atheism vs. agnosticism

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.

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.