If more people spent their energies trying to condemn or harrass people who did not believe in unicorns, then more people who did not believe in unicorns would feel compelled to assert their lack of belief. You are confusing a social situation with an epistemological one.
Why are you still insisting on the “unknowable” definition for agnostics? Of COURSE the existence of god is knowable. All he has to do is show up, say “here I am” and do things only god can do. He doesn’t even have to prove anything to you, because he can just force you to “know” he exists, against your will. He can even change your will so that you WANT to be forced into knowing he exists. God is certainly not “unknowable”.
What’s not knowable is the non-existence of god, which atheists are happy to admit. Most atheists understand that they don’t “know” anything, and fully accept that their disbelief is not based on evidence, but rather on the lack of it.
So, agnostics acknowledge that god cannot be “known” to not-exist. Atheists acknowledge the same.
Is there any other way left for agnostics to distinguish their position from atheism? All I can think of are the “soft” agnostics, who acknowledge that “something” exists (whatever the fuck that means) with god-like qualities, but are unwilling to describe or identify it. This is more of a rejection of religious establishments than a rejection of theism in general, so these people shouldn’t be considered agnostics anyway.
Religion and the existance or not of divine beings is not the sum total of an agnostic stance, just part of it.
Because that seems to be the most accepted definition by dictionaries, how the majority of people in my experiences use the word, and through Google searches of the word.
You started this thread and have yet to define it anything beyond:
“Agnostics want it both ways. Their whole philosophy is to make atheist assertions seem more palatable to the mainstream, without using that particular dirty word. Why not just call yourself what you are? You’re an atheist.”
and
“all an agnostic is saying is “I’m not dealing in absolutes. I don’t see the world in black and white. I dont so rigidly define everything,” a haughty, superior attitude on its face.”
What definition would you like to use?
There are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists. If the definition of agnostic you’re going for is one of a fence sitter, one who hasn’t decided if he believes or disbelieves in God/gods, then the difference in position should be obvious to you.
So, a “soft agnostic” is one who believes in God but is “unwilling” to describe Him? Where are you getting this from?
I am just a simple-minded person, if you say you don’t believe in God, that statement implies there is this thing called God you don’t believe in. Right!
Now if you said God doesn’t exist that is different.
I don’t understand why you just don’t say I don’t believe in God and let it go at that, or God doesn’t exist, period.
It really doesn’t make any difference to God what tags people put on themselves, but it does make a difference to other people. That’s why I don’t belong to any organized religion. I try to keep the labels at a minimum. I call myself a spiritual person, that is enough.
When you find out who you really are, and what you are doing here, a lot of material things won’t matter either. God doesn’t punish anyone for anything, all the punishment we perceive to happen to us comes from our poor choices in thought, belief, and the unability to use our emotions for our benefit instead of being controlled by our emotions. Spirituality does teach us to be better at living life. Jesus said “I came to bring life, and life more abundantly,” or something like that, I am quoting from memory.
I say yes to that, I was “forced” to know God in my experience."
But I am very glad it happened.
I think you’re playing games at this point. I doubt that you didn’t understand that those who say they don’t believe in God are saying they don’t believe He exists, not that they believe He exists but don’t trust Him.
That’s been explained already. Most atheists don’t have a believe in the existence of God because it’s a fantastic claim with no strong evidence to back it. I do say I don’t believe in God, but to you that means I believe He exists yet don’t trust in Him, right? Why is it important for you that atheists say God doesn’t exist? Most can’t go that far, but they also can’t go as far as to say leprechauns don’t exist. They see no evidence for either and are without belief in the existence in both.
I think that it is impossible not to see evidence that God exists. There are over six billion people who have no problem with the existence of God. Where there is smoke there is fire…
Now if we are talking about material existence of God, as if He is walking down the street shaking hands then probably no…
Again if we are looking for His footprints then we have the world to look at, I can never believe the order this world exhibits comes from chaos or randomness, in an accidentally fashion, and if it did, where pray tell did the chaos or randomness disappear to…
Most people know that God is personal, you experience God with your heart (feelings). Some have experienced God and others have not, no big deal. I can’t understand how some atheists feel the need to attack God, just a simple yes or no will do. Why bury your lance into the windmill to show your manhood or womanhood or whatever…
It just isn’t that big a subject, the big subject is who are you? And how is the best way to live and survive in this jungle called life.
Or conversely there are an awful lot of ignorant people out there. A lot of people believing something doesn’t make it true.
Chaos isn’t a fluid that you pump out of a system.
I can’t understand why believers feel the need to go on about their magic dude in space.
Amen.
I don’t want to really get back into this as I think this ‘you are’ ‘I’m not’ is not very productive. But I wanted to clear up an inaccuracy.
Source: dictionary.com
- the inability or refusal to believe or to accept something as true.
- amazement; astonishment: We stared at the Taj Mahal in disbelief.
So…it wasn’t a ‘nice try’…I quoted it exactly like it was on the web page. The first entry is NOT ‘to have no belief in’, and I wