Let's all have a big fight over my mortal soul.

[VitalOne]

I disagree. I see near-identity between what you described as strong agnosticism and existing definitions of weak atheism; however, the wiki article I posted shows the distinction being a position on probability.

Regular agnosticism includes the positive claim that in addition to not knowing, the answer can never be known.

No it doesn't, regular agnosticism claims that you don't know whether or not God eixsts, but that it could possibly be known

"AGNOSTIC Someone who claims that they do not know or are unable to know whether God exists."

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/guide/glossary.shtml

Mild agnosticism (also called weak agnosticism, soft agnosticism, open agnosticism, empirical agnosticism, temporal agnosticism)—the view that the existence or nonexistence of God or gods is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if more evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say "I don't know, but maybe you do."

Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

 

[redarmy11]

Who else?

I think belief (in anything) is a very personal matter; I've believed in friends no one else would give the time of day to; I've believed in myself and in people I love. Its all air if you don't believe. There are a lot of beliefs out in the open (like love, hope, anarchy, self-control, entitlement, racism) and no matter what the evidence for or against, some people will/will not believe. Asking someone about your beliefs is asking them if you like a particular color. There are as many opinions as there are people.

Theistic beliefs aren't the same as 'believing' in a friend. They're more akin to believing whether a friend exists, yes? We can rely on our senses for that of, course. They're infallible.

The trouble is I just don't know how to begin gathering the evidence I need in order to validate or invalidate my beliefs about God.

Tools and methodology?

 

[S.A.M.]

Theistic beliefs aren't the same as 'believing' in a friend. They're more akin to believing whether a friend exists, yes? We can rely on our senses for that of, course. They're infallible.

The trouble is I just don't know how to begin gathering the evidence I need in order to validate or invalidate my beliefs about God.

Tools and methodology?

What would convince you? Its a belief, you don't have to accept it if its not convincing to you.

Personally, I believe because it makes the most sense to me. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, etc.

 

[redarmy11]

What would convince you?

Proof one way or the other before I declare a belief in either.

Personally, I believe because it makes the most sense to me. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, etc.

Don't make me swear or Skin will infract me.

You are a woman of Faith and a woman of Science. For fuck's sake, I thought you of all people would know.

Either shut up or do much, much better.

 

[S.A.M.]

Proof one way or the other before I declare a belief in either.

Don't make me swear or Skin will infract me.

You are a woman of Faith and a woman of Science. For fuck's sake, I thought you of all people would know.

Either shut up or do much, much better.

If I knew, it would not be belief.

Lets just say it makes no sense to me that everything is a random occurrence, when everything is under such precise control.

Only we are so used to the everyday-ness of the control, we never question it.

 

[redarmy11]

If I knew, it would not be belief.

Lets just say it makes no sense to me that everything is a random occurrence, when everything is under such precise control.

Only we are so used to the everyday-ness of the control, we never question it.

Please do not troll.

On what - bold, italic and underlined - do you base the belief (other than your incredulous, hallucinatory perceptions re. precision, randomness and our ability to understand them)?

I hadn't seen this post was so long. I'm using the word agnostic as the meaning can not logically prove gods and goddesses and buddhas do not exist and atheism as lacking a beleif in those ideas and theism a haveing a beleif one or more of those ideas.

Hi Michael. I can't claim to avidly devour all your posts but, whenever I've happened across you on Sciforums, I've been impressed by the breadth and depth of your learning on religious matters.

When you say lack of belief I take it you mean 'lack of positive belief'.

Do you think it's possible to sustain the position that 'Gods do not exist'? If so, how?
Do you think it's possible to sustain the position that 'Gods probably do not exist'? If so - and this is one of the key questions for me, I think - on what can we base that assessment? How valid are the conclusions we're drawing in order to arrive at that position?

 

[Michael]

Hi Michael. I can't claim to avidly devour all your posts but, whenever I've happened across you on Sciforums, I've been impressed by the breadth and depth of your learning on religious matters.

Well thanks

When you say lack of belief I take it you mean 'lack of positive belief'.

yes that's right.

Do you think it's possible to sustain the position that 'Gods do not exist'? If so, how?

I have never read an argument a a priori or a posteriori that would be a definitive proof that Gods do not exist. So I'll have to say no.

I think that main arguments fall into the following catagories:
Ontological
Cosmological
Argument from Design
Argument from Miracles
Moral
Pragmatic

Do you think it's possible to sustain the position that 'Gods probably do not exist'? If so - and this is one of the key questions for me, I think - on what can we base that assessment? How valid are the conclusions we're drawing in order to arrive at that position?

Yes, I think to say Gods probably do not exist is an acceptable position to take.

There is no evidence that Gods exist and there is also no reason needed to invoke the existence of Gods to explain reality so it's probably true that they do not exist.

The question really is: Why does the Gods meme exit?


Michael

 

[Thoreau]

Hi,

I'm redarmy11 and I'm a cowardly, fence-sitting agnostic. I is feeling left out.

Theists: show me the Light and the Way.
Atheists: convert me to the Dark Side.

Go.

