Definitions of Atheism and Agnosticism

I'm not sure what "emotional answers" means. I think that some of the implied arguments that MoM dismisses are pretty good in logical terms, and here's why --

1. God dosen't exist because there is evil/suffering/death.

Evil, suffering and death create no end of difficulties for those theists who want to retain the traditional "theistic attributes" of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. It's philosophical theology's historic 'problem of evil'. Of course, an ignorant, uncaring or impotent 'God' might be more consistent with evil, suffering and death, but that's a pretty dramatic redefinition of the concept.
1. Despite evil and suffering, God exists. Evil and suffering exist so that greater good may come of it. For example, look at nature. A young sappling sprouts only to be muched on by caterpillars and eaten by a dear. The sappling nourishes the dear which is the killed and eaten by wolves. The dear keeps the wolves from starvation and they die of old age. The corpses of the wolves turn to soil and offer good nutrition for the sproting sappling. I submit to you that without the necessary sufferings and evil of death that there would be no life at all.

2. God dosen't exist because believers are hypocrites.

That one doesn't speak to God's existence so much as it tends to discredit theistic believers' arguments from religious experience. Religious believers often claim to have been touched, even to have had their lives transformed, by the "holy spirit" or something. But in reality, religious believers don't seem to be any different than non-believers when conducting their secular affairs and they don't seem to be any more moral, caring, compassionate or wise.
2. The hypocrisy and sin of men does not disprove God, but makes God necessary. I agree that many of those professing a religious creed are often no different than those not professing one. But the very fact that man often lack moral direction and a sense of decency shows that on his own man could never create or uphold an uncompromised moral code. Many of the codes -such as karma- encourage immorality because each man thinks he is infalliable and not all men have the same mind thus there is a contradiction. Many of the codes have similar elements. How can this be but that there is a God of whom we percieve and makes himself known to us if in practice we do not keep the codes we make. How could we even agree to the contents of the code if we cannot even agree on who should govern us, save for a higher Authority.

3. God dosen't exist because believers can't prove God exists.

The idea of proof is kind of a red-herring. (Proofs are rarely encountered outside mathematics and logic.) The issue is whether there is convincing (if probabilistic) evidence for some generic philosophical "God's" existence, or for the existence of some particular "God" such as Yahweh or Vishnu derived from a particular religious tradition. (The word 'God' is rarely defined adaquately. In Western discussion, it's typically just assumed that the word connotes the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible.) Lack of evidence isn't "proof" of 'God's' non-existence. But lack of evidence for something is excellent justification for not believing in the existence of that thing. That's how we typically operate in our normal lives.
3. The existence of God is not a scientific one but a philosophical one. Say for example, I combine baking soda with vinegar. Gas is released and a solid participate is left behind. However, looking at the participate although one could determine the original substances were vinegar and baking soda, one could not determine that I had put these two substances together -they could only assume I had. I could come to them and said that I had done I had created the resultant but one does not have to believe me. Thus though there are natural laws and reason, these alone cannot prove or disprove God. Belief, that is, faith is required either way.

4. God dosen't exist because I have never seen or felt God.

That's essentially the last one restated. I guess that the difference here is the implied argument from authority. Maybe YOU have never seen or felt God, but I HAVE. Or MY PERFECT CHURCH HAS. The question then is whether it's reasonable to accept claims about the existence of something unseen (and seemingly unseeable) simply on the authority of the individual theist or his or her church.
4. There is no proof that sorrow is real except in ones own experience and that of tears rolling down anothers cheek. Nor can joy be percieved except by ones own experience and that of a smile on anothers face. There is no scientific test to verify these things -no scientific method. All there is to validate these things is personal testimony and yet these are universal. So too is God though testimony is all we can offer. If we have not experienced him we have seen him. Most of us have not experienced the lost of the child but we can, though imperfectly, percieve the deep grief of those who had and we learn from them. Similarily, not all recieve the grace of faith but we can percieve the deep faith of others. Though we cannot percieve God as we would like always -seeing or feeling- He is still there. Though we can't percieve another's sorrow, we know that they are grieving. Though we can't percieve the joy of another, we know that they have joy. We just know.

5. God dosen't exist because my prayers aren't answered.

I don't think that one would arise for an atheist, would it?
5. God always answers prayer, He just doesn't always give us what we want. God will either say yes, no or wait. Getting a no or no response, doesn't mean He doesn't exist.

