I had quite the Twitter interaction with Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller and a bunch of other guys.
One of the funnier ones with with a guy, TalonNYC who asserted that all religions are true. After pointing out that many religions have beliefs that directly contradict each other (Judaism and Islam, for example, do not believe that Jesus Christ is God while Christians do) hence to say that all religions are true is an illogical statement. They can’t all be true—although they can all be false.
This is philosophy of religion 101, as it were, but it astounds me how many people don’t give any thought whatever to beliefs they hold! The very thing they accuse Christians of doing. Talon’s flimsy refuge was to point out that they’re all true to different people. Which of course continues the fallacy—either something is true or it isn’t. True for you but not for me is relativist nonsense and doesn’t hold in the real world.
Another guy, a likeable fellow name Mike Rigsby, made the claim that ‘faith isn’t rational.’ That one took me aback a few seconds. I asked him if he knew there was a difference between blind faith and rational faith. His reply was unclear. Whatever, the meat of the Twitter really comes between Penn and Me.
Penn started the whole thing with the following:
I've been playing bebop jazz for 10 years. Today, I'm dusting off the electric bass and I'm going to play some rock and roll. NoGod Band
to which I responded:
for someone who knows there's no God, you're awfully concerned by Him. The noGod band? Case of stalking The Big Guy?
He said:
I'm really concerned. The damage from superstition hurts us all.
With a slight tongue-in-cheek, I said:
aw come on Penn, including Santa?? ;)
Obviously in jest.
That started the whole heap. Here are some various statements by the big man himself, all made without providing proof:
Any belief in god is a negation of love for other people. (Asked him why he believed this, no answer.)
Morality is strictly human and not god. It's based on love and survival. Religion has no morals (After I said: “find humor in Penn talking moral rights bcos I wonder what his source of this right is, if not God.”)
I replied:
love subjective; practical for you not same for me. For you, morality choice. No objective standard,yes?
Or if base morality strictly on survival, how different are we from animals who eat their own young?
He then said:
Not just survival, also love and practicality. As far as killing one's young, that's a bible thing.
Oooh, snarky, snarky, snarky! Of course, all this proves it’s quite difficult to converse in less than 140 characters.
He continues:
Yes, "faith" is the true hate and evil.
After I said:
On love. So whatever I "love" is my morals? How about if I love killing Jews? That's OK by your defn?
He goes:
Yes, the religious have been big on killing jews.
Completely dodging the question with another cute little ad hominem which I pointed out with “nice sleight of keyboard, Penn! 
Here’s where it got exciting, when he made the following statement with me and him going back and forth:
@fwoodbridge - Atheism doesn't need to be provable. There's nothing to prove. It's an absence of belief.
@pennjillette you need to look at a dictionary, Penn.
@fwoodbridge - Check the Oxford English dictionary. Absence of belief or disbelief - like everyone is most gods.
@pennjillette simple question: does God exist?
@fwoodbridge How would anyone know that? I know that I'm not taking your word for it, and that makes me an Atheist.
@pennjillette So you're not an Atheist, you're an Agnostic
@fwoodbridge - Nope, agnostic is an epistemological term, once your agnostic you still have to be Atheist or Theist.
@pennjillette One doesn't necessarily go from "I don't know" to "I know: No God" Penn
I decided to use his much-loved OED (to which I happen to have access!) to define the terms:
@pennjillette Agnostic-One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown
@pennjillette OED: Atheist-One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God.
He continues with this howler:
@fwoodbridge - If you don't know, you can't believe and if you can't believe, you're atheist.
@pennjillette Penn, you can't go from NOT KNOWING to KNOWING enough not to believe. Illogical.
@fwoodbridge It's just epistemological. How things are known. In the meantime, there's no god, and I believe you know that.
@pennjillette You believe I know this. On what grounds do you believe I KNOW there's no God?
@fwoodbridge - Saying I KNOW there's no god, is the same as saying I don't believe in god, unless I AM omniscient. I'm not god.
@pennjillette BTW, happy to see you know one property of God is omniscience. Which makes Him different from Santa or unicorns!
@pennjillette In which case, you've just made a truth claim. Now prove it.
@fwoodbridge - Well, you're thinking enough that I think you'll be atheist is a little while. I hope it works out for you.
@pennjillette Ah, the well-known "wish you well" dodge to providing proof! :-D Thanks, Penn. A real pleasure chatting with you!
@fwoodbridge - Thanks, man. It's really not a dodge. I did explain my point, and I think you understand it well.
Well, if you consider not answering any questions with any definitive answers, getting the basic idea behind agnosticism and atheism wrong, indulging in ad hominem utterances, he was a really great guy with whom to speak!
I’ll still catch his very entertaining show though. I just won’t trust his judgment on matters religious—especially when you consider this is his next book!!
4 comments:
I think his point was that atheism is about belief while agnosticism is about knowledge. Atheism just means you lack belief - it isn't a knowledge claim.
Love Penn. He had a good one off show in the UK last month with Teller called Fool Us, where a seties of magicians performed for them. If P&T couldn't guess how their act was performed, the magician got to open for P&T in Vegas. A couple of acts managed it. Think the show was a try out for them doing a series in the US.
If so, he needs a dictionary as I showed. Besides, every philosophical stance is a knowledge claim. If one thinks a certain way, there are reasons to be outlined (and defended) for thinking that way.
I thought the dictionary definitions you provided actually backed up what I said - you quoted them as effectively saying atheism was about belief, agnosticism was about knowledge. These are the meanings people commonly use the words for, and dictionaries simply reflect usage. Hence the terms 'agnostic atheist' or 'gnostic theist'. They aren't tautologies or contradictions in terms.
I understand the argument that knowing and believing are similar or indistinguishable, but there are many things I don't believe in without being able to prove their non-existence. I don't claim to KNOW that Sasquatch doesn't exist, I just happen not to believe he does. That's not really a philosophical position, just a statement about my belief. My beliefs are informed by what I know, but they're not the same thing.
Reminds me of a reggae song from the 90s about elastic words.
Despite some atheists' scoffing, of course no one knows and can absolutely prove any of this (hence: Pascal's wager! j/k) but just as a prosecutor in a criminal case believes the defendant is guilty and provides evidence for that stance, so does the atheist, or atheist agnostic, or agnostic atheist or whatever term one wishes to use has to provide evidence for why they think the way they do.
Otherwise, the atheist is guilty of the same derision he heaps on the faithful: having blind faith.
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