atheism vs. agnosticism

The difference between an agnostic and an atheist is the difference between saying "I do not believe God exists" and "I don't know if God exists".

I find devotion / divinity very interesting on many levels. I was raised by an atheist and a lapsed Catholic (who may as well have been an atheist too, or at least a pagan) and, while I remain unsure of ANYthing of this magnitude, I certainly don't identify myself as either.

As for "agnosticism", to me this has a fairly convoluted meaning. I will try to paraphrase the definition that I have heard most often for it: "someone who believes that it is impossible to know whether or not there is a god so they choose to live as if there is not". Now if this is really what agnostics believe, then I think they are indulging in a bit of a cop-out. After all, on what basis do they choose to act as if there is no god. If they are really so neutral on the question of god's existence, couldn't they just as rationally choose to live as if there is a god? I mean if you have zero evidence either way, then really you should flip a coin to decide which way to go, right? But I've never heard of an agnostic who chooses to live as if there is a god. Therefore, what I conclude is that an "agnostic" is really just an "atheist" who doesn't want to fess up to it.

xpost - darn, I took too long!

I am a theist, so get that out there before I start - I'm not a Christian though. The problem is one of definition; no definition is right, but awareness of what people will think when you use a phrase (see: people who say they are 'satanists' and that all that means is a kind of nature worship - they have to understand what that word means to Christians). An atheist is traditionally, and I think most accurately, taken to mean a person who says "There is no God". It is a knowledge claim. Agnosticism would be a claim of no knowledge, quite literally. An agnostic could be a person who says "I believe there is [probably?] no God". They could have a variety of beliefs about God really, but I think that is the most common; that there is no way to know if God exists or not, but on balance...something or other.

I personally feel that atheism as I defined it is a philosophical fallacy, as an almighty being could hide his existence in any way, so claiming that there is no God, or that God is impossible, is not tenable. Of course, if someone wishes to use atheist to mean what I classify as agnostic ie "I believe there is no God" that's fine, as long as they are aware of the history of atheism, both as a word and an idea, and that it has had a different meaning in the past.

None of this is a problem - none of us believe the same thing about anything, so classification like this is always a clumsy tool.

Hi! (This is more because I identify Christianity as the basis of my morals than it is that I am afraid of going to Hell; I also attend church regularly, even if it is as a staff member.)

xposts

(People who claim "but there's no scientific proof of God's existence" hold no sway with me, as the very concept of God is a nonrational one -- by which I mean not "irrational," but "fundamentally incapable of being understood via rational thought," which isn't a value-judgment.)

This is another statement that I've heard many times that baffles me. How can an agnostic be so sure that it's impossible to know whether a god exists? Now I'm an atheist, but not even I would claim that it is impossible to know whether a god exists. How could I know that, unless I had considered all of the potential evidence, which means that I would have had to travel infinitely far across space and time?

I think bringing the whole "belief" vs. "knowledge" distinction into this is a red herring. Of course, any who claims to "know" that which they only "believe" is a crank. I think all of these terms - atheist, agnostic, theist - are about what someone believes.

I agree, but I think there are plenty of theists and atheists who will disagree with you pretty strongly about this.

(xpost: If God exists, it is reasonable to assume that God does so on a plane of existence so far removed from our own as to be unknowable. Furthermore, a being with the capabilities ascribed to God would by definition be inscrutable and unknowable to humanity. Ergo, it is pointless to worry about whether God exists or not because if God is there you can't prove it.)

But if God really has the omnipotent powers ascribed to him, wouldn't he also have the power to make his existence manifest to us mortals?

Also, I think I act basically in accordance with the Golden Rule, but it isn't with any sort of appeal to a higher power in mind -- I just think the world functions better that way.

Well, certainty is a claim that what you believe cannot be wrong, and there are things like this. Belief is more like weighing up the odds - belief is more difficult, because people use it in odd ways, such as when people say they believe in God. A fair number of people who make that claim would say that they know God exists, but 'belief' is part of religious language.

Yes, but that doesn't mean He'd want to.

This just means his existence, if he does exist, could be proved by him, not that his existence is provable by us. It's the postulate made to deny the possibility of disproof.

Lately, I've settled on just calling myself curious. I believe there is an awful lot we do not know about the universe, ourselves and the relation between the two. In some ways, you have to be a fool not to believe that (dark matter? dark energy? there's a whole lot of things going on all around us that we are unaware of and unable to explain). At the same time, I don't believe there are obvious limits on our knowledge -- we know much more now than we did 500 years ago, and 500 or a thousand years from now, we'll presumably know much more still. I think scientific and spiritual exploration at their best and most insightful are both pursuing a lot of the same questions, through different prisms.

So, I don't believe in God or Allah or Vishnu or whatever in any of the cartoonish guises generally ascribed to them. Obviously organized religion has always been mostly about politics and power, and will continue to be. But most of the great religions have also produced visionaries and teachers who in their own ways have understood aspects of existence as significant as the great scientists, and I don't dismiss them out of hand. I don't have to think they're divine to respect their human wisdom.

