atheism vs. agnosticism

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.

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.