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Are we allowed to discuss religion yet?
- Thread starter Alan
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There is no practical distinction, but the literal distinction takes the away the argument of "YOU BELIEVE THINGS TOO!!!!" from religious people, which they quite often use as a way to try and invalidate things that atheists say. Another reason why I posted that quote on the third page.
I'll assume you're referring to the third part of my previous post:
At what point does is a christian no longer a christian? No one follows the bible literally, everyone gets their own interpretation. Is church necessary, is regular praying, sporadic praying? If christianity is decided by the majority of christians, why are there so many divisions. Each section ignores a different part of Christian teaching, but applies another.
This is less applicable to Judaism, where there aren't nearly as many branches, but even then many jews ignore parts that don't suit them.
At what point does is a christian no longer a christian? No one follows the bible literally, everyone gets their own interpretation. Is church necessary, is regular praying, sporadic praying? If christianity is decided by the majority of christians, why are there so many divisions. Each section ignores a different part of Christian teaching, but applies another.
This is less applicable to Judaism, where there aren't nearly as many branches, but even then many jews ignore parts that don't suit them.
I dont care at what point. Much like how I dont care at what point a pile becomes a heap.
But there is no point between someone who has no belief in the existence of god and someone who has a belief that god doesnt exist where there is any need to make a distinction. They dont give a shit about god, they are atheists. Tidy.
If you want to make distinctions to win arguments, whatever, just accept that in real life, people who call themselves atheists and people who erroneously call themselves agnostics, basically believe exactly the same things.
Have a nice day.
But there is no point between someone who has no belief in the existence of god and someone who has a belief that god doesnt exist where there is any need to make a distinction. They dont give a shit about god, they are atheists. Tidy.
If you want to make distinctions to win arguments, whatever, just accept that in real life, people who call themselves atheists and people who erroneously call themselves agnostics, basically believe exactly the same things.
Have a nice day.
again, I was the first person to bring up that point in this thread, so we definitely agree here
I know God exists because He has proven himself to exist for me. He has answered numerous of my prayers; He blesses me and my family every single day; and He has uplifted me when I was at my lowest point in life.
I love my life, my self, my family, and God and to me that is all that should matter.
Simple.
I love my life, my self, my family, and God and to me that is all that should matter.
Simple.
If we're going by practical differences, we might as well consider 99% of the population atheistic, since the majority of people masturbate, have pre-marital sex, get divorced, or lie.
Atheism and agnostic atheism are different viewpoints, and if the people who subscribe to those viewpoints feel that the distinctions between them are important, they should continue considering themselves one or the other. I'm not sure why you're so adamant about lumping the two groups together when they have evident philosophical differences.
"My understanding of agnosticism is not just that it incorporates the concept of epistemological doubt (which atheism in general does), but that it considers the concept of God entirely removed from epistemology. That is, it's different from saying "invisible unicorns could also exist" because invisible unicorns do not have the ability to bend the laws of the universe to their will (if they did, they would be God Unicorns). Given that God has such an ability, agnostics consider the lack of empirical proof as to his existence completely meaningless (as opposed to gnostic atheists, who consider it evidence that he probably does not exist)."
Basically atheists hold the lack of empirical proof regarding God's existence as probable evidence of his non-existence, while agnostics do not believe the idea of empirical proof can be applied to God at all. Agnostics typically express their skepticism through arguments such as the problem of evil, which do not rely on empirical grounds.
This is the type of person I was referring to as insane.
oh yeah well what if your family dies in a horrible car accident and your 5 year old cousin is brutally raped by a creepy pedophile? where's your god then?
This and this. I would have to agree that God is far beyond empirical proof, but I've seen FAR too much anectodal evidence to believe otherwise. Coincidence after coincidence is not just luck, but a pattern.
"oh yeah well what if you suddenly start floating off into space? where's your gravity then?"