I had a long response to this that involved me making up a lot of plausible-sounding stuff, but I don't need to post it. All I need to post is that I identify myself as an agnostic; that is what I feel most comfortable calling myself regardless of how it appears to others (and I can't tell you how many people assume I am a hyper-devoout Christian because I sing in a church choir, so the pendulum does swing both ways).

Me too.

I don't get that. If I identify as an agnostic, it's because I have trouble making any sort of leap of faith altogether.

I am an atheist. I say atheist rather than agnostic because making the "I'm an agnostic" move in a conversation with a religious believer tends to leave open a kind of hovering sense on their part that I might potentially grant the existence of their deity of choice, if only the right circumstances, experiences, events etc. were to come into my path. Identifying myself as an atheist doesn't seem to place me as readily into the "potential convert" category. Not that all believers have designs on me by any means. But I find 'atheist' is just clearer as a conversational move, because "agnostic" gives more ground than would be honest about my position/experience.

I was raised in a 50/50 Jewish/Episcopalian home.

But I see the rational proof angle come up far more as a defense against believers, specifically believers who choose to assert their God and religious teachings as fact or convert them into law or cultural practice If a believer chooses to bring his or her faith into the realm of man, then it should have to withstand the same arguments as anything else.

Nor do I think that a non-believer is required to show any respect for a believer's faith simply because it exists. If I'm not going to write a blank check to those who believe in psychics or the Greek pantheon a break, I see no reason to privilege Islamic or Christian (et al.) belief.

I'd fall under weak atheist or agnostic, but my favorite statement on God is from Down and Out in Paris and London. "He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does
not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."

Well, you can't really argue with that logic.

*BAD METAPHOR ALERT*

But you have to leap one way or the other eventually - otherwise you'll fall in the crevice.

Seriously though, in my own mental life, I don't find it possible to live permanently in this sort of state of suspended decision. I call myself an atheist because I believe that there are rational reasons to say that there is no god, and I have decided that the evidence supports that conclusion, at least to my own satisfaction. If I am presented with evidence in the other direction, then I reserve the right to reconsider, but at this point in my life, I don't believe in a god. I believe that statement accurately describes my mental outlook. To me an agnostic sounds like someone who thinks it doesn't matter whether or not there is a god, and I don't think there's a good rational basis for the belief that the existence of a god (so far undefined) wouldn't matter.

(In case it wasn't clear, this referred to my own following sentence, not to the original post.)

I called myself an atheist in high school after my brother died. I remained an atheist until entering college, at which point I again began attending church regularly, this time as a paid member of the choir. Four years of church (and, more importantly, interaction with people who did not fit my stereotype of "the typical Christian"; funnily enough once I started getting to know people it became harder and harder to tar them all with the "deluded loony" caricature) mellowed me a lot to the basic teachings of Christianity; exposure to tons and tons of breathtaking sacred music made me wonder if there wasn't actually something to the concept of "divine inspiration".

I've now been singing in various churches since 1991 (with a three-year break during which I focused on drinking heavily on Saturday nights); I spend more time in church than my parents do, yet they still consider themselves Christian and I still consider myself agnostic.

This is entirely dependent on how important it is to you to answer the question "Is there a God?" I could very well be wrong but I do not expect God to knock on my door and chastise me for not believing, ergo I don't feel any pressing need to worry about God's existence.

Well, this raises the whole question of what is the standard of proof. There are various standards of proof, and most of the beliefs that we act on every day would not meet the most stringent of these standards.

I suspect that the reasons you have for not expecting God to knock on your door are much the same reasons that I have for not believing in God at all.

i think that's more how less how i actually see it myself. i definitely do not believe in a theistic god.

i'm not sure if i've ever truly believed in god. i guess i sort of did as a little kid. but that's because i was dragged to church (sometimes literally, I have ALWAYS hated church) as a tyke. i have never liked piety or pious people as result of that.

that said, i am certainly not a hardcore materialist/rationalist either. i have experienced things (of a very personal nature) which have given me reason to doubt that view of the world. i don't think all things that seem "irrational" should be rejected out of hand.

still, i generally prefer that sort of worldview (i.e. based on rationality) to that of a theistic one. its more productive for human rights and equality.

Me too, but saying "I don't know" doesn't tell the whole story. I lean towards thinking there is no god, or at least there is no entity that fits within the generally understood conception of "God". But I'm not at all certain, and if I were made aware of contrary evidence, I wouldn't hesitate to alter my suspicions.

I don't think there's a good rational basis for the belief that the existence of a god (so far undefined) wouldn't matter.

Do you mean that if god made itself known, it would affect everyone's lives? Or that the very possiblilty of it existing or not existing affects lives?

still, i generally prefer that sort of worldview (i.e. based on rationality) to that of a theistic one. its more productive for human rights and equality.

Rationalism is not necessarily diametrically opposed to theism; in many ways it is based in it. Read up on this guy:

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/portrait/nietzsche.jpg

jaymc OTM; asking for a rational proof of God's existence rather spectacularly misses the point of faith.

That's why people have a problem with faith in the first place.

Hey - you don't have to believe in God to go to church!

http://www.uua.org/

wouldn't a lot of (most?) religious people say "he" does?

But I've never heard of an agnostic who chooses to live as if there is a god.

welcome to post-modernism. you can challenge the belief or status of someone who fits this description, but I'll bet there are a lot of people who do.

HAHAHAHAHA I now sing at a UU church! Of course they're more Episcopalian than most Episcopalian churches but that's another debate for later.

I'm trying, because just trying to rationalize God's existence isn't getting me anywhere, but it's not really working. I just sort of figure, "go to church, study the bible, pray, be as good as you can, and if it's meant to work out it will, and if it doesn't it won't but you didn't do yourself any harm (except it'll be a little embarrassing)." Why? Because I like Christianity. I think it's pretty gorgeous and spectacular.

I can't think of a concept of God that really makes sense with the universe outside of me, though, it's all too anthropomorphic and then if you get away from that all you can say are negative things: God is not this, not that....well what is God then? So I refer to myself as an atheist sometimes, when I'm feeling like "oh I really don't believe and that's that," and an agnostic, when I don't want to sound shut off from new ideas.

As fully rational arguments or what Kant would call “pure reason”, the proofs of God we often hear from theists are in my opinion invalid. They are certainly persuasive and reasonable but only if we accept certain emotional posits. You can argue that all proofs require a “leap of faith” and to a certain extent I agree .Belief in science alone isnt for me though.

Science itself is never certain of anything and its methodology is flawed and biased in too many ways to explain beyond the obvious points- we all view the colours, shapes etc etc slightly differently and everything we observe is relative not only to time and space but also the conclusions we draw are influenced and biased by prior beliefs and references.

For those with little experience in science a key point to understand is that from a scientific viewpoint for a “proof” to be “valid” it must be open to being falsified (proven wrong), otherwise it becomes what Popper would call “ultra stable”. The structure of an ultra stable theory is such that it cannot be disproven under any circumstances and (according to the scientific or positivist mentality), not worthy of consideration and more than likely false (eg the belief in God …unicorns …the tooth fairy etc etc).
A scientific theory will always be considered, at most, 'highly likely' based on the available evidence. This apparent weakness, is of course science’s greatest strength- enabling theories to be adapted and even abandoned when “more likely” evidence is presented.

To me the question of "why be moral" is something atheists cannot answer, anything goes, so to speak . Moral laws, which I believe are written on our hearts tell our conscience what we OUGHT to do and what we should not do. Clearly many men do not obey these laws . SO we have facts(how men behave) and we also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe and science there need not be anything but facts. Electrons behave in a certain way and certain results follow . End of story. But if a man behaves in an evil way and the result is the killing of an innocent person , it is not the end of it for we all know they “ought” to have behaved differently.

I agree with the assertion that belief in God cannot be achieved as a conclusion to a logical proof,certainly I believe that through resaon we can disciver God but an attempt to “prove God” is to my mind an irrational goal.

Atheism, and faith in science alone will always be an entirely inadequate view of reality for me. SCience's cold "Life just is" view just doesnt fit with me and the reality of world I know. I cannot accept a world where the soul, spirit, self, and sacred have no meaning. A world where man cannot even know himself beyond what he can empirically measure and weigh! A world where there is no objective sense of good , no evil, a world where there is no beauty, no justice, no cruelty, no love, no truth. Consequently for me at least atheism turns out to be too simple.If the whole universe has no meaning , we should never have found out that it has no meaning!

Peace!

Why?

The antipathy against religion thing: I think that can be the case - I'm always slightly wary when someone describes themselves as an atheist (especially withour prompting), it's perhaps unfair, but I don't tend to judge negatively until I get a better feel for their character. It's just that too many boring conversations with more militant atheists puts you off the idea - listening to half understoond marxism about how religion opresses people, or complaining that religion is responsible for all evil in the world etc.

I had the same experience in college; one of my best friends was a huge Kierkegaard fan who dreamed of either becoming a minister or a cinematographer. When I had conversations with him about religion, compared to the lockstep conservative Christians I tussled with in high school, I could no longer "win" the argument, since he was so smart and philosophical about the whole subject. It definitely opened me up more to the possibility of a spiritual dimension than I was willing to concede previously.

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Hi Maria

Well i dont think Gods outside of it at all, indeed I think God is in everyone but certainly caring for others makes for a better world no argumet there.Is just that isnt truth beauty love etc etc are all subjective and relative and as such meaningless concepts without an objective moral guidleine. J.L. Mackie, an atheist and respected philosopher, provides a devastating argument for why, if there is no God, we can have no obligation to be moral.

Pol Pot, Hitler, STalin,Mao great recent compassionate examples of atheists, joking joking. On the subject of tyrants I cant resist Lewis again "How monotonous all the great tyrants and conquerors have been:
how gloriously different the saints."

Peace!