P. S. You are all mad.

Sorry, can't get mad. I feel the same way about me.

 

[Sarkus]

I am not sure what the disagreement part is about . Maybe I missed a subtlety?

My mistake - apologies - I read into your description an implication that agnosticism and atheism couldn't cohabit, so to speak. I am not someone who holds them (atheism and agnosticism) to be positions on the same axis (a la Dawkins and his probability), but on two axis..es. One for belief in / belief not / non-belief, and one for the evidential side of the question (does it exist, is it knowable etc).
Hence I describe myself as an agnostic atheist.

 

[pavlosmarcos]

Every bit as unreasonable as believing in one.

I think you meant " not believing in one" then I ask why.

I'm agnostic because I have to be something if I'm to address the issue at all. I've no idea what evidence would convince me of nonexistence. I can't even imagine what form that evidence would take. I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who's had that kind of epiphany.

exactly, if you cant imagine it why, would you consider it an option.
surely evidence means exist, no evidence means?

Fascinating. You reject the possibility of life on other planets?

sorry never said that what I did was show that something from my imagination[ Nupin bird) has equal merit to a god/gods.

I don't. It occupies a much higher position in my belief hierarchy than the possibility of Gods

me too.

- and yet I can't see any rational reason why one should seem so much more possible (more plausible) than the other.

then your beyond help. given the diversity of live on this one planet, and the countless billions of worlds out there that can support life as we know it. it is infantile to not think there is at least one other planet, but when your talking about a magic being that watches over us, well thats just stepping into the realms of fantasy, and purely infantile.

As VO rightly points out lack of plausibility isn't sufficient reason in itself for rejecting an idea. I want someone to help me here and give me some tools that I can use to validate things that are beyond the limits of my knowledge and experience.

would you say that, your right arm could ungrow IE start to reverse it's growth, back to that of a foetus. it's possible/plausible, but it's extremely unlikely, but this isn't sufficient reason in itself for rejecting the idea.
however infantile that sounds, it has equal merit to a god existing.

Intuition is just a best guess based on gut instinct, probably derived from experience. Intuition can be right or wrong.

I think you need to look up the word, so I'll leave it there, as I dont want to insult your intelligence.

Correct. What tools can we use to assign levels of plausibility to each of these?

common sense, this is the only tool you need.
can your arms ungrow?.

 

[Grantywanty]

No, they don't. Not a single one I know in real life anyway, and I know a lot of them.
Atheists usually have no opinion on theists until you make them think about it. And even then most of them have no problem with religious people whatsoever, let alone wanting to convert them.
I belief atheists that are out to 'convert' theists are the equivalent of religious extremists or football hooligans for that matter. I think you get the idea

I guess I was reacting from online experience. I don't know who 'started it' but I find threads with a great deal of mockery and insults and condescension from the athiest side. Athiests I have known personally don't have the monotheist type interventions, but there is this 'open minded questioning' that starts up and can begin sounding like curiosity and usually ends up as a debate to disprove. Atheists I know are good people or I wouldn't hang out with them and there are many. So this is not filled with the mocking or sarcasm I find on the net. Not at all. But I certainly do feel like they are trying to erode my beliefs. Athiests tend to think of athiesm as a stance that refuses to have a specific belief. So conversion is not the same as between religions. Nevertheless if you try to erode a belief into not being there, and this would shift the other person's beliefs to looking a lot more like your own set of beliefs, well, I think conversion is a satisfactory metaphor, at least.

And look, most Christians could not be my friends. Hell, I am a pagan. On the other hand athiests and agnostics are quite happy to have me around. They see me as deluded, and they are surprised that my delusion does not seem to affect my intelligence or opinions about other areas of life, but they do not see me as evil. And that is just peachy.

I do think they just can't help themselves when it comes to occasional 'conversion' concersations.

 

[Grantywanty]

And if it should be wrong, and God will smite me, either now or some time later? I seem to be unable to shake that fear.

I think the best thing for me to say here is that if that is a God, it is not a loving God, it is not God the father, because fathers should not act like that, and I will stand up to that God whatever that means. If I cannot trust my basic gut sense of what love is, well, in the end that is God's fault, he made me. So he will have to live with the consequences of that.

If I cannot trust my gut sense about something so basic, why should I trust some voice in my head that tells me I am evil. YOu see what I mean.

And by the way, I really doubt you will somehow go, Yeah, dat guy is right. And leap out bed and not be bothered by this dilemma.

I'm actually on mandatory rest now from my sports exercises, because I overdid it and my legs hurt badly. For the recent couple of months, I was often overwhelmed by thoughts of God, tensed up a lot, and it affected my exercising, especially the running. Running while psychologically tense is very bad for muscles, joints and bones, at least for me.
Now, I'm not saying that this is God smiting me. But I'm saying that the situation is serious.

It is amazing how much treating ourselves as shit is embedded in so much of what passes for the word of God. (or the Buddha or Vishnu and so on)

I wouldn't say I think it is mine. What I consider as mine is my not having a way to leave agnosticism behind.