And this distinction is really non existent. Essentially every atheist is an agnostic by that definition. If you say "There exists a God that doesnt want to be found" an atheist will not respond by saying "if the God that doesnt want to be found exists, how come we havent found any evidence of him?" The difference in responses you have suggested really are just differences in question. "Do Gods live on Mt Olympus?" or "Does something that someone might call a god exist?".
Have a nice day.
And this distinction is really non existent. Essentially every atheist is an agnostic by that definition. If you say "There exists a God that doesnt want to be found" an atheist will not respond by saying "if the God that doesnt want to be found exists, how come we havent found any evidence of him?" The difference in responses you have suggested really are just differences in question. "Do Gods live on Mt Olympus?" or "Does something that someone might call a god exist?".
Have a nice day.
Funny how this thread has quickly degenerated from a religion thread to a semantics thread...
And it's gone on for three pages. So, to get this thread in good shape...
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i54.tinypic.com/hra43s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forum.grasscity.com/apprentice-tokers/823223-weed-smell-2.html&usg=__EyZSF8i2BFLvvF78LJfp3W7Rr0E=&h=192&w=263&sz=9&hl=en&start=0&sig2=kcK1wYZh02JPzpcgAwL4oQ&zoom=1&tbnid=QHAeKNZ1PWy0QM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=209&ei=FdoCTtjNEYHKiAKBteH9BA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DThis%2Bthread%2Bis%2Bnow%2Ba%2Bspiderman%2Bthread%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7ADSA_en%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D789%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1023&vpy=110&dur=2075&hovh=153&hovw=210&tx=62&ty=178&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&biw=1280&bih=789
And it's gone on for three pages. So, to get this thread in good shape...
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i54.tinypic.com/hra43s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forum.grasscity.com/apprentice-tokers/823223-weed-smell-2.html&usg=__EyZSF8i2BFLvvF78LJfp3W7Rr0E=&h=192&w=263&sz=9&hl=en&start=0&sig2=kcK1wYZh02JPzpcgAwL4oQ&zoom=1&tbnid=QHAeKNZ1PWy0QM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=209&ei=FdoCTtjNEYHKiAKBteH9BA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DThis%2Bthread%2Bis%2Bnow%2Ba%2Bspiderman%2Bthread%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7ADSA_en%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D789%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1023&vpy=110&dur=2075&hovh=153&hovw=210&tx=62&ty=178&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&biw=1280&bih=789
I have a friend, a Haitian, who lost his young son, his home, and everything he had in the earthquake. Today he can still stand and say 'Blessed be the name of the Lord'. His daughter is now six months old.
I have another friend, one who in the short time we've known each other, has become very dear to me. He was imprisoned in Iran for eight years for political reasons. During this time he came to Christ, which didn't help that situation. He was also tortured. To top it off, his wife left him, and he can't get a decent job here in Canada, despite having being a mathematics professor in Iran.
Faith isn't something one arrives at by intellectual means. It is the marker of one who has been transformed by Christ and who now belongs to God.
You are right, that is not how an atheist would respond. An atheist would likely respond with "that argument is empirically non-falsifiable therefore it is invalid", which is an acceptable response. The difference is that an agnostic would feel that God is almost by definition empirically non-falsifiable, and that invalidating a theistic argument on those grounds is not productive.
The key point, and distinction, is the willingness of an individual to apply empirical standards to God. You may not feel that this is an important distinction, but it has important implications for epistemological arguments concerning the existence of God, as atheists and agnostics can often adopt wildly different positions. See: logical positivism.
Edit: Also, just wanted to say that I know several families who suffered very unfortunate losses in the Joplin tornado, and their faith is certainly shaken. Faith may not be intellectual in nature, but it is difficult to have faith in a being who allows harm to come to good people.
