What interactions with theists say about God
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
signal, why does religion bother you much? why are you restless being an agnostic?
all other athiests/agnostics here are happy being so and only discuss religions as external subjects, you seem personally interested, and you've been intensely interested for a loooong time, you didn't give up yet?
all other athiests/agnostics here are happy being so and only discuss religions as external subjects, you seem personally interested, and you've been intensely interested for a loooong time, you didn't give up yet?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Because you really didn't tell us a lot about God.
it's as if he/she wants to believe in a god but doesn't know how to get there because there is no objective proof.
it's rather easy though. you can take it from the point of belief or faith with the understanding that there is no proof or disproof.
then there is the choices of different gods, religions or philosophies. that would just be up to personal taste and values. you can even form your own ideas or concepts of what a creator is or might be. you don't even have to rely on what someone else thinks god is which is what already formed religion really is.
Apparently, it is in my nature.
At this forum, there have been several discussions that agnosticism is an inherently stressful state to be.
There are even biographical books written on this topic:
Spiritual Envy: Michael Krasny’s Agnostic Quest,
another source on this book.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
For example, Michael Krasny hasn't given up either.
In my experience, it doesn't work that way.
Matters of God are on principle too important and too all-encompassing to be approached in a manner that may be suitable for choosing a spouse or a job offer.
This is a science-oriented discussion forum.
Your stating that you are an authoritative representative of God does not count for much in a science-oriented discussion forum.
In a science-oriented discussion forum, people ask questions and give replies. The norm is to probe the replies in numerous ways. The norm is not to just accept as final any reply anyone makes.
This is a science-oriented discussion forum. It's not CARM. It's not some other religion forum. It's not a private meeting place for friends. It's not a church, not a temple, not a synagogue, not an ashram, nor the private office of one's spiritual teacher.
The rules of engagement in a science-oriented discussion forum are different than in those places.
He doesn't seem to be responsible for that. The only evidence for God is within the heads of religious people, and that applies to all conceptions of supernatural beings, so they can't all be true.
Come on now.
I think it would be useful if you took a course in assertiveness.
Your communication style, especially in regards to theistic discussion, has often been of the aggressive kind. Aggressive is not assertive.
There's a difference between saying - or thinking -
You're an idiot and a liar
and
When you question my experiences with God, I feel hurt.
Except the possessor of said feeling, talk, or experience.
Which is what I've said about spirituality, it really is personal.
Which makes it uninformed by anything external.
It also occurs on and as the "second story", above the first floor of neurology, so it is really twice removed.
Sensation, sensation, sensation.
birch, signal, if that's the case, then you're going around in circles here, take a one year sabbatical from work, rent a cottage in greenland or even the arctic, and take a ton of books with you about every religion, wasting your time here with us and wikipedia and websites isn't gonna get you anywhere.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Yes, you've told us all that. Nothing in there about God really.
And.. sorry you feel that way..
If what you are actually trying to communicate something like
"I am really uncomfortable seeing Signal (and others) posting about religious/spiritual problems. I don't like that they do that. It gets me to question my own spiritual/religious stances and I don't like that."
or
"I am concerned about Signal's (and others') spiritual/religious wellbeing."
then you should say so straightforwardly.
The we could talk.
But if you set yourself up as the judge of what "gets people somewhere" in terms of spirituality/religion and what doesn't, and expect us to abide by your judgment - then you should also expect at least an absence of compliance.
If spirituality/religion really would be as simple as you describe, don't you think more people would do it, and have success with the process you describe?
And do you think that the only reason why people don't "take a one year sabbatical from work, rent a cottage in greenland or even the arctic, and take a ton of books with them about every religion" is because they are evil, or trolls, or lazy or somesuch?
You could simply first ask me what I get from posting here, how my life has been going, what my aims are and so on.
Then we could talk.
If you simply want the upper hand: then we cannot talk.
Lori_7,
This is the reaction they want.
It justifies their denial.
Don't give them the satisfaction. Stick around.
Talk about God more.
jan.
This is the reaction they want.
It justifies their denial.
Don't give them the satisfaction. Stick around.
Talk about God more.
jan.
What do you base this statement on?
Are you an official representative of God who can unilaterally obligate other people, in matters of God?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I'm not Signal and can't answer for her. But it is an interesting question.
Comparing me and Signal, I think that we are both alike in being agnostics. Where we seem to differ is that I'm an atheist as well as an agnostic, while I don't think that Signal is.
In other words, both Signal and I seem to share the epistemological view that we don't currently have knowledge of God. But I go further than Signal in being reasonably confident in the view that nothing exists in reality that clearly corresponds to the word 'God'.
Signal, on the other hand, seems to think that God does exist, or at least thinks that there's a very good likelihood that God might.
(I might be mistaken about that, and if so, Signal can correct me.)
Epistemological-agnostics/ontological-atheists probably can find rest a lot more easily than epistemological-agnostics/ontological-theists.
But maybe not always.
We have the spectacle right here on Sciforums of atheists who just viscerally hate what they call "religion". They aren't in a state of rest at all, they are in a state of great agitation. I'm still not sure what accounts for that.
Of course, some of our atheists are epistemological-gnostics/ontological-atheists. They think that they actually do know that God doesn't exist. Some think that they can even prove it. It isn't just that they lack concrete belief in things that they have no way of knowing.
And there's me. I'm very much a seeker and have been all my life. But if I'm reasonably confident that God doesn't exist, then what in the world am I seeking? I think that the answer to that one is fairly similar to the answer that Rav might give. While I'm an atheist with regards to the 'God(s)' of the various human religions, I do feel the reality of some kind of transcendence. It's just that I don't personalize it and tend to think of it more as 'the unknown'.
I think that kind of feeling is common among scientists, even those who are ostensibly atheists, and it's often one of the things that attracted them to science in the first place. (Think of Carl Sagan reverently intoning "Billions and Billions..." on his old 'Cosmos' TV series almost as if it was his astronomical prayer...)
the bottomline is we all need a sense of meaning in our lives or to our lives. some people may find it in religion, some in their particular hobbies, some in career, some in research, some in family/children/relationships, some in artistic endeavors etc. whatever floats your boat.
that said, it doesn't mean though that discussions about the 'actual' existence of a god is going to just by accepted as a fact. it's one of those things that is a faith and some religious texts are just plain nuts to take literally but not all of them.
that said, it doesn't mean though that discussions about the 'actual' existence of a god is going to just by accepted as a fact. it's one of those things that is a faith and some religious texts are just plain nuts to take literally but not all of them.
I am sure that God exists - I just don't know who or what God is, what exactly God's existence is about or how it can be known.
I believe that everything people have words for (including God) exists; but it's not clear to me how these things exist, and how they can be known.
This is my version of agnosticism: I allow for all kinds of things.
Perhaps some of those atheists are merely being defensive to the contempt they get from theists.