He also liked to speak in a cryptic made-up language that was link a fully-exemporized slang; he would make up words for people and things constantly and drop them into conversation without context. The best example of this was the time when, in reference to my parents, he asked me, "So, how are Chaga and Figo?" and, despite never having heard my parents referred to in that manner before, I knew which one was Chaga and which one was Figo. He also spent a year talking exlcusively like a pastiche of Dana Carvey's most famous SNL characters/impressions (I loved being in classes with him).

Because I think it's culturally and spiritually useful to have a religion, I identify as Christian -- a lot of people who loved and cared about me spent a lot of effort trying to drum some Christian morality into my young heart, and I haven't yet come up with any overwhelming reason to discard that. In terms of actual, interior, pit-of-my-soul BELIEF, I lean closer to agnosticism. Does it go without saying that I attend a UU church?

I say I'm an agnostic, because I'm not sure if there is anything 'more' beyond life, I wouldn't mind if there was.

Dan & jaymc - I had the same experience last year. In high school I was like "meh I'm agnostic but I don't know what to do to really think about God so I'll wait until I have better time and resources in college," not expecting to actually DO so. And then I get assigned a roommate who is one of the nicest, smartest people I've met, who has an amazing and deep sense of beauty and who doesn't blow off questions like "how can all suffering possibly be for a greater good?" as just a lack of faith...so, oops, those midnight conversations sort of DID change my view of Christianity. It's a little jarring, though, how so many of the Christians I know here often have the same sorts of doubts I do even though they believe in God...it's like "whoa is there EVER a resolution if you're honest with yourself?"

near as i can tell, they're just agnostics who go to church about it!

I went to a Dominican high school, where we were taught this. The Dominicans are kind of weird - I mean, they pretty much showed me the path to agnosticism.

[T]he sacred orgasm is your Divine Right. Your beautiful bodies were designed for this in order to attract evolving souls into your plane, third dimensional planet Earth. The reptilian-based tyrants have kept you from this knowledge. They have imprisoned you in guilt and shame; you are ashamed of your bodies which are works of art.

They think after God, starting from the death of God without caring about what might mean the death of God, it's "existence", if it still exists; the tranquil atheist doesn't care about this kind of questions.

Deleuze explains it's less caring about a static negation or a fight against God than a dynamic method emerging on a positive proposition aiming at building after the fight.

OTM

This guy embodies surreal silliness.

Touche Daniel !

THe self is never an illusion eh, your gestures are all original! Immortality beckons!

To cite CS Lewis again: "Doubts are the ants in the pants of Faith".

As I said, I liked the bits about the development of the Christ 'myth' and I think they are pretty strong - the medieval insistance on Christ having a virgin birth is a good example of how changing social attitudes affect these characters. I didn't want to post on your thread either, like how you don't want to step on a fresh snowfall - it's very cool.

I left that out, because it was boring (altho I talked about elsewhere on that board: it's about copyright), but nice calling me on it: you read carefully.
the argument to explain these 'mentionnings' : copysts. A text lacked a little bit of text? they add it! tacitus doesn'T mention jesus: now, that's not very nice of him isn'it? let's correct tacitus then! let's correct flavius joseph by adding a sentense about jésus. no copyright then... not very honest one might say, but as I said they were in performative logic of truth building.

Since Dan denies that any person could be intrinsically good or evil, how does his attributed emotion of "hate" make sense?

Not on external grounds. And Steve's blog doesn’t regard it's use of schizophrenia as being confused with MPD.

Well alright then.

(these are the slowest animated gifs ever)

Woah, somebody doesn't understand spacial relations. That inverter be fucked up, man.

This is rather simplistic, but it doesn't have congruent reasoning. I am so confused.

In most cases, the rejection of the Creator does not result from logical conclusions. The average atheist, if he or she is honest, will cite an emotional motivation for lack of faith in God.

The late Isaac Asimov once wrote: “Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” Now that Mr. Asimov is dead, I suspect he wishes he would have invested time into proving the existence of God.

Most people who do not think God exists betray their stance by arguing with Him. If God is not real, there is no need to be hostile toward Him or toward anyone who believes in Him.

HAHA - letter to the editor troll

A CORNUCOPIA OF THEOLOGICAL DELIGHTS

yeah meh! zombie rooster in their sauce = ultimate jesus power!

-- Sébastien Chikara (sebastie...), November 1st, 2004.

I can't understand this line of thinking, that you might as well believe in god because not the alternative can be a bit depressing. Doesn't really seem like faith to me, more like not wanting to accept the alternative might be true.

HEY THIS IS GOD STOP TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME. ANY OF YOU GUYS HAVE AN OINK INVITE THX

oh look, on the back it lists some CICCU lectures.

Christianity: Intolerant, Arrogant...True?
Loving God, Broken World: Has God Lost Control?
Can I Trust The Bible?

ARGH DIE

Just in terms of ordinary logic, it is not possible to prove the non-existance of something, unless its presence is required to be in an observable location at a specific time. For example, you could propose the existance of a [insert preposterous item here] in another galaxy and there would be no way to produce evidence proving you wrong. One can only prove it is not [I point to a spot] there, right now.

