approaches, so bear with me.
First approach:
In general, there are three types of arguments for and against the existence of God: Inductive, Deductive, and Observational. I want to focus on Inductive arguments here, as they represent the lion's share of arguments for or against the existence of God, such as the Cosmological Arg, the Teleological Arg, the Problem of Evil etc. Now the heart of all inductive claims is probability. Based upon past experience, One can make an inference as to what will happen in the future. Touching a hot stove hurt before, so it'll probably hurt if I do it again. I've got a bacon sandwich, and bacon sandwiches have been delicious in the past, so this sandwich is probably delicious. So these famous arguments are broken down as follows (roughly):
There is a Universe, and there's usually a reason for things existing, so there is probably a creator.
The Universe seems to be designed, and designed things typically have a designer, so there is probably a designer.
There is Evil in the World, and good things generally try to minimize evil, so there probably isn't a God.
Now, consider this:
Imagine you're a 10 year old girl. Its a warm August day and you really want a new doll. So you convince your parents to let you set up a lemonade stand in front of your house. You pick some lemons from the tree in your back yard and you and your mom squeeze them together and make a few pitchers of lemonade. Your dad sets up a card table in the front and you make a sign saying "Lemonade 25¢" As the day goes on, business if fairly brisk, and finally you have enough to buy your doll. Just as you're about to pack up, The President of the United States comes along and says to you, "Well missy you've done a terrific job of running this lemonade stand. In fact, you've done such a great job, that I have an offer to make. You see missy, the country is in a bit of a financial bind at the moment. There's a lot of concern on how the the economy has been doing as of late and we are in need of fresh leadership. So how would you like to be the Chairman of the Federal Reserve? You've clearly mastered selling lemonade, so you must be categorically qualified to run the Fed. Really, running a Lemonade stand is just like running the Economy of America."
There's a disconnect here. We've got stoves and sandwiches and the like down, and we've got a pretty good idea of how this particular instantiation of this particular Universe first started, but past that? There probably is or isn't a God? Based on what evidence? What sort of experience do you have that could possibly be even remotely analogous to not just the Big Bang, but whether or not something governed *That*? How many creations of universes have you seen recently? Because if you're anything like me, and given past evidence you probably are, no a hell of a lot.
Pardon me, but where are your base-rates? - December 30, 2009 at 2:03 AM
- Alexander said...
Second Approach:
If any kind of gods exist, then they will be one of two things: A Supernatural being, or a natural being, something inside our universe, but with knowledge and power beyond our comprehension.
Suppose a god is a supernatural being, how then do we confirm or deny it's existence? We have eyes, but our eyes see only natural things. Ears, but they hear only the natural. Brains, but they can only contemplate natural things. All the tools we have to confirm or deny assertions are natural, and thus limited to natural things. There's a bridging problem here: we have no means of verifying something that is ontologically distinct. Its a mind/body problem that's been around since Descartes and it's still a bit of a bitch. So are there any Supernatural beings out there? We have no way of knowing.
Suppose a god is a natural being with powers beyond comprehension, and they supposedly are or have in the past influenced the world. We can look around and find no credible evidence of any meddling. However, we have already established that we wouldn't understand how they would have influenced the world in the first place. Our lack of credible evidence would be fully justified. So how then would we verify their presence? Again, we lack the means.
Just a thought. - December 30, 2009 at 2:04 AM
- Matt McCormick said...
Thanks Alex. If it's a natural being, then it doesn't earn the name of God. Gotta be bigger than physics to warrant the title, be worthy of worship, be able to do miracles, be omnipotent, etc.
As for supernatural things: sure our eyes don't see those, but we've got lots of experience trying to determine the existence of those through reason, a priori proofs, as hypotheses to explain natural phenomena that remain unexplainable, and so on. And all of those efforts give us some substantial reasons to think that NO supernatural beings exist at all. Point to a single instance of an actual supernatural being that we think actually exists? We have enough evidence and failed attempts now to say that the very possibility of supernatural things is highly suspect. Even the so called agnostic has to find some grounds to move the hypothesis into suspension of judgment range, or else we have to treat it the same as all the ghosts, demons, gnomes, fairies, magic, and other bullshit that is on the trash heap of bad ideas.
MM - December 30, 2009 at 2:17 PM
- Matt McCormick said...
The first premise in that designer argument is bogus, and you know it, Alex. The existence of a designer for the universe doesn't follow from the fact that things usually have a cause. Use your head, man. I taught you better than that. A fallacious argument with a false premise certainly doesn't give us enough evidence to elevate the base rate of the hypothesis into the suspension of judgment range. Geez.