6. God dosen't exist because Christians killed people in the Inquisition/Crusade/ancient time.

This one essentially restates number two, up above. If God changes lives, then one would expect to observe believers living more moral, compassionate and wise lives than the rest of us lead. One would expect the action of the "holy spirit" to actually have observable effects.
6. A Christian is not God, he does not magically become a perfectly moral person nor does God ever promise that. In fact, such would go against the laws of nature if he did. Reemember the sappling at the end of my example? It will take atleast a hundred years or more until it is fully grown. So too does it take many years for the best wines to ferment. It can also take years and years before a professed Christian could be considered of saintly morality. But the failing of man does not deny God's existence any more would it purport to go against evolution - since neither in evolution is found a perfectly superior organism.

7. God dosen't exist because the Bible is man-made/corrupted.

This one doesn't address God's existence so much as it attacks the idea that the Bible is the one unique (and some would insist infallible and inerrant) revelation of God. (Whatever 'God' is.) If the Bible is, as it certainly appears to be, man-made and rather crude in spots, then that would seem to create greate difficulty for the religious claim that it's God's own word. If one's only reason for believing in God is what the Bible says, then this one certainly impacts that justification of that belief.
7. Every teenager rebels against their parents in one way or another. Each doubts their parents to be right about this or that. It is often not until the parents themselves have died or the teens growup and raise teens of their own that they realise how right their parents were. So are we like teenagers when faced with the Word of God. We question it's authority and think we know better but often it can be found to be correct even if it takes us into our old age, looking back at our actions and that of our generation and regret going against His Word. The history of man is riddled with the collapses of empires that sought to uphold relativistic ideals.

8. God dosen't exist because God killed people in the Bible.

This one revisits the problem of evil. It represents a strong (and to my mind irrefutable) argument that the God of the Old-Testament is not a suitable object of human worship. Even Adolph Hitler would be shocked by some of the things that God supposedly did. If human beings are judged 'evil' for doing X or Y, then I can't see how God can escape the same judgement for doing the same things. To expect anything less would be to accept that God is mankind's moral inferior.
8. It is an interesting argument. But you see, it is God who created us and we did not create ourselves. It is God who knows the hearts and minds of people, we do not though it certainly doesn't stop us from thinking we do. Every society has punishments for those that transgress its rules. Many societies past and present have the death penalty as a punishment. Sometimes the death penalty is used to protect lives and sometimes it is the merely the ultimate punishment. People are always informed of the rules and resulting punishments and yet many still choose willing to commit such crimes. So it is of God. He has set rules and punishments and many goes against him anyways. Murder is considered immoral because it makes the murderer a god, not the literal act of bringing death but rather the reason why is what makes it moral and immoral. That is why only God is really just in allowing death for he is giving what those who go against Him what they ask for. Only He has the authority.


9. God dosen't exist because Jesus is not God.

That's a Christian-specific point that probably doesn't make much sense to an atheist.

Bottom line:

I think that most of your nine "emotional answers" are actually pretty good. Taken together, they represent good justification for questioning the kind of claims that theists often make.
9. So it was that people to this day believe dinosaurs do not think dinosaurs exist despite the bones, for the personally did not see living dinosaurs. So too it is difficult to believe that Jesus is God despite the miracles. Just as we are told about dinousars and how they lived by an authority by which we are compelled to believe, so also are we given testimony of Jesus which we are compelled to believe. But just because one believes dinosaurs did not exists doesn't mean they did or didn't, so also does one not believing Jesus is God not affect whether he is or isn't.

I think I answered them logically and citing known human experience as fact, but I suppose there might be emotion in there.
 
Whose definition??
Agnosticism is an epistemological position. (A)theism is an Ontological position.
Agnosticism rationally leads to non-belief... but as this site should demonstrate, not everyone is rational.

There ARE people who accept that God is unknowable, yet still believe. Anyone who believes due to Pascal's Wager would fall under this category, for example.

There is nothing in Agnosticism that is mutually exclusive with one's position on Belief... it is just not a usual position to hold both agnosticism and a belief in the same matter.

The definition. If you believe in God, you are a believer, not an agnostic.
 
The definition. If you believe in God, you are a believer, not an agnostic.
Whether one believes or not is a separate philosophical position to whether one considers something knowable or not.

One can believe in God (theism) while still considering God unknowable (agnosticism).

What in this statement do you disagree with, as you clearly think the two (theism and agnosticism) are mutually exclusive?
 
RandWolf: This challenge occurs quite often in the context of theological discussions.
Prove any negative. Go ahead, give it a try. Looking forward to your reply.​
The challenger naively assumes that it is impossible to prove a negative.

There are many axiomtic systems which are capable of proving negatives. The basic structure of such a proof is as follows.
To prove that XXX does not exist, start by assuming that XXX exists.

Next show that you can prove some statement which contradicts a basic axiom of the system.

Conclude that the starting assumption was false because it led to a fundamental contradiction: XXX exists is false, ergo XXX does not exist.​
The problem with proving/disproving the existence of god is the requirement for a set of pertinent axioms, including some relating to logic (EG: the law of the excluded middle).
 