No. Atheists hold that all arbitrary, specific ideas, whether that be the idea that unicorns exist, or the idea that God exists, are inherently improbable. Therefore, it is rational to believe that these ideas are false a priori. We might be wrong sometimes, but very rarely. Basically, atheism is a "default position", one that requires no evidence. Therefore, evidence is required in order to move away from it. If there is no evidence that God exists, well, there is nothing to change our minds. There is nothing more to atheism than rejection of the arbitrary.
If that is what they believe, it is a case of special pleading which discredits them. That God can "bend the rules of the universe" does not put him out of scope for empiricism, it just makes him unfalsifiable. Unfalsifiable theories are usually discarded right off the bat because they are excessively vague and ultimately as complex as what they try to explain. They are maximally arbitrary.
This being said, the vast majority of agnostic people I know are agnostic because they cannot "prove" that God does not exist and are not comfortable with outright asserting atheism. The kind of agnosticism you are talking about might exist, but I don't think it is common in practice.
That argument has some credibility when attacking particular religions that hold that God is good, but it is completely toothless as an argument against deity. There is neither evidence nor reason to think God is good. That's just irrelevant to his existence.
A true theist by definition would say there is definitely at least one god.
A true athiest by definiton would say there is definitely no god.
The whole point your missing about agnosticism is that it's not about accepting either one of those ideas as being definite.
The line may blurr, but only so much. Saying they're shouldn't be a distinction is like saying red and blue are the same color because they're both colors.
Ok, yeah I wanted to edit that post when I made it. It didnt really explain the point I am actually trying to make.
An agnostic is a person who says "we cant even begin to talk about god, he is metaphysical and as such we have no basis to understand him". As a result, this person calls themselves an agnostic.
An atheist says "we cant even begin to talk about god, he is metaphysical and as such we have no basis to understand him." Then he says "by Occam's razor I do not believe god exists".
Their belief about god is identical. The atheist just describes that belief by the assertion that god doesnt exist, while the agnostic wrings his hands.
But my main point really, was that whatever semantic differences you are aware of between the terms atheist and agnostic, I dont think people generally fit into your categories. Atheists use the problem of evil argument all the time. They use any argument that suits their position..
Have a nice day.
An agnostic is a person who says "we cant even begin to talk about god, he is metaphysical and as such we have no basis to understand him". As a result, this person calls themselves an agnostic.
An atheist says "we cant even begin to talk about god, he is metaphysical and as such we have no basis to understand him." Then he says "by Occam's razor I do not believe god exists".
Their belief about god is identical. The atheist just describes that belief by the assertion that god doesnt exist, while the agnostic wrings his hands.
But my main point really, was that whatever semantic differences you are aware of between the terms atheist and agnostic, I dont think people generally fit into your categories. Atheists use the problem of evil argument all the time. They use any argument that suits their position..
Have a nice day.
I know what atheism is o.o
My post was about the difference between atheism and agnostic atheism. As you say, atheism is the default position if you take a physical approach to God, as the existence of God is empirically improbable. My point was that agnostics believe that an empirical approach is improper when it comes to omnipotent beings.
Yes, God is unfalsifiable, that's what I meant when I said he is out of the scope of empiricism. The difference is that non-falsifiable theories are not "rejected"; they simply have no truth value, because they are no longer in the realm of science, much like ethical statements. They are ignored in the scientific method as they have no practical relevance, but they are not rejected because there may be value to them in realms beyond the scientific. Stephen Gould formulated a framework that many agnostics follow, with a few tweaks. So where atheists say "There is no scientific evidence for God so he probably doesn't exist", agnostics say "God is scientifically irrelevant".
Now, if non-falsifiable theories attempt to insinuate themselves into the realm of science, then we may reject or accept them; that is, if someone says "God made the world 6,000 years ago for humans" we may plainly state that no, the world is definitely much older than that and it was definitely around long before we were. Agnosticism is absolutely not an excuse to say things like "evolution v creationism could go either way" or "we should teach scripture in public school and let the kids decide". It is solely concerned with epistemology.