MM - December 30, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Hi, Wilmot Sweeney here,
There may be other realms I don't know about, creatures with power
I can't fathom, an old man in the sky with power----but I've never seen such things nor am I concerned with them. I do however
see it as obvious that everything is----that existence is a basic
concept, a basic fact. And also that the world comes into being and goes out, changes, moment to moment. And the fact that people die. Well, the mind goes and the
body goes---and personal identity goes--just a temporary existence
that winks out. But I don't see that the sense of a personal self
cancels the fact that each of us is an integral part of what is--of
the universe---and so our identities are ultimately not limited to a personal level--but
we share being with all the rest of the forms of existence---and so are in some sense the whole thing. From a scientific point of view our substance is star dust----the basic building blocks of manifested existence. When it all ends, as science tells us it will,
due to entropy---still, existence will be--and so in some sense we all will be. Being never goes out of style. This just seems to me patently obvious.
I am definitely not an atheist---
nor an agnostic nor a theist---none of that matters to me, not an issue at all--unless anyone of those belief systems gains enough power to attempt imposing upon me its dogma, with penalties for refusal---then, I am prepared to say go to hell-- and to fight like hell. - January 1, 2010 at 12:23 AM
I just think that the whole issue and concern about God existing or not is irrelevant---it's an anachromism.
Make certain assumptions--like you do MM, for instance that you
know what the probability is that God does or does not exist---and what that must bring you to conclude---and you can conclude as you are inclined.
But wake up at least to your own assumptions---premises.
Go ahead believe as you wish, no problem, but really, within the realm of the scientific viewpoint--and if you want to stay contemporary with modern thought--the God thing is a non-issue. Why not discuss how many angels on the head of a pin? - January 1, 2010 at 12:38 AM
I'll copy and paste my response to this from another message board:
First, it assumes all agnostics are atheists (some are theists)
Second it assumes all agnostics are weak atheists (some are strong atheists).
Third, it uses an argument from probability fallaciously. Making no attempt to assign probabilistic values to things which have no empirical basis for such. IE "It is highly probable all that exists is the natural world because we have only found natural stuff".
It makes the assumption that any statement made a posteriori or from experience, is made from scientifically verifiable experience. - January 30, 2010 at 8:31 AM
- Matt McCormick said...
Thanks anonymous. These objections aren't really explained so I don't understand them and can't say whether they are relevant to the argument or not. As for applying probability judgments, read up on Bayesian probability theory. We can and do attach a probability of truth to all sorts of claims including metaphysical and conceptual ones. But we can state the point just fine without any explicit mention of probabilities--given that every single magical, spiritual, supernatural, and religious being that has ever been proposed has turned out to have a better naturalistic explanation, what reasons do we have left to even be agnostic about God?
MM - January 30, 2010 at 12:26 PM
Interesting comments. Still, I'm left wondering about the central question of the title of this blog: how can one prove the negative? It seems that whenever an atheist is challenged regarding this point, he or she lowers the expectation, and states the criteria for discussion as "reasonable conclusion based on probability and logic, not proof." How can one who claims to follow scientific theory essentially pick-and-choose what ideas should be accepted based on proof and based on theory? For instance, consider the theory of evolution; the idea has volumes of evidence to support it, but we still hesitate to call it fact because such designation runs counter to the tenants of scientific logic. The structure of DNA, on the other hand, can be scientifically determined and proven. Now consider the aforementioned specious examples of medical diagnosis; a doctor makes a reasonable judgment based on the symptoms but, unless proven by a test, his or her diagnosis is still simply a hypothesis. In this sense, atheism requires us to take, on faith, the principle that God does not exist - thus undermining the central concept of the rhetoric based philosophy of proof. One cannot believe only in proof, and yet take things on faith.
- July 8, 2010 at 6:58 AM
- Matt McCormick said...
Thanks for your input, John. I've written about this issue extensively. For starters, look at the essays linked in the upper left corner of the blog: The Basics: What is Atheism? and Influential Arguments for Atheism.
A great many deductive disproofs for the existence of God have been offered. And many inductive disproofs as well. I don't suspect you will find them convincing, but your question is, how can you prove the negative? The answer is, several ways, over and over and over again.
