Well since we have so many agnostics and atheists here perhaps we can have a thread that leaves out the religious folk and focus on our own doctrinal purity. What does it mean to be agnostic? Are you saying that you don't have enough evidence to draw a conclusion as to whether or not there is a deity? Are you agnostic on every possible origin story that people have ever come up with? Are you agnostic on Santa Claus, the tooth fairy etc. Are you influenced simply by the widespread belief of your fellow adults in some form of deity? Do you consider this to be evidence above and beyond the evidence for less common origin story's or Santa Claus et al. I guess the point is that there are an infinite number of possible ideas for which there is no evidence but which cannot be conclusively disproved. Is it reasonable to simply withhold judgment on each of these ideas?
Is agnosticism just poorly reasoned atheism?
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MamboJoel
Cool.
I don't have proof God exists nor have I he doesn't exist.
As for Santa Clause, I know for sure he's my father.
As for Santa Clause, I know for sure he's my father.
MamboJoel said:
OK let's say Santa lives on a planet 1M light years from earth (and is an immortal humanoid that wears a red suit and is a bit overweight) and each holiday season transmits generous thoughts to your dad and many other dads via a force that humans cannot detect. Are you agnostic regarding this proposition?
Ussually an agnostic is someone who on the one hand has an urge and correspondong to that urge intellectual backup of some sort (the quality of it ofcourse can vary drammatically) to dismiss the idea that god exists, but on the other hand has also feelings that prevent him from moving on from that question, and so declares something like: "it is highly improbable that god exists, however i am very smart and know that i cannot prove that he doesnt exist either".
In my view, though, this isnt such a smart claim. A far smarter attempt would be for the agnostic to try to analyse why he feels that he shouldnt yet alltogether dismiss the idea that a god exists. The reason behind those feelings can be complicated, and contain a myriad different things (fear is a basis though, but fear can be finessed to seem to be just intellectual carefulness). Personally, having been an agnostic at 17,5, then deeply involved in examining my subconscious, then christian for half a year when i was 23, then finally atheist, i can say that a person has to follow his own route, and then examine it, and not to think that he has understood religion if he simply has taken a position against it, for then his position closely resembles a dogma. In my view the religous phenomena are purely psychological, and not metaphysical. Word associations (the word god has very intence meanings, and many ones as well since symbolically a god can be anything from an unknown force to a superior in power human) are ofcourse very crucial in our understanding of our thoughts, and then there are the inner urges and instincts which further complicate the phenomenon of human consciousness.
In my view, though, this isnt such a smart claim. A far smarter attempt would be for the agnostic to try to analyse why he feels that he shouldnt yet alltogether dismiss the idea that a god exists. The reason behind those feelings can be complicated, and contain a myriad different things (fear is a basis though, but fear can be finessed to seem to be just intellectual carefulness). Personally, having been an agnostic at 17,5, then deeply involved in examining my subconscious, then christian for half a year when i was 23, then finally atheist, i can say that a person has to follow his own route, and then examine it, and not to think that he has understood religion if he simply has taken a position against it, for then his position closely resembles a dogma. In my view the religous phenomena are purely psychological, and not metaphysical. Word associations (the word god has very intence meanings, and many ones as well since symbolically a god can be anything from an unknown force to a superior in power human) are ofcourse very crucial in our understanding of our thoughts, and then there are the inner urges and instincts which further complicate the phenomenon of human consciousness.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
IMHO yes, they are afraid of saying "I don't believe in God."
Weak atheists like myself say, that if I don't have enough evidence supporting some claim (for example the existence of God), I should not believe in it. That's logical.
Who say "I don't know" is just a coward
Weak atheists like myself say, that if I don't have enough evidence supporting some claim (for example the existence of God), I should not believe in it. That's logical.
Who say "I don't know" is just a coward
Yes, absolutely I should feel compelled to come out and draw a line in the sand, then defend it with an almost religious fervor.
The question could as easily be: Is atheism just agnosticism with some faith thrown in?
The question could as easily be: Is atheism just agnosticism with some faith thrown in?
to me, serious agnosticism (i.e., has thought about and weighed evidence) is a reasonable position - albeit a bit of a chicken one!
God is, as I said in another thread just now, a 'brainfart' - - meaning it is a malfunction of our brains if we see or 'hear' one. 'brainfart' here means an thought bubble that has no realistic content or factual counterpart in physical world. Now, the word seems rather rude, and I do nto mean it that way - it's just that this was the catchiest I could think of.