And there is a set of thoughts holding that in place and there is terror that makes it seem like survival loss if you stop believing those thoughts. I am not sure what the distinction you are making here. It is almost like saying you don't believe in agnosticism, but it is the island you swam to not to drown. Whatever the case you are left with a set of thoughts about reality and what can be known and what is safe and what is loving and good and so on. I realize it is a mishmosh of various paradigms. You are afraid if you had other thoughts in your head - and god forbid actually felt good about yourself - you would soon find your head on the chopping block. This is the result of conditioning.

My point was primarily that you look at what might end up being your belief and say what if that is just conditioning. Well, you are already conditioned. If you really have no mechanism for knowing what is you and yours you would not be in the predicament you are in. You are in that predicament because your gut tells you that Christianity, at least as it has been around you, is not what you want. It took unraveling of conditioning to get you where you are. Your problem is that you can feel the difference, but you are not sure if this makes you evil. If being yourself is evil.

Who made you Greenberg?
You said the only things you are sure of are around your body?
Why would God have given you a body that you are sure of only to tell you that its urges and emotions are evil?
How did he expect you to make decisions, to decide whether his voice was his voice or Satan's?
With your thoughts?
That's a joke
Thoughts are the most conditioned things. We have had thoughts jammed in our heads from the moment we are born.
And thoughts for an against on any issue look just the same on the page.
We can only make decisions based on how those thoughts feel.

 

[Enmos]

I guess I was reacting from online experience. I don't know who 'started it' but I find threads with a great deal of mockery and insults and condescension from the athiest side. Athiests I have known personally don't have the monotheist type interventions, but there is this 'open minded questioning' that starts up and can begin sounding like curiosity and usually ends up as a debate to disprove. Atheists I know are good people or I wouldn't hang out with them and there are many. So this is not filled with the mocking or sarcasm I find on the net. Not at all. But I certainly do feel like they are trying to erode my beliefs. Athiests tend to think of athiesm as a stance that refuses to have a specific belief. So conversion is not the same as between religions. Nevertheless if you try to erode a belief into not being there, and this would shift the other person's beliefs to looking a lot more like your own set of beliefs, well, I think conversion is a satisfactory metaphor, at least.

And look, most Christians could not be my friends. Hell, I am a pagan. On the other hand athiests and agnostics are quite happy to have me around. They see me as deluded, and they are surprised that my delusion does not seem to affect my intelligence or opinions about other areas of life, but they do not see me as evil. And that is just peachy.

I do think they just can't help themselves when it comes to occasional 'conversion' concersations.

I don't think they are purposely out to erode your beliefs. I think it's more like surprise at how you can belief in certain things, they want to know why you can and do belief that.
So it's mainly genuine interest and surprise. But more often than not theists take atheists inquiries as insults or mockery and react bitchy. That's when things can get nasty.

 

[(Q)]

If I knew, it would not be belief.

Lets just say it makes no sense to me that everything is a random occurrence, when everything is under such precise control.

Only we are so used to the everyday-ness of the control, we never question it.

So, which is reality, randomly occurring or precisely controlled? You obviously can't have both.

Of course, the consequences of reality being precisely controlled are not in your favor to explain away without magic as your guide.

 

[S.A.M.]

So, which is reality, randomly occurring or precisely controlled? You obviously can't have both.

Of course, the consequences of reality being precisely controlled are not in your favor to explain away without magic as your guide.

I'm talking about the boundaries within which we all must function, which includes the animate and inanimate. Not destiny.

 

[(Q)]

Hi,

I'm redarmy11 and I'm a cowardly, fence-sitting agnostic. I is feeling left out.

Theists: show me the Light and the Way.
Atheists: convert me to the Dark Side.

Go.

P. S. You are all mad.

Do you believe in magic?

 

[(Q)]

I'm talking about the boundaries within which we all must function, which includes the animate and inanimate. Not destiny.

See, I told you there's no way to explain it.

 

[Grantywanty]

See, I told you there's no way to explain it.

Here's a few others that are just as unlikely to be explained:
self
identity
love
freedom
cause

 

[Grantywanty]

I don't think they are purposely out to erode your beliefs. I think it's more like surprise at how you can belief in certain things, they want to know why you can and do belief that.
So it's mainly genuine interest and surprise. But more often than not theists take atheists inquiries as insults or mockery and react bitchy. That's when things can get nasty.

I don't think this latter descripton fits even the posts here at SCIF, but from my experience on a wide variety of forums your generalization does not fit. Athiests come out swinging just as much as thiests and on one website specifically designed for a dialogue between christians the christians tend to be much more polite.

I have sympathy for anger directed at the institution of the church and for people who never seem(ed) to notice all the problems with it, but I can only repeat it is not my experience that online atheists are curious and polite and only lash back.

As far as my friends I think you may be right about the first few seconds of the discussion, but it shifts into 'proving' my beliefs are irrational. I've gotten very much better at just hitting a tangent at that point, taking the conversation somewhere else.

 

[(Q)]

Here's a few others that are just as unlikely to be explained:
self
identity
love
freedom
cause

Huh? What are you talking about? Why can't they be explained, or does that refer to you only?