But I'd also offer that as I see it, what typically happens is that the atheist is artificially saddled with an inordinately high standard of proof that virtually no claims can meet, including lots of clams that we take to be proven and known, and then when the atheist (purportedly) cannot meet this unachievable standard, the critic proudly announces that atheism is not justified. Meanwhile the critic and everyone else take countless other obvious claims to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt even though they cannot meet that burden too. That may be why it seems like the atheist responds by trying to lower the bar.
MM - July 8, 2010 at 4:14 PM
- Jay said...
"But it cannot be merely that it is possible that these things are brought about by an SF that will warrant agnosticism about it—they could possibly be the work of Sobek too"
This sentence seems weak to me. You've already established disbelief in an OG, so the second part of this sentence offers no support to the first. It's actually the presence of unexplained phenomenon, along with the inability to explain sources of the universe's existence, that warrant enough reason for many to feel agnostic.
And on the matter of a "supernatural force", I don't agree with atheists using the word "supernatural" in their arguments against something that could actually exist. I have a hard time understanding the concept of something that could exist being supernatural, since it can not be perceived and breaks the laws of nature. Rather, something that is supernatural either does not exist or simply has not been discovered. I am certain a pistol would have been perceived as supernatural to ancient civilizations, yet it is not.
The idea that science has not successfully presented a source of the universe's creation that is any more believable than a "supernatural" source is not an old one. An example would be Thomas Paine's questioning of perpetual motion. Even if the primordial elements somehow "always existed", somehow lacking origin, what set them in to motion? How is the universe moving when nothing pushed it? Do you ever see matter get up and move without a stimuli? And back to my former point, the claim that the universe was made by a supernatural source is less of a claim that some magic man wiggled his nose and planets appeared, and more an asertion that with the limited knowledge we have of the event, the cause is likely something scientists have yet to consider likely or even possible.
Oh, and saying you can prove a negative makes your line of reasoning look weaker to me, after everything I had read up to that point seemed very well thought out and explained. That would require more explaining, and it's likely that I still wouldn't agree with you. Logic seems to dictate that you can't prove there is no Santa, but I like your explanation that you can put him at .001 on your belief scale. - April 10, 2011 at 4:22 AM
- Nick Huber said...
I think that your basic premise that most agnostics have dismissed the possibility of an anthropomorphized "God," to be a false generalization set up to make your attack easier. This is known in philosophy circles as a straw man fallacy. I think the truer statement is that most agnostics have chosen to reserve judgment on the subject of a higher power until they have found more evidence on the subject.
- April 10, 2011 at 1:35 PM
- Unknown said...
Accepting only the atheists No God exists and the theists A God exists is an incorrect limitation of logical possibilities.
Let's take this example: X is a man or X is a woman.
This is obviously true because we have only two genders. However if we have a reasonable doubt about the gender of X the question should be approached in this way: Can X be man? Can X be woman?
In our case: Can God exist? Can god not exist?
X could be male or female, but we do not know because of the insufficient data we have. What we know does not yet define the gender of X.
This third position of doubt and uncertainty is the essence of agnosticism, not knowing whether God exists or not.
Turning now to epistemology, we would say that the existence of a creator or intelligent designer of the material, physical, world, us humans included (the cosmos theory) is a possibility as valid as accepting that the material world is merely a physical random happening, without creator or designer (the chaos theory). Both possibilities, cosmos or chaos, are valid.
Since we have no certainty about the existence of rational creation (cosmos) all religions, whether natural or revealed, are unacceptable to the agnostic. Should God or the creators exist, either in their own interest or ours, they have chosen not to reveal their plans or designs for humanity. For the agnostic religion, any religion, is nonsense.
However for the agnostic a creationist theory (cosmos) is a possibility but not a certainty, just as materialism or physicalism is a possibility, but not a certainty.
In short, I would say that for the agnostic the ultimate meaning of the universe (be it a cosmos or chaos) is a mystery.
One day, when sufficient evidence exists, the agnostic will admit the ultimate truth of either a cosmos or a chaos.
Meanwhile, there remains the deep mystery of existence.
This position of uncertainty, of accepting the absolute mystery of our existence and the world around us, seems to me the best reason for being an agnostic.
Agnosticus - May 14, 2012 at 4:33 PM
- visitor here said...