Psychology, social sciences and evolutionary biology together have a very good case that this is a fact. Belief in s god or in gods has been a factor offering selective advantage. That's why it's there, not because gods are in nature.
God is, as I said in another thread just now, a 'brainfart' - - meaning it is a malfunction of our brains if we see or 'hear' one. 'brainfart' here means an thought bubble that has no realistic content or factual counterpart in physical world. Now, the word seems rather rude, and I do nto mean it that way - it's just that this was the catchiest I could think of.
Psychology, social sciences and evolutionary biology together have a very good case that this is a fact. Belief in s god or in gods has been a factor offering selective advantage. That's why it's there, not because gods are in nature.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
sysyphus said:What's so brave about forming an opinion on something for which one has very little convincing evidence? Sounds more like foolishness to me.
No. If someone says "hey, there is a pink rabbit on the Moon", he should provide some evidence for his extraordinary claim. It's not my duty to seek for it.
BTW: Weak atheists don't say: "there is no God". We say "we don't have any evidence of his existence, therefore we don't believe in him." We're just sceptics.
Those who can't answer simple question whether they do or don't believe in God, are cowards who don't have any real opinion.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Actually, I have also a problem with people claiming to be agnostic but not atheist. Indeed, I agree that we have no clue whether there's a God or not, however it would be lying to say that I consider both possibilities the same. I don't claim to know anything, but I have the feeling there's no God.Winner said:
Actually, I would like to know whether people calling themselves agnostics truely consider both eventualities as as likely. In such a hot topic, I tend to believe we always have a feeling, and this despite genuine wonderings. It's simply we don't want to back something we can't prove.
Apart from the question itself, "is there a god?" there are far more complicated issues. Like the ability to have a thought, and the reason why you were drawn to a particular thought, the reason why you keep to that thought, the question "what is there below this thought?", the queston about your positions in your own world of existense (consiousness, subconscious), the question about how the tendancies to move to other thoughts, views in the future are formed and why.
What i tried to show in my previous post is that the atheist-agnostic-believer part is just in the surface of things, and imo is not very significant. You can have two houses, one nxt to each other in the street: the one house has a red roof, the other has a blue roof. You can argue that the houses with red roofs are superior to those with the blue ones, or the opposite. However you are still looking at them from the street. There are also other places to look: what if the one house has a basement that goes miles below the ground? You wouldnt be able to form a view about that while still being in the street (in other words there are many parameters which imo are left out of the argument about god, and this is why this to many people seems to be a really important discussion. the notion of god imo is not different from any other notion a human can have; ie it is based on mental mechanisms, and is to be examined by them, and not by something else. As a notion it isnt uninteresting, at least as is known there are far more stupid notions to be found) 
What i tried to show in my previous post is that the atheist-agnostic-believer part is just in the surface of things, and imo is not very significant. You can have two houses, one nxt to each other in the street: the one house has a red roof, the other has a blue roof. You can argue that the houses with red roofs are superior to those with the blue ones, or the opposite. However you are still looking at them from the street. There are also other places to look: what if the one house has a basement that goes miles below the ground? You wouldnt be able to form a view about that while still being in the street
(in other words there are many parameters which imo are left out of the argument about god, and this is why this to many people seems to be a really important discussion. the notion of god imo is not different from any other notion a human can have; ie it is based on mental mechanisms, and is to be examined by them, and not by something else. As a notion it isnt uninteresting, at least as is known there are far more stupid notions to be found) 
Akka
Moody old mage.
"I don't believe in God" doesn't mean "I do believe there is no God".Winner said:IMHO yes, they are afraid of saying "I don't believe in God."
Who say "I don't know" is just a coward
Winner
Diverse in Unity
I mean, the word "atheist" does probably have some negative connotations in some countries and the people are then afraid to openly call themselves an atheist. So they use a less controversial substitute.
Quite simply, an Agnostic rejects the concept of "faith". All religions rely on faith (indeed, they are often refered to as "faiths"), but so does Athiesm. As any logician will tell you, to prove a theory you must first frame it within a larger theory (Gödel's theorem). Since there is no larger theory than God's existance (or lack thereof), any assumption relating to God must be based on faith.
h4ppy
You sir, pineapple?
I am agnostic becuase I have the evidence that "God" created the universe but I know nothing about him.
Mise
isle of lucy
There's no evidence for God, God has no detectable impact on my life whatsoever, and if God were here one day and gone the next I probably wouldn't know the difference, so I don't believe in him or any fairy tales about him. Or his son.
MCdread
Couldn't she get drowned?
