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.)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:15 (nineteen years ago) link
xposts
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
(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.)
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link
I agree, but I think there are plenty of theists and atheists who will disagree with you pretty strongly about this.
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:26 (nineteen years ago) link
(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.)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:30 (nineteen years ago) link
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?
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:32 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― Baked Bean Teeth (Baked Bean Teeth), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:32 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:34 (nineteen years ago) link
Yes, but that doesn't mean He'd want to.
― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:37 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:39 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:41 (nineteen years ago) link
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).
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― andy, Wednesday, 27 October 2004 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:04 (nineteen years ago) link
Me too.
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:04 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:09 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― Drew Daniel, Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:11 (nineteen years ago) link
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 doesnot so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:12 (nineteen years ago) link
Well, you can't really argue with that logic.
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:24 (nineteen years ago) link
*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.
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:25 (nineteen years ago) link
(In case it wasn't clear, this referred to my own following sentence, not to the original post.)
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:26 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 October 2004 21:27 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― ledge, Saturday, 28 July 2012 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Philip Nunez, Sunday, 29 July 2012 01:10 (eleven years ago) link
"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.
― ledge, Sunday, 29 July 2012 07:51 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― ledge, Sunday, 29 July 2012 08:58 (eleven years ago) link
"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.
― Philip Nunez, Sunday, 29 July 2012 16:53 (eleven years ago) link
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)
― Chris S, Sunday, 29 July 2012 21:11 (eleven years ago) link
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)
― , Blogger (schlump), Sunday, 29 July 2012 21:22 (eleven years ago) link
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?
― ledge, Sunday, 29 July 2012 22:49 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 23 July 2017 19:35 (six years ago) link
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.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 23 July 2017 19:53 (six years ago) link
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
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Sunday, 23 July 2017 21:22 (six years ago) link
"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 Saga of Rodney Stooksbury (rushomancy), Sunday, 23 July 2017 21:36 (six years ago) link
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, 23 July 2017 21:49 (six years ago) link
'bullshit' has a specific meaning fyi, and it's not 'something that doesn't have a specific meaning'
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Sunday, 23 July 2017 22:31 (six years ago) link
ironically
HOISTED
― j., Monday, 24 July 2017 02:33 (six years ago) link
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?
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:03 (six years ago) link
― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, July 23, 2017 5:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
00 Singularity10 Big Bang20 Heat Death/Cold Death30 GOTO 00
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:10 (six years ago) link
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
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:13 (six years ago) link
why is there anything? i dunno, there is. the universe is here. shit just happens. why the fuck not.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:14 (six years ago) link
I predict great things for this thread
― Οὖτις, Monday, 24 July 2017 21:17 (six years ago) link
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.
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:28 (six years ago) link
"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.
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:34 (six years ago) link
Any agnostics, have we any agnostics here tonight?
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 21:38 (six years ago) link
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.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 24 July 2017 22:38 (six years ago) link
God as that fella we all know who actually painted himself into a corner
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 22:40 (six years ago) link
the poor putz
― j., Monday, 24 July 2017 23:22 (six years ago) link
I should have been clearer and said "to only have its existence inside a universe that the same god has not yet created."
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 24 July 2017 23:27 (six years ago) link
...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
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Monday, 24 July 2017 23:33 (six years ago) link
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.
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 24 July 2017 23:39 (six years ago) link
All this would be much clearer if we could see god making universes and take notes.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 24 July 2017 23:51 (six years ago) link
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.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 00:05 (six years ago) link
PUTZGOD
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 00:17 (six years ago) link
Why is my dog so scared of thunder? Is it just an excuse to be allowed up on the couch?
― Treeship, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 00:35 (six years ago) link
Why is my dog so scared of thunder?
Because:
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 04:08 (six years ago) link
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.
― ryan, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 14:56 (six years ago) link