If you're asking what 40‒60% convincing evidence, what halfway persuasive argument, there might be that could justify a nonreligious preference for agnosticism over atheism, please look at the lucid continued fraction representations of π, a few paragraphs after the following anchorlink:
Pi and e and φ are among several so-called "irrational" real numbers that, when viewed in such a lucid representation, suggest a higher rationality. The system of mathematics that includes them seems to have been designed by something mindlike, yet more fluent than my mortal mind is in the interweaving of infinities. My argument is that patterns in these numeric representations could indicate the deliberate designs of a mindlike mathmaker. If impressions of design in these numbers are correct, therefore, they could lead us to accept the involvement of a designer in creating math, but this kind of argument faces at least two inherent challenges.
First, arguments for the existence of a divine designer from the appearance of design in nature have generally not fared well. The illusion of design in the forms and fitness of living creatures is rightly explained away by the evidence for unguided evolution. The illusion of design in the finely tuned habitability of our cosmos can likewise be explained away by the anthropic principle. The illusion of divinity in the manifest presence of something instead of nothing is likely explainable by the quantum-mechanical instability of utter nothingness. What are the odds that the appearance of deliberate design in math will buck this trend, never being explained away as illusory? Even if I beat those odds and prove math was deliberate, wouldn't evolution, the anthropic principle and quantum instability still mean that life, the universe and everything but math were accidental?
Second, how could anything mindlike have emerged in math's absence, and how could it have put its design for math into effect?
These are strong challenges, but the impressions of design in the braided infinity patterns found in lucid continued fractions are also very strong, and I never been exposed to any plausible explanation for those patterns other than deliberate design. The frequently offered suggestion that math, including irrational real numbers, might be a mere artifact of human perception, "all in our heads," is neither plausible nor serious, as it contradicts the evidence for our heads having biologically evolved in a world where physics, chemistry and biology already followed mathematical rules long before humans arrived on the scene. (Quantum instability and the power of the anthropic principle to select among proliferating universes also presuppose the polycosmic reality of math at stages when human perception did not yet exist.) Besides, frankly, much of math is +over+ my head, rather than +in+ it.
So I offer this argument from the appearance of design in math as a reason to remain open to the thought that something mindlike played a role in determining some aspect of polycosmic reality, but conceding in advance that my argument, while impressionistically inescapable since the braided infinity patterns in some real numbers cannot be denied, is just not fully persuasive. That, for me, approaches the 40‒60% level of confidence in deliberate polycosmic design required to justify a nonreligious preference for agnosticism over atheism.
Your confidence level may differ, such that you might prefer to self-identify as an atheist, or as a secular deist or maybe a Taoist or Spinozan pantheist or panentheist, instead of an agnostic. If so, while my argument is nowhere near strong enough to make the atheist position unreasonable, it may be strong enough to convince you that the other positions along the secular spectrum are somewhat reasonable too. - September 24, 2014 at 6:18 AM

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Halloween Legends That Are Actually True (Sort Of)
Especially around Halloween, most of us enjoy a good old-fashioned "it happened to a friend of a friend" urban legend that gives us a bit of a fright. Some of these tales may have even really happened. Well, kind of.
Most of the time, the legends aren't true and have no foundation in truth whatsoever. They're just really good stories that are fun to tell when you want to get a little spooked. There was a Headless Horseman, but he never killed a skinny schoolteacher walking through the woods. There was a Bloody Mary, but she's not forever trapped in your mirrors waiting for you to spin around with a candle and let her out. But every once in a while, a Halloween legend grows out of real and very frightening incidents, and it becomes part of our collective history. These are a few of them:
Poisoned Halloween Candy
Every year, parents are frightened into over-protectiveness by stories of evil strangers poisoning Halloween candy or hiding razor blades in tasty snacks. Statistically, this is something that is very unlikely to happen, although the legend has been passed down for decades. But there is some truth in the history of these tales. In 1974, a man did hand out five poisoned Pixy Stix. He was attempting to kill his own son for insurance money and gave out four other poisoned treats to random children to hide his crime. Sadly, his son did die that Halloween night, but the father's plot was quickly uncovered and none of the other children were hurt.
Real Haunted-Attraction Dead Body
Haunted houses are a staple of Halloween celebrations, as is the story of the kids who went on a haunted ride at a carnival, touched one of the props on the ride, and when a piece broke off, it turned out to actually be a dead body. Sounds disgusting and impossible, but it actually has happened. In the early 1900s, the embalmed body of criminal Elmer McCurdy was displayed by a mortician to show off his skilled workmanship. The body was later recovered by McCurdy's "family," who turned out to be owners of a carnival. They stole the body to display at the show. The corpse had been passed around to different carnivals until the 1970s, when a television crew, setting a scene at a carnival for the show 'The Six Million Dollar Man,' accidentally bumped the prop body, broke off its arm and discovered this was no fake.