OTOH, proving existance should be much simpler according to normal logic: point to irrefutable evidence of something creating an observable displacement in space at some time; mission accomplished!

However, God is a special case, in that God's proposed existance is not simply extra-terrestrial, but extra-universal. As creatures who must exist within the universe, our ability to produce evidence of something outside the universe is rather in doubt. Any effect within the universe that God might achieve could only prove something about the nature of the universe, but must logically be inconclusive about the nature of God. Put simply, from our vantage point within the universe, God cannot effectively be distinguished from it.

When it comes to proof of God one is always caught between these two stools. Therefore, 'agnostic' is the only word that describes our state of knowledge. By contrast, 'atheist' is the description of a belief.

Examining my own beliefs, I would have to say I do not act as if I believe God exists. Nor do I act as if I bleieve God does not exist. I act as if God's existance were irrelevant.

because of my huge background in the Christian church, and because I enjoy rituals, and singing, I like going to church. When friends question their lack of religion, or lack of care about it, I say "I consider myself someone who has faith." My faith may be that the choir is all going to be on key for whatever particular Sunday I decide to go to services. (I also don't go to just one church - but I haven't strayed far from Christianity in my choices. Comfort zone!)

I am a person who has faith.
My father was a minister, and his favorite hymns and scriptures were so earthbound: "For The Beauty Of The Earth" and "This is the day which the Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it."
I still don't understand the trinity, but I like not knowing what I don't know when my idiocy is embraced through the community of church.
My brother is getting a dual degree from the school of sacred music and the divinity school at Yale. He has been amazing in understanding my thoughts and doubts, and if he wasn't going to be a priest I would assume he would be a philosopher/agnostic. (He's also a concert pianist, so he had a few career choices).
He agrees with my reluctance to identify myself as one thing or another - and supports my "shopping" (my term) amongst churches. And houses of faith, I suppose, since I have been to temple and to a quaker meeting.
So that's my rant, and since I read the entire thread I get to rant!!

I like church but I don't know if I believe in God.
I like Jesus but I don't know if I want to base my faith around him.
I like faith, and having faith creates more doubts than I would have if i were just a tiny bit less sensitive.

Ergo, I wish I was an atheist! I'm not strong enough to reject faith. And I'm glad I have other strengths. Including the strength to know the difference.

Thanks for making super bowl Sunday way more interesting for me!

made me think of _ sound the trumpet_ by purcell

"Sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet!
Sound, sound, sound the trumpet till around
You make the list'ning shores rebound.
On the sprightly hautboy
All the instruments of joy
That skillful numbers can employ,
To celebrate the glories of this day."

I don't think I have heard the song you mentioned but that quote made me think there was a similar feeling there yet fortunately purcell's don't mention no god invention thing, :)

Me too. Very much. I think there are some forms of agnosticism I will never get rid of, perhaps even the big kind emotionally, but that's ok.

(And I don't think I have faith, but I have commitment, and hope, which have to count for something, right? The plan is to follow that "seek and you shall find" advice/promise. I'll just keep seeking and seeking and someday I'll notice that I have found, and then I'll have faith. I realize that that sounds really sad in some ways, but it's what I have to work with, and it's more hopeful than waiting around.)

I think my father's love for "For The Beauty of The Earth" might be more pastoral?
For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies
Lord of all for these we raise
This our hymn of faithful praise.

I probably shouldn't be posting that on this thread!

Commitment and hope are the backbone of faith. And i think you can be agnostic - and atheist - and still have faith.
My faith is often described well by very simple things.
I don't know about the seeking and finding part. I think it's within you. Literally, you. Seeking and finding is wonderful, too! Don't get me wrong!

You might have to wait around...I'm pretty old! And faith is not a religion, so there are no guarantees.
I don't seek as much as I find, anymore.
And my faith might be entirely based on coincidences.

How Would Purcell Feel?

Ever heard of Occam's razor? Or burden of proof? I don't think god exists for the same reason I don't think ghosts, leprechauns, spirits or Smurfs exist. Given what we know about the world it's highly unlikely any of them are real, and that's a pretty logical to me. There are few absolute facts to base rational thinking on, so we have to deal with probabilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos&feature=relmfu

I liked this, kinda made me change my mind on this whole issue. "Agnostic separates me from the conduct of atheists...and at the end of the day, I'd rather not be any category at all."

Is there a term for both believing in God and not believing in God at the same time?

capitalist roader?

agnivalence

quantum theism

you know this guy has a grade A scientist's waistcoat on under that suit, i just can't see the details

ty for the video, crabbits, that was interesting; i was kinda thrown by him following "labels are reductive" with "but if i HAD to pick one", but i guess agnostic is inherently more open, like it's in a different tense.

yeah I think I'm going to steal his semi-label and his rationale
I always think of the Roger Ebert blog where he said he tried an AA meeting for atheists but all the people wanted to talk about in it was God
I like hearing people's thoughts and feelings about God, faith, etc, but believers are the only ones with anything interesting to say

