Wouldn’t that make you more of an agnostic?
No, agnosticism is not a position on the existence of gods, but a position on what it’s possible to prove about the existence of gods. Specifically, it is the position that we do not have sufficient data to prove the existence of gods one way or the other. That does not preclude a position on existence, though. One can be agnostic and still also be theistic (I believe in God, but I know it can’t be proven) or atheistic (I can’t prove gods don’t exist, but I’m personally certain that they don’t). Agnosticism often gets conflated with weak atheism (the lack of theistic belief, but not a positive assertion that gods can’t exist). A positive position that gods don’t/can’t exist is “strong atheism,” but most self-identified atheists (including Richard Dawkins) are not strong atheists.
Incidentally, the “I ackowledge that I could be wrong” sniffiness has just as much application to smurfs as it does to gods.
I’d say that agnosticism isn’t so much the belief that we don’t have enough evidence to prove or disprove the existence of gods, but rather that the existence of gods is inherently unprovable.
I could be wrong as well.
DO you need to pee when you’re in Heaven? I would think you can eat and drink all you want, and you never have to go to the bathroom.
Are you sure? Just because some people keep arguing doesn’t mean other people aren’t influenced.
So, if hell isn’t in the Bible, where do they get this idea from?
Anyway, I get a taste of hell every day. My roommate has become addicted to “The View”. Give me brimstone any day.
What if he did? And what if he correctly left it up to us to decide if we approved of the arrangement? And if we rejected it and walked away, doesn’t that make us responsible for all the misery in the world?
And if there is no god, then we have been responsible since the beginning anyway, whenever and however that happened.
Either way, we’ve let the opportunity to nurture the garden slip through our fingers.
bold=me
Yea. But we recognise when there ain’t even a damn question.
No, because omnipotence includes omniscience. So he’d know he was creating us to suffer. So obviously he isn’t then omni-benevolent. Which is fine, but Christians keep insisting that their imaginary friend is both.
We aren’t responsible for cancer or parasites that blind children. But that said, responsibility doesn’t matter.
No, he created us to choose. His knowing how we would choose makes the choice no less ours.
Responsibility is everything. We can’t fathom what we have done to the food chain, for example, and the negative effect it has on our health.
Norse mythology, and Dante.
Hell is, of course, in the bible. It just isn’t a place of eternal torment, it’s a place of destruction. Whether it’s literal or metaphorical is left as an exercise to the reader.
he created us (if you believe that sort of thing) knowing that we’d have flaws that lead to eternal torment. An all loving creature wouldn’t make another creature destined to suffer forever if he could help it.
You mean like how we live longer and healthier lives than at any point in history?
If we were created with flaws for which we were condemned, regardless of our decisions, I would agree. It makes more sense to not believe in god rather than to believe in a flawed god creating flawed things. But, I think you’re blaming the god you don’t believe in for our flaws.
God created our flaws, but that’s really not even the issue. The issue is that God doesn’t have to condemn anybody and does so gratuitously.
If you’re a Christian, that is bad theology.
If you’re a naturalist, evolution has no explanation for schadenfreude (or many of our other flaws, for that matter).
We choose.
If you do believe in god, why do you believe that he should be good?
You do realize that people can be Christians and still believe in evolution, right? :dubious:
And the rest of you, theist doesn’t automatically = Christian. That seems to be the default position around here.
You know, I’m going to start my own religion. The “Believe what you want, just don’t be a jackass about it” religion.
Absolutely, though Christianity provides a better explanation than evolution for some of mankind’s conduct.
Schadenfreude is an illogical result of natural selection.
In the rest of the animal kingdom, what is the equivalent of waterboarding?
Whut now ? Norse mythology has Hel (note spelling), but it has precious little to do with the stereotypical lake of fire/pitchfork demon torture of the popular Christian Hell.
If anything it’s closer to the Hades of the Greeks/Romans: a place of silence and shadows where the people who didn’t make it to Valhalla & Folkvangr shuffle about after they’ve died, presumably bored out of their skulls.
Schadenfreude is a natural emotional response to seeing a perceived enemy/rival/threat be taken down.
I don’t get the waterboarding question at all. Are you saying that animals don’t torture, or are you saying they don’t torture for information?