The Body in the Bed
If you're traveling on or around Halloween, you might hear the story of the couple who stayed in a hotel room with an overwhelming stench. Hotel staff, thinking the couple is overstating the problem, investigate and find a dead body rotting inside the mattress or box spring of the bed. This is the stuff of movies ... and also the stuff of reality. This has happened a number of times around the country—in Kansas City in 2003; in Atlantic City in 1999; and in Pasadena in 1996, to name just a few.
Death on Lovers' Lane
By the time many of us were old enough to have our own "parking" sessions on secluded roads, we had heard the story of the teenage couple who were at the local lovers' lane kissing when they heard an announcement on the radio about an escaped mental patient or convict in the area. The girl wants to leave, but the boy says they're fine, nothing to worry about. There's a scratching on side of the car, the boy gets out to investigate, and he doesn't return. The girl hears the scratching again and decides to check for herself, only to find her boyfriend murdered and hanging above the car and making the scratching noise with his feet on the roof. (This is also a variation on the Hook Man story.)
Buried Alive
Halloween is the perfect time to walk through a graveyard and tell the tale of the man who died and was buried, only to wake up in his coffin, not at all dead, and then really die of suffocation and fright as he tried to claw himself out. His widow, haunted by his calls from the grave, has him dug up, sees the desperate scratches and his scraped up fingers and realizes what has happened. This story can be good and spooky because it's also far too real. There's the little Brazilian boy who woke up at his own funeral; the Yemeni man who woke up in his grave and yelled at his family for trying to bury him alive; and the Venezuelan man who, in 2007, woke up in the middle of his own autopsy. When death is the final assessment, a second opinion might be a good idea.


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Pre-qualification starts the loan process. Once a lender has gathered information about a borrower's income and debts, a determination can be made as to how much the borrower can pay for a house. Since different loan programs can cause different valuations a borrower should get pre-qualified for each loan type the borrower may qualify for.
In attempting to approve homebuyers for the type and amount of mortgage they want, mortgage companies look at two key factors. First, the borrower's ability to repay the loan and, second, the borrower's willingness to repay the loan.
Ability to repay the mortgage is verified by your current employment and total income. Generally speaking, mortgage companies prefer for you to have been employed at the same place for at least two years, or at least be in the same line of work for a few years.
The borrower's willingness to repay is determined by examining how the property will be used. For instance, will you be living there or just renting it out? Willingness is also closely related to how you have fulfilled previous financial commitments, thus the emphasis on the Credit Report and/or your rental payment history.
It is important to remember that there are no rules carved in stone. Each applicant is handled on a case-by-case basis. So even if you come up a little short in one area, your stronger point could make up for the weak one. Mortgage companies could not stay in business if they did not generate loan business, so it is in everyone's best interest to see that you qualify.
Mortgage Programs and Rates
To properly analyze a mortgage program, the borrower needs to think about how long he plans to keep the loan. If you plan to sell the house in a few years, an adjustable or balloon loan may make more sense. If you plan to keep the house for a longer period, a fixed loan may be more suitable.
With so many programs from which to choose, each with different rates, points and fees, shopping for a loan can be time consuming and frustrating. An experienced mortgage professional can evaluate a borrower's situation and recommend the most suitable mortgage program, thus allowing the borrower to make an informed decision.
The Application
The application is the next step of the loan process. With the aid of a mortgage professional, the borrower completes the application and provides all Requested Documentation.
A loan application is not considered complete until you have given us at least the following information: (1) Your name, (2) Your income, (3) Your Social Security number (and authorization to check your credit), (4) The address of the home you plan to purchase or refinance, (5) An estimate of the home's value and (6) The loan amount you want to borrow.
The Loan Estimate
A Loan Estimate is a three-page form that you receive after applying for a mortgage. The Loan Estimate tells you important details about the loan you have requested. We will deliver this to you with in 3 days of your fully completed loan application. The Loan Estimate provides you with important information, including the estimated interest rate, monthly payment, and total closing costs for the loan. The Loan Estimate also gives you information about the estimated costs of taxes and insurance, and how the interest rate and payments may change in the future. In addition, the Loan Estimate will also indicate if the loan has special features that you will want to be aware of, like penalties for paying off the loan early (a prepayment penalty) or increases to the mortgage loan balance even if payments are made on time (negative amortization). The form uses clear language and is designed to help you better understand the terms of the mortgage loan you've applied for. All lenders are required to use the same standard Loan Estimate form. This makes it easier for you to compare mortgage loans so that you can choose the one that is right for you. When you receive a Loan Estimate it does not mean that your loan has been approved or denied. The Loan Estimate shows you what loan terms we can offer you if you decide to move forward.