Whether one believes or not is a separate philosophical position to whether one considers something knowable or not.

One can believe in God (theism) while still considering God unknowable (agnosticism).

What in this statement do you disagree with, as you clearly think the two (theism and agnosticism) are mutually exclusive?

Belief is the opposite of unknowing. A believing agnostic is an experiment in cognitive dissonance.
 
Belief is the opposite of unknowing. A believing agnostic is an experiment in cognitive dissonance.
Unsurprisingly, the opposite of "unknowing" is... er... "knowing". ;)

Belief requires no knowledge, and is surely the filling in of gaps in that knowledge: the less knowledge, the stronger the belief needs to be if one is to hold to the conviction of truth.

Surely, therefore, it could be argued that it is the Agnostic Theist that is the epitome of "believer"... one who accepts that the subject of God (and God's existence) is unknowable, yet is convinced of the truth of God's existence.
 
That makes no sense. An agnostic has not made up their mind about the topic in question, they don't disbelieve nor do they believe.
 
In practical life one usually goes one way or the other, perhaps considering the alternatives to not be at all equi-probable, this making up some of their mind, but by no means completely one way or the other.
 
RandWolf: This challenge occurs quite often in the context of theological discussions.
Prove any negative. Go ahead, give it a try. Looking forward to your reply.​
The challenger naively assumes that it is impossible to prove a negative.

There are many axiomtic systems which are capable of proving negatives. The basic structure of such a proof is as follows.
To prove that XXX does not exist, start by assuming that XXX exists.

Next show that you can prove some statement which contradicts a basic axiom of the system.

Conclude that the starting assumption was false because it led to a fundamental contradiction: XXX exists is false, ergo XXX does not exist.​
The problem with proving/disproving the existence of god is the requirement for a set of pertinent axioms, including some relating to logic (EG: the law of the excluded middle).

This is interesting!
 
Many of the codes -such as karma- encourage immorality because each man thinks he is infalliable and not all men have the same mind thus there is a contradiction.

This is a most extraordinary conception of karma!
I have never heard anything like that.

Karma is basically the principle that "what goes around, comes around", "as you do to others, so it shall be done unto you".
I certainly encourages morality.
 
That makes no sense. An agnostic has not made up their mind about the topic in question, they don't disbelieve nor do they believe.
This (imho) is a poor definition/understanding of "agnostic".
Philosophically it has nothing to do with "not made up one's mind".
It is merely to do with how knowable one considers the matter in hand to be.
 
Not in the case of a deist.

A deist believes in God, but also believes that God cannot be known.
Not true: Deists generally hold their God is knowable purely through reason and observation of the natural world.
"God as First Cause" is an example of a Deist position... that God caused the universe and then let it develop without interference.

This differs from the Theist position that holds God has interacted with His creations (e.g. providing scriptures, putting His Son on Earth etc)
 
Not true: Deists generally hold their God is knowable purely through reason and observation of the natural world.
"God as First Cause" is an example of a Deist position... that God caused the universe and then let it develop without interference.

Deists believe that they will never have anything personal to do with God.
So do agnostics.
 
Whether one believes or not is a separate philosophical position to whether one considers something knowable or not.

One can believe in God (theism) while still considering God unknowable (agnosticism).

I agree pretty emphatically with Sarkus.

Religiously-inspired agnosticism not only exists, it's a fundamental component in mystical traditions all around the world. There's the opening passage of the 'Tao Te Ching', there's the ineffability of the Hindu Vedantic Brahman, and there's apophaticism in Western mystical theology. (See the Wikipedia article on 'apophatic theology' here).

The general idea in these traditions is basically that the divine, the holy, the transcendent, is beyond finite human language, concepts and cognition. So the true Tao can't be spoken in words. The true God can't be captured in any set of attributes. The true Brahman is apprehended in a samadhi in which the aspirant empties his/her mind of all cognitive forms and perceptions.

But among religious mystics this process of "unknowing" (as a medieval English mystic termed it) doesn't terminate in an effective atheism. Just the reverse. It's almost always associated with a contemplative discipline of some sort that's intended to facilitate the mystic's spiritual ascent and eventual non-cognitive awareness of, or merging with, whatever the divine principle is imagined to be. It's all about inducing religious experience, but a religious experience that can't be captured in normal words and concepts.
 
You said:

and I pointed out that the standard definition of knowledge is "justified true belief".

It is a standard understanding that knowledge requires belief.
That is Plato's definition, although it is not necessarily accepted as the "standard definition". But I'll grant you that, as long as you acknowlegde that belief does not require knowledge.
 
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