A friend of mine from high school has very much devoted his life to "glorifying God" and he's been hitting me up on facebook a lot lately to ask for my thoughts on the subject he teaches each week in an apologetics class. They're genuine two-way talks with a lot of just listening to each other as human beings. He doesn't treat talking to me like he's getting some "outsider perspective" and I try not to do that to him, either. God's really important to him but he's sweet about it and not trying to convert me. It's so great! I wish I could have more talks with people like that.

i think you get a bunch of interesting stories about people via 'why are you a lapsed' whatever. also true of lapsed vegetarians. i do find it p strange how synonymous religious belief has become with total mental disconnect, now, to some people. i always figure most people's grandparents were probably religious, & they'd take more understanding attitudes of the fulfilling, often really varied, propulsive role it took in their lives, so it's kinda frustrating to see thought of as a binary arbiter of intelligence or something. xp

He had been talking a TON about evolution, which I obviously 'believe' in because it's a fact, and it would have been very easy for me to jump to a lot of conclusions. But after a lot of talking he said he doesn't disrespect people who think evolution is real, "no one is going to Hell for believing in evolution," he was just afraid it drags some believers away from God. Which was a surprise to me – and how dumb is it that it was a surprise to me, I was being really presumptuous.

xp sorry schlump

i think you get a bunch of interesting stories about people via 'why are you a lapsed' whatever.

Yeah v true. I think one of the most intense conversations I ever had was w/my brother, who I love and respect very much, about why I chose to leave the Mormon church. And I had about six reasons, and I explicated a lot on all of them, and he just listened and said he thought he understood. And then he told me for a long time why he still believed, and I just listened, too. And by the end we were both crying so hard, and just talked about how much we loved each other. It was really touching and meant a lot to me.

If either of us went in defensive or got all "you're wrong and here's why," it wouldn't have happened.

ha don't apologise??, none of that was directed at you, you are v thoughtful on this stuff. i just mean that sometimes now i hear things like i couldn't be friends (/lovers, w/e) w/someone who was religious, as if someone couldn't process the profound difference of worldviews between belief systems, which seems kinda restrictive to me, forgets a bunch of commonalities.

in olden days i bet people weren't actually more devout -- where it was more of a wink-wink country club type of thing.

I like how Neil deGrasse Tyson bristles at being labeled and thinks the categories are dumb but then dismisses atheists as in-your-face activists.

well he's buddies with some pretty in-your-face activists, so...

Yeah I guess that was what I liked about going to a Unitarian church – there was this label Unitarian that was so broad an umbrella that you couldn't stereotype much beyond "this person will probably like coffee and jokes about Unitarians." You got to hear a lot of different stories and ideas that way. Other labels are probably like that too but I do rely a lot on shorthand stereotypes, which is unfair but hard to avoid. And my stereotype of big-A atheists is that they are loud in that way.

I had a lot of atheist friends in New Mexico who were really into having meetings, writing blogs, etc about 'religion bad atheism good' and they were always baffled and kind of cranky that I never wanted part of it. I started telling them I was an "apathetist."

yeah, that's lovely. & again i think true more broadly, as a dynamic, that to specifically search out similarities rather than understanding can be kinda superficial, that to try to relate is profound. i sorta- man i wonder if i have tried & failed to articulate this before on here but: i was just reading something that had that emerson line in, "our moods do not believe in each other". sometimes i think that the views non-believers hold of believers' thought processes & logic-systems, & vice versa, misjudge the actual terrain so badly as to stop there being any chance of connecting. like when i was a teenager a major stumbling block to understanding why people believed in god was just insta-verifying bible stories in my head, & wondering how they could believe them. really you believe the world was flooded; really you don't think it was just a parable in the language of the time. but this seemed so obvious to me that i could only really envisage religious people's religious lives being daily routines of thinking about, pledging allegiance to & not getting too concerned about the logical lacunae of bible stories, as if that was the sum total of what religion was, all story no moral. so much atheism seems kinda fussy, & often comes pitched with the righteousness of someone who has personally verified the math behind the big bang theory & has their best men working on theories about the autogenic step.

oh xxxp at Crabbits, Friday, 27 July 2012 01:12
does this look like i am quoting chapter & verse

otm.

As for people reading the Bible (or any religious work) strictly literally, it's effing stupid. Spiritual writing HAS to work on a metaphorical level because what it is describing is beyond logic, beyond human understanding, beyond language. If not, then it's science.

I can't act like I am totally perfect on this, it is one of the reasons my marriage fell apart.

i mean it is complicated, it has the same problems as talking to anyone else who you disagree w/something on, politics or worldview, i am def not perfect because there are disconnects. but i think people having a theoretical opposition to religious belief before they even get close to it is a different thing from trying to relate & failing.

Genuine question, is Jesus rising from the dead a literal truth or a metaphor? And are there any self-confessed agnostics who are on the fence about the truth of that particular matter?

is it a bad question? am i a terrible human for not engaging with believers on their own terms?

The Bible certainly treats Jesus rising from death to walk again on the earth and showing himself to his apostles. complete with stigmata (see doubting Thomas) as a literal truth. Choosing to treat it as a metaphor would place one well outside the mainstram of Christian tradition.