The Intent to Proceed
After you receive your Loan Estimate, it is up to you to decide whether to move forward with us or not. If you decide not to proceed with an application for a particular loan, you don't need to do anything further. If you do intend to proceed with us, you must take the next step and tell us in writing or by phone that you want to move forward with the application for that loan. All lenders are required to honor the terms of the Loan Estimate for 10 business days. So if you decide to move forward more than 10 business days after you receive a Loan Estimate, please realize that market conditions may make it necessary to revise the terms and estimated costs and provide you with a revised Loan Estimate.
Once the application has been submitted, the processing of the mortgage begins. The Processor orders the Credit Report, Appraisal and Title Report. The information on the application, such as bank deposits and payment histories, are then verified. Any credit derogatories, such as late payments, collections and/or judgments require a written explanation. The processor examines the Appraisal and Title Report checking for property issues that may require further investigation. The entire mortgage package is then put together for submission to the lender.
Required Documents
Once you have completed the loan application, accepted the loan estimate and indicated your intent to proceed we will request documents from you in order to obtain your loan approval. The following statements are not a complete list of what will be needed but are intended to give you some idea of what we will need from you. Once you get to this stage of the loan process, we will give you a specific set of documents that we will need for your particular loan. If you are purchasing or refinancing your home, and you are salaried, you will need to provide the past two-years W-2s and one month of pay-stubs: OR, if you are self-employed you will need to provide the past two-years tax returns. If you own rental property you will need to provide Rental Agreements and the past two-years' tax returns. If you wish to speed up the approval process, you should also provide the past three months' bank, stock and mutual fund account statements. Provide the most recent copies of any stock brokerage or IRA/401k accounts that you might have.
If you are requesting cash-out, you will need a "Use of Proceeds" letter of explanation. Provide a copy of the divorce decree if applicable. If you are not a US citizen, provide a copy of your green card (front and back), or if you are NOT a permanent resident provide your H-1 or L-1 visa.
If you are applying for a Home Equity Loan you will need, in addition to the above documents, to provide a copy of your first mortgage note and deed of trust. These items will normally be found in your mortgage closing documents.
Credit Reports
Most people applying for a home mortgage need not worry about the effects of their credit history during the mortgage process. However, you can be better prepared if you get a copy of your Credit Report before you apply for your mortgage. That way, you can take steps to correct any negatives before making your application.
A Credit Profile refers to a consumer credit file, which is made up of various consumer credit reporting agencies. It is a picture of how you paid back the companies you have borrowed money from, or how you have met other financial obligations. There are five categories of information on a credit profile:
NOT included on your credit profile is race, religion, health, driving record, criminal record, political preference, or income.
If you have had credit problems, be prepared to discuss them honestly with a mortgage professional who will assist you in writing your "Letter of Explanation." Knowledgeable mortgage professionals know there can be legitimate reasons for credit problems, such as unemployment, illness, or other financial difficulties. If you had problems that have been corrected (reestablishment of credit), and your payments have been on time for a year or more, your credit may be considered satisfactory.
The mortgage industry tends to create its own language, and credit rating is no different. BC mortgage lending gets its name from the grading of one's credit based on such things as payment history, amount of debt payments, bankruptcies, equity position, credit scores, etc. Credit scoring is a statistical method of assessing the credit risk of a mortgage application. The score looks at the following items: past delinquencies, derogatory payment behavior, current debt levels, length of credit history, types of credit and number of inquires.
By now, most people have heard of credit scoring. The most common score (now the most common terminology for credit scoring) is called the FICO score. This score was developed by Fair, Isaac & Company, Inc. for the three main credit Bureaus; Equifax (Beacon), Experian (formerly TRW), and Empirica (TransUnion).
FICO scores are simply repository scores meaning they ONLY consider the information contained in a person's credit file. They DO NOT consider a person's income, savings or down payment amount. Credit scores are based on five factors: 35% of the score is based on payment history, 30% on the amount owed, 15% on how long you have had credit, 10% percent on new credit being sought, and 10% on the types of credit you have. The scores are useful in directing applications to specific loan programs and to set levels of underwriting such as Streamline, Traditional or Second Review. However, they are not the final word regarding the type of program you will qualify for or your interest rate.