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Agnosticism is no euphemism for atheism, and agnostics are not necessarily atheists not willing to admit it. As the words clearly indicate themselves, an atheist is someone that denies God. Not just the christian God, but any form of God, Absolute, Supreme, etc. Agnostics reject the path,ie, the possibility of enlightnment through some sort of connection with the divine nature. Or as Gangor said above, faith. They consider that, in our human condition, it is impossible to investigate matters concerning the philosophical character of God, therefor, theological or "anti-theological" conclusions and explanations are incorrect, incomplete and incoherent.
Which is definitely much different than the classical atheist stance. However, I agree that the more radical interpretations of the concept can be viewed as atheism.
Edit: To conclude, I think that the origin of this discussion is that we have the tendency to limit the concept of God to the character of the Byblical God. In a philosophical context, that is a mistake.
Which is definitely much different than the classical atheist stance. However, I agree that the more radical interpretations of the concept can be viewed as atheism.
Edit: To conclude, I think that the origin of this discussion is that we have the tendency to limit the concept of God to the character of the Byblical God. In a philosophical context, that is a mistake.
Gothmog
Dread Enforcer
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I am equally agnostic about everything for which I have no empirical evidence.
I do believe there must have been a creation event, for I have empirical evidence of creation, I exist. I cannot fathom infinity.
I am not surprised that conditions are favorable to my existence, as I believe in my own existence.
I am not agnostic about biblical literalism because, for example, I have empirical evidence that noah's flood never existed.
In my agnostic view no hypothesis is held as stronger than the evidence it explains and the predictions and subsequent validations it makes.
To me that is what agnosticism is all about, it is admitting to humanities limitations and weaknesses. It is not about ignorance, nor knowledge, and especially not about cowardice, but about truth. As I have said before there is accumulated scientific knowledge and there is personal belief, but there is no truth that humans can understand. It is a human idea which, like infinity, can be approached but never touched. Truth is the sum of all time and space.
Those who are brave enough to say "I don't know" typically make the best scientists.
As Nietzsche put it:
Finally consider that even the seeker after knowledge forces his spirit to recognize things against the inclination of the spirit, and often enough also against the wishes of his heart - by way of saying No where he would like to say Yes, love, and adore - and thus acts as an artist and transfigurer of cruelty. Indeed, any insistence on profundity and thoroughness is a violation, a desire to hurt the basic will of the spirit which unceasingly strives for the apparent and superficial - in all desire to know there is a drop of cruelty.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Our Virtues (229, last paragraph)
Other quotes:
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, but if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer.... I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me. ~Richard Phillips Feynman
Thomas Huxley was the father of Agnosticism and had this to say:
"...every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him."
I do believe there must have been a creation event, for I have empirical evidence of creation, I exist. I cannot fathom infinity.
I am not surprised that conditions are favorable to my existence, as I believe in my own existence.
I am not agnostic about biblical literalism because, for example, I have empirical evidence that noah's flood never existed.
In my agnostic view no hypothesis is held as stronger than the evidence it explains and the predictions and subsequent validations it makes.
To me that is what agnosticism is all about, it is admitting to humanities limitations and weaknesses. It is not about ignorance, nor knowledge, and especially not about cowardice, but about truth. As I have said before there is accumulated scientific knowledge and there is personal belief, but there is no truth that humans can understand. It is a human idea which, like infinity, can be approached but never touched. Truth is the sum of all time and space.
Those who are brave enough to say "I don't know" typically make the best scientists.
As Nietzsche put it:
Finally consider that even the seeker after knowledge forces his spirit to recognize things against the inclination of the spirit, and often enough also against the wishes of his heart - by way of saying No where he would like to say Yes, love, and adore - and thus acts as an artist and transfigurer of cruelty. Indeed, any insistence on profundity and thoroughness is a violation, a desire to hurt the basic will of the spirit which unceasingly strives for the apparent and superficial - in all desire to know there is a drop of cruelty.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Our Virtues (229, last paragraph)
Other quotes:
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, but if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer.... I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me. ~Richard Phillips Feynman
Thomas Huxley was the father of Agnosticism and had this to say:
"...every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him."
Gangor said:
Precisely. I live free society and have every right to not throw myself into any faith. I do no harm to society with this lack of commitment, so who is anyone to tell me I'm less of a person to not take faith in something?
Atheists hate it when Christians or other religions try to force views on them, so why do they feel it's okay to force an absolute "Either believe in God or don't" mentality on those of us who refuse to commit? They're like gays who hate bi-sexuals.
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