This is a very great hurdle for any agnostics to get across, I am sure. I know it is for me. Rejecting this as a literal truth does not, of course, negate the value of Christianity as a faith. It does mean one rejects one of the core beliefs of Xtianity, tho.

it's both literal and a metaphor, right? that's the genius of christianity, says this non-christian.

I suppose I should have said "solely as a metaphor".

it's bedtime for bonzo a thought before i go: your post suggests agnosticism is more than a simple epistemological issue for you? like it's a political one for degrasse tyson, although i'd be highly surprised if he really entertains any doubts about the impossibility of the resurrection.

but a thought

It's tough to get written evidence of this because it's impolite or something, but I doubt the majority of practicing christians actually believe in the scriptures in a literal sense, at least not all the time, so really i suspect not only is the distinction between agnostic and atheist is a political one, but so is the distinction between agnostic and christian.

"The scriptures" is too loose a term there, ok so young earth creationists are a minority but i think it's absurd to suggest the life of christ, from virgin birth to resurrection, is not absolutely an article of faith for the vast majority of christians.

But we're here to talk about agnosticism, not belief. I think from a purely epistemological perspective the existence of a christian god (and muslim, and jewish, and hindu, and greek, etc etc) can be denied outright. I suspect that the god held in mind by those who claim that agnosticism is the most intellectually honest position is a deist god, a kind of platonic ideal of creator and supreme being untainted by creed or myth. But there are a couple of problems with this.

Firstly the idea of a deist god is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. Are they personal or impersonal? Active or retired (a 'first cause' and no more)? Interested in humanity or not? It seems easier to refuse to commit to belief one way or another in something you can't even define.

Secondly the evidence even for this thin god is just not there. People often cite the 'cosmic coincidences' that make it possible for life to exist but this is just abuse of the anthropic principle. Or there is the vaguer feeling that none of this could have arisen by chance. There are seeds of the argument from first cause and the argument from design there, neither of which is sound.

Ultimately it comes down to the idea that 'we just can't know'. That might be true but in fact there are an infinite number of things that we just can't know, it just so happens that most of them are false. I don't see why god gets a free pass.

"i think it's absurd to suggest the life of christ, from virgin birth to resurrection, is not absolutely an article of faith for the vast majority of christians."

i think there's a mao-thought to it where they both do and do not believe in it, in the same way suspension of disbelief works when you are engaged in a work of fiction. i wonder if there's such a thing as chaos magic christians where they make explicit their simultaneous disbelief and belief.

i wonder if there's such a thing as chaos magic christians where they make explicit their simultaneous disbelief and belief.

Chris Hedges is kind of like that with his own personal orientation to the Christian faith.

my brother just got through Lutheran seminary and says that a lot of the professors/theologeans there (ELCA Lutherans, not Missouri Synod) kind of lean that way as well. like not necessarily always going as far as denying the resurrection, but considering a lot of parts of the Bible - the account of the creation, Jonah, etc, to be metaphorical (it being a moral/spiritual text rather than science or historical), and have doubts on the idea of a transcendant/spectral/disembodied 'soul' due to some of their studies on the idea the soul suggesting it being more of a Greek invention, the Biblical reading, some of them are arguing, more likely to do more with a kind of Self based in a physical, living body (there are debates about that though, my brother suspects it's more to do with a lot of current Lutheran academics wanting to reconcile things with a more rationalist view - the Lutheran clergy tends to be pretty liberal and pro-science)

i'm out of the loop w/all this but tangentially, i think inherit the wind's a really awesome text on the boundaries of interpretation wrt the biblical narrative (just a few passages, re: the world being created in seven days, but it always resonated for me)

i think there's a mao-thought to it where they both do and do not believe in it

Probably more mileage to this than I was prepared to admit tbh. Ok this is a terrible piece for being mean & patronising to the faithful but it still makes a good point I think:
http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Do_believers_really_believe?

the insistence that human existence is meaningless ironically allows for an infinite number of randomly generated universes created of every conceivable type of matter and physics. considering quantum strangeness and commonly accepted things like singularities and multiple universes science has theorized itself into a pop mysticism. if any combination of matter/physics is possible then any conceivable spiritual cosmology (and through it your reality as shaped by the infinite variations of electro/chemical soul process) and because there is no meaning there is no reason why not then ironically you could be living in the supernatural universe where tv evangelists are right.

atheism/agnosticism is not coherent when considering multiple universes, which could simply play out in the infinitely long dice rolls of the Big Bang expanding and collapsing and back and forth. infinite dice rolls allows for every deity imagined by man.

Your conception of a god requires that its characteristics are bound to the universe within which it exists. As I stated in my first post above, a god capable of creating a universe would stand outside it, so by the same token, a god capable of creating an infinity of universes would still be extra-universal. Such a god's essence would not be bound by any universe and would not change within any given universe.