Many people in the mortgage business are skeptical about the accuracy of FICO scores. Scoring has only been an integral part of the mortgage process for the past few years (since 1999); however, the FICO scores have been used since the late 1950's by retail merchants, credit card companies, insurance companies and banks for consumer lending. The data from large scoring projects, such as large mortgage portfolios, demonstrate their predictive quality and that the scores do work.
The following items are some of the ways that you can improve your credit score:
A borrower with a score of 680 and above is considered an A+ borrower. A loan with this score will be put through an "automated basic computerized underwriting" system and be completed within minutes. Borrowers in this category qualify for the lowest interest rates and their loan can close in a couple of days.
A score below 680 but above 620 may indicate underwriters will take a closer look in determining potential risk. Supplemental documentation may be required before final approval. Borrowers with this credit score may still obtain "A" pricing, but the loan may take several days longer to close.
Borrowers with credit scores below 620 are not normally locked into the best rate and terms offered. This loan type usually goes to "sub-prime" lenders. The loan terms and conditions are less attractive with these loan types and more time is needed to find the borrower the best rates.
All things being equal, when you have derogatory credit, all of the other aspects of the loan need to be in order. Equity, stability, income, documentation, assets, etc. play a larger role in the approval decision. Various combinations are allowed when determining your grade, but the worst-case scenario will push your grade to a lower credit grade. Late mortgage payments and Bankruptcies/Foreclosures are the most important. Credit patterns, such as a high number of recent inquiries or more than a few outstanding loans, may signal a problem. Since an indication of a "willingness to pay" is important, several late payments in the same time period is better than random lates.
Appraisal Basics
An appraisal of real estate is the valuation of the rights of ownership. The appraiser must define the rights to be appraised. The appraiser does not create value, the appraiser interprets the market to arrive at a value estimate. As the appraiser compiles data pertinent to a report, consideration must be given to the site and amenities as well as the physical condition of the property. Considerable research and collection of data must be completed prior to the appraiser arriving at a final opinion of value.
Using three common approaches, which are all derived from the market, derives the opinion, or estimate of value. The first approach to value is the COST APPROACH. This method derives what it would cost to replace the existing improvements as of the date of the appraisal, less any physical deterioration, functional obsolescence, and economic obsolescence. The second method is the COMPARISON APPROACH, which uses other "bench mark" properties (comps) of similar size, quality and location that have recently sold to determine value. The INCOME APPROACH is used in the appraisal of rental properties and has little use in the valuation of single family dwellings. This approach provides an objective estimate of what a prudent investor would pay based on the net income the property produces.
Once the processor has put together a complete package with all verifications and documentation, the file is sent to the lender. The underwriter is responsible for determining whether the package is deemed an acceptable loan. If more information is needed, the loan is put into "suspense" and the borrower is contacted to supply more information and/or documentation. If the loan is acceptable as submitted, the loan is put into an "approved" status.
Closing Disclosure
The Closing Disclosure is a five-page form that provides final details about the mortgage loan you have selected. It includes the loan terms, your projected monthly payments, and how much you will pay in fees and other costs to get your mortgage (closing costs).
We are required by law to give you the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before you close on your mortgage loan. This three-day window allows you time to compare your final terms and costs to those estimated in the Loan Estimate that you previously received from us. The three days also gives you time to ask us any questions before you go to the closing table.
Once the loan is approved, the file is transferred to the closing and funding department. The funding department notifies the broker and closing attorney of the approval and verifies broker and closing fees. The closing attorney then schedules a time for the borrower to sign the loan documentation.
At the closing the borrower should:
After the documents are signed, the closing attorney returns the documents to the lender who examines them and, if everything is in order, arranges for the funding of the loan. Once the loan has funded, the closing attorney arranges for the mortgage note and deed of trust to be recorded at the county recorders office.
A typical "A" mortgage transaction takes between 14-21 business days to complete. With new automated underwriting, this process speeds up greatly. Contact one of our experienced Loan Officers today to discuss your particular mortgage needs or Apply Online and a Loan Officer will promptly get back to you.


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March 17, 2014
Company news
Bombardier to Hold Investor Day
Bombardier will hold an Investor Day in New York City on Thursday, March 20, 2014 for investors and financial analysts. The presentations will start at 8:00 and end at 16:45.
For all media, shareholders and other stakeholders, the event will be broadcast live on the internet via the following address: www.ir.bombardier.com.