You're right, many people view agnosticism as a weak form of atheism when in reality it's an entirely different spectrum of belief. That was actually the initial reason I posted about it, arguing otherwise.
Of course. That argument was in reference to common religions, who hold that God is a benevolent being. There are also arguments against the existence of God as a deity as a whole, many of which are variants of the incompatible-properties argument.
I hope that clarifies my position! Just for the record, I tend to agree that atheists and agnostic atheists are not very different in most practical respects, but I take the time to distinguish between the two simply because I would rather not unequivocally reject the idea of God, which has value in many respects, just because I happen to be more scientifically minded than a theistic compatriot.
love when people have testimonies like this.
your main logical flaw is assuming 'modern scientific principles' are actually right.
you can test the concept of gravity over and over and know that, unless you reach escape velocity of the earth at such a distance from the earth you can remove yourself from its pull, what goes up comes down, but what is truly the force behind this?
maybe it's invisible little men clinging to everything and they swim through the air to push things back down, they grab our feet to make us stay down.
i don't think that's the case but please, your modern scientific principles are no more likely to be 'actually right' than any religious scripture, belief or concept.
it seems to be a common atheist flaw to assume science is fully accurate, or at least science that would cause some great dissonance with religion and thus prove it inaccurate (any religion, really). yes we can test gravity, friction, the light spectrum, etc. we can theorize that long ago some big event happened and the universe, it's here, and obviously through some means the human race came to be in existence.
were you there for your big bang?
no?
oh.
so you can't prove it..
so you've got FAITH or BELIEF in a concept that isn't fully assured.
by your scientific analysis the big bang is the likely universal creation method but excuse me, none of you were around before the 1900s, much less however long the universe has been around for.
were you there watching mankind 'evolve' to the form it is now?
no?
oh.
so you can't prove evolution happened in the common scientific process of sapiens and their primitive forms. you've got some old bones but hey, who's to say big bag satan didn't pop some fake bones into the ground to throw you off?
his main goal IS to get people to not believe, after all.
see where the atheist problem is "the science that flawed humans have developed and flawed humans have stated as right"? unless you want to assert humans are the master being in the universe and as such, perfect (if they were i doubt there'd be murder and rape and corruption etc. unless that's your ideal of perfect?), any creation of theirs is imperfect as well.
which opens up room for translations of the bible and interpretations. the words were given to the writers by God but not in the english language and that opens up the King James, NLT, NIV, etc. versions' discrepancies.
i fully believe in The Big Man and i admit i have fallen quite short of his ideals at times and i have sinned, but i am thankful He gave His son for my sins so even though i may mess up, i'm not doomed.
the concept that if God was real/loved us/not a jerkoff He wouldn't let bad things happen is also flawed.
the way to avoid bad things happen would be to allow absolutely no human freedom. we would all be thinking what He wants, doing what He wants, programmed robots essentially.
as the case is, you have the choice to accept any religion, or lack thereof, and to act as you please. so do others. because the concept of 'sin' exists, people choose, or are tempted into, poor actions and choices. this causes negative results for other, 'innocent' people who likely didn't deserve to have their family brutally killed in front of them by a psychopath or an earthquake + tsunami taking out their country like a boss.
He loves His creations enough to allow them the freedom of choice.. is your freedom of choice more important than living in a sinless society? do you want to be nothing more than a robot, and NO, you will NEVER have anyone who EVER gets a clue that maybe there is something wrong, maybe God isn't real, maybe we're forced into this. the concept of an all-mighty entity controlling your every thought is EVERY thought is controlled. you will live your entire life likely never understanding you have no choice in what you do, but hey, at least your family probably won't die and you won't get molested by your weird uncle and your best friend won't shoot herself. instead you're just a drone with no true control.
but it's ok, God gave us His son so even though our choices are flawed, we get to spend forever with a true bro like him.
problem??