Spiritual cosmology

Electro soul

Cmon now we can all exist in a universe where atheists don't encroach on the spiritual and your lot don't.....do the above

"spiritual cosmology" isn't bullshit, it's just jargon. it's frequently misused, but it does have a specific meaning.

the meaninglessness of human existence is only a tragedy because we ourselves happen to be human. all the infinities you talk about, adam, they will never mean anything to me.

the insistence that human existence is meaningless ironically allows for an infinite number of randomly generated universes created of every conceivable type of matter and physics.

This doesn't make a lick of sense, regardless of what universe you state it in.

"spiritual cosmology" isn't bullshit, it's just jargon. it's frequently misused, but it does have a specific meaning.

'bullshit' has a specific meaning fyi, and it's not 'something that doesn't have a specific meaning'

ironically

HOISTED

Your conception of a god requires that its characteristics are bound to the universe within which it exists.

not at all. why would a God be bound to that which it creates? is there anything man has made that he is subservient to? keep in mind God is incorporal, the source of all forms, He is not contained by any.

As I stated in my first post above, a god capable of creating a universe would stand outside it,

could you repost your reasons why? i don't understand this. the universe is everything material, what is this "outside" you speak of? are you saying God is limited by time and space here?

the insistence that human existence is meaningless ironically allows for an infinite number of randomly generated universes created of every conceivable type of matter and physics.

This doesn't make a lick of sense, regardless of what universe you state it in.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, July 23, 2017 5:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

00 Singularity
10 Big Bang
20 Heat Death/Cold Death
30 GOTO 00

Why would

Lookit

You can't believe in a god and then start asking people why would

Why the fuck would there be a god

Jaysus

The fuckin neck

why is there anything? i dunno, there is. the universe is here. shit just happens. why the fuck not.

I predict great things for this thread

Lookit

Ye fellas get a kick out of this because if ppl bother to argue about yr god I dunno ye get tokens or some shit

I'm wise to ye

The universe conveniently is available to take calls. Your buck isn't. I don't think even you believe that there's a case on an arah why not basis

And even if you do believe the backdoor angelphysics nonsense you typed without tittering upthread

btw ppl who try that, godscience etc, should be made profess their chemical and mental pasts while hooked up to lie detectors etc just for the record so we know where we stand

then you're the only one who thinks it

well not makes sense. It's at ninety degrees from sense. It's not on the axis of sense

but if you think it brought anyone reading it closer to a god pick a god any god now ladies and gentlemen was this your god or if you think it made yon god an iota more real to anyone reading who had not already accepted in their hearts the spiritual fact (NB not an actual fact) of that God then you are kidding yourself on a different level to the level on which I already suspect you to be kidding yourself which is on another pleateau entirely from the level upon which you imagine you are kidding anyone else

which you aren't.

"the insistence that human existence is meaningless"

I mean what a start!

Fact, the fuck are you even doing on an atheist Vs agnostic thread. I'm safe spacing this shit, seeing as you won't leave space alone.

Any agnostics, have we any agnostics here tonight?

Me: a god capable of creating a universe would stand outside it

Adam: reasons? i don't understand this.

Because it is logically impossible for a god to only exist inside a universe that has not been created.

God as that fella we all know who actually painted himself into a corner

the poor putz

I should have been clearer and said "to only have its existence inside a universe that the same god has not yet created."

...unless the definition of God changes from 'an entity that stands outside the universe and creates it', like a scientist performing an experiment, in which we could surmise that God has either created an infinite OR finite number of universes; to 'that from which the universe is created', like a seed or a stick of dynamite - the nucleic centre of the universe

I'll accept that definition but it needs to come from a theist delegation as a consensus and therefore no more of the bearded bush lad or the rest of em.

Always held a yen for the craftsman god concept, if you have to have one.

All this would be much clearer if we could see god making universes and take notes.

like a seed or a stick of dynamite

seeds grow by accreting stuff from outside themselves and organizing it, not by creating it from nothing. dynamite expands its own substance, so it probably a better analogy, but that leaves the idea that god's whole substance and activity is identical to the whole substance and activity of the universe, which makes a kind of pantheistic sense, but leads to the obvious question about why it would be useful to retain any concept of god at all.

PUTZGOD

Why is my dog so scared of thunder? Is it just an excuse to be allowed up on the couch?

Why is my dog so scared of thunder?

Because:

• We're talking about a dog.
• It's a very loud noise; it can be louder than almost any other natural sound.
• It has no visible connection to anything a dog understands.
• It can't be escaped; it's everywhere.
• Remember that humans are often frightened of it, too.

I think I've said a variation of this on all of our religious threads but: these kids of debates will always founder if there's a failure to distinguish the different kinds of values or "language games" at work in religious narratives vs other "explanatory" frameworks. Robert Bellah's extraordinary "Religion in Human Evolution" draws on Merlin Donald's distinction between "theoretical culture" (which Bellah identifies with the post axial religions) and "narrative culture" (pre-axial). I haven't read Donald yet but that seems like a useful distinction to me--in particular because it raises the questions of social function, value, and the non-negotiable relationship between theory and narrative. It's almost as if raising the question of the "existence" of god is a kind of confusion of categories, a holdover of the failed medieval attempt to unite theory and narrative.