A recording of the webcast will also be available at the same address by end of day, the next day.
About Bombardier
Bombardier is the world's only manufacturer of both planes and trains. Looking far ahead while delivering today, Bombardier is evolving mobility worldwide by answering the call for more efficient, sustainable and enjoyable transportation everywhere. Our vehicles, services and, most of all, our employees are what make us a global leader in transportation.
Bombardier is headquartered in Montréal, Canada. Our shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD) and we are listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indexes. In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013, we posted revenues of $18.2 billion. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier.
For Information
Briget Ampudia


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Banjo Brothers' Small Seat Bag is perfect for carrying a tube, tire levers, patch kit, a mini tool and some food (each sold separately). It's made from super-tough 1680-denier nylon with a full liner plus a padded top and bottom. It's got a wide-mouth opening for easy access, three interior pockets and a key clip to keep your gear organized, plus gusseted sides that keep your gear in place when the bag is open. And you've got 360 degrees of visibility with reflective accents and a tab so you can attach a taillight.
Capacity: 40 cubic inches
Dimensions: 5.75 x 4 x 2.75 inches
Part Numbers
Option | UPC | MPN | Store SKU |
Black | 856921000236 | 03010 | BAN33600197K |


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Holy Silver Pendant - Cross
Holy Silver Pendant - Cross
Product Care
Product Care
Caring for jewellery involves some simple advice:
- Avoid contact with any cosmetics or household products that could damage the colour.
- To clean jewellery always use soap and warm water (neutral PH) and a brush with soft bristles. Dry afterwards with a cloth.
- It is important to check the clasps and catches frequently to see if they are secure.
- It is also recommended to check the settings frequently in jewellery to make sure that the stones are not loose or have not already fallen out.
- Do not expose jewellery to extreme temperatures.
- The correct protection for each piece is to keep it in its original box or bag.
- If you use a jewellery case, make sure that the pieces are kept in separate compartments.
- Avoid leaving chains loose and out as they may get knots in them.
If you have any doubts about the condition of your jewellery, we recommend that you not wear it until it has been checked by an expert. MEL JEWEL team is very happy to help.
Size Guide
Size Guide
How to measure a ring size?
In order to know what's your ring size, please cut a thin strip of paper or tape and then wrap it around your finger. Please make sure it is below the joint of your finger and close to your knuckle. Mark the spot where the paper or tape meets and measure the distance with your ruler.
Mel Jewel rings are measured by the european size guide and our regular sizes are 10, 12, 14 and 16. Besides that all the pieces could be produced in any custom size. To have your piece customized, please contact us.
- Orders are processed and shipped within 1-3 business days and shipping costs are currently FREE to Portugal and European Union, via CTT.


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E Beardsley Rd And N 27th Pl
In 2021 Phoenix had almost 41,000 car accidents, and almost 11,000 of those resulted in serious injury, and 278 resulted in death. Crashes also tend to peak between 3 and 6pm. Intersections continue to be a dangerous situation for any motorist or pedestrian who is on the roads in Phoenix. E Beardsley Rd And N 27th Pl in Phoenix is another intersection that sees its fair share of car accidents.
Traffic Cameras in Phoenix Arizona
Traffic cameras are all over the Phoenix area and at many intersections. The Arizona Department of Transportation has over 400 cameras positioned across the state. Getting the traffic camera accident video footage of a car crash can help prove fault (speeding, running red lights, etc.) and be the difference when you are filing a car accident lawsuit.
Statute of Limitations in Arizona
If you have been injured in a car crash in Arizona you need to be aware there is a time limit when it comes to filing a lawsuit. Generally speaking you have 2 years from the date of the accident to file your injury lawsuit. Reality of statute of limitations on injury lawsuits in Arizona: what to consider.
Stop Sign Intersections
Most people think of red light intersections when they think of car accidents happening at an intersection. If you were injured at a car crash at a Phoenix intersection with stop signs then contact us today. Whether you were t-boned, rear ended or even hit head on, you might be able to file a lawsuit.
Car Accident Police Report in Arizona
After being injured in a car accident in Phoenix it's very important to get a copy of the car accident police report and make sure it's accurate. Sometimes a police report can be incorrect and place you at fault even though you weren't, which can affect your personal injury lawsuit. If you suffered an injury at the intersection of E Beardsley Rd And N 27th Pl in Phoenix then contact Law Gang for a free consultation. Tips for obtaining your car accident police report in Arizona..