This reminds me of a chain mail I keep getting about Albert Einstein. Have you ever seen your brain? no? oh, so you can't prove you have one. Prove why snakes have bones which have no use, while other reptiles use them. Why did God bother adding them in? (I'd give a more exact explanation but I'm too lazy to check my bio textbook). If Satan can conjure up bones why cant he conjure up something, well, more convincing?
all right, by all means, lets see you show us this pattern which you claim exists.
The most laughable thing I ever heard was when I went to NYC and saw the planetarium show about the creation of the universe. There were two fundamentally laughable things: 1) It was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg 2) it said that "dark energy" had a hand in the universe's creation.
Dark Energy. A concept that in and of itself has more pretense of knowledge than any religion. It's basically an unknown factor X that has the properties and characteristics conducive to breaking all other laws of physics.
Talk about blind faith. Eventually you come back to the fact that the universe's creation escapes the boundary of discovered physical laws. The Big Bang is the largest reaction in the history of the universe, but reactions can only occur if they have reactants, and based on the background radiation the telescopes have found, this would have needed to be a nearly impossibly large, impossibly powerful reaction.
People who want to read the advancement of science as a diminishment of religious thought are just fooling themselves. That is what they want to believe, and that is their faith. The fact even one of America's most storied museums can't come up with an origin narrative that doesn't inspire laughter is sufficient to me to prove whatever did cause creation is probably smiling down at us as we grapple with the mystery of our existence.
God is not a space nanny who exists to protect you from all harm. Most advanced religious thought has come to the conclusion humankind has free will, and free will is the central thing that defines us as humans. Free will means that bad things can and will happen to you because each human being is a free moral agent.
You can either have a moral standard that places a universal ideal above the meager standards of humanity and human laws and submit that you don't have the pretense of knowledge, or you can, like many world-renowned atheists, waste inordinate amounts of time attacking a deity that by your own admission does not exist and deriding the intelligence of such a deity's followers.
As to the abuses of religion, all who abuse the power of religion commit deeds that in their aftermath are derided by the religion they claimed to be following at the time. Anyone who murdered in the name of God is subject to criticism that God does not condone murder for its own sake or for any but very strict reasons such as Just Wars. Do the Nazis have an explanation for why Hitler's actions were wrong? The Maoists for Mao? Stalinists for Stalin? Fascists for Mussolini? No, they do not. Because it is the 20th century where literacy had reached to almost every end of the earth, where societies were each well advanced and almost all habitable land had been discovered and colonized, the most brutal series of anti-religious regimes arose and nearly destroyed the world.
When humans are confined by their better angels, when they have a grasp that they are fallible, that all their efforts can only seek to understand a small portion of the universe's totality, society functions. When humans believe themselves to be Gods, there is no limit to their cruelty. I do not trust mere men to lord over me. Men who asserted their moral superiority wracked the previous century and caused indescribable ruin. Humanity rarely imposes humility on itself because being humble is not a fun emotion. There must instead be a framework that puts humanity in its perspective.
Atheism cannot do this, because atheism demands empirical evidence only from God. Atheists can believe six impossible things before breakfast, but as long as each of those things is not God they feel moral certitude. That is a dangerous way to go about life because it asserts the one truth that might keep them humble is prevented from affecting them, while the millions of false truths humans tell each other each day are given credence based solely on their source.
An eternal deity has a permanence in that it cannot be destroyed and its fundamental teachings do not change. The Decalogue has been around for thousands of years and to this day people still rail against its religious progenitors and all their descendant faiths. For humans seeking absolute power, a force beyond their reach that retains power simply by belief in it and its precepts is an insurmountable obstacle. Ultimately humanity must arrive at a moral truth, and that truth must take into account the weakness and terpitude of man. This truth emphatically denies atheism, for in atheism the inherent assumption is man is only limited by his own imagination and restricted only by equals, not superiors. The conclusion is always that some men deem themselves superiors, and eradicate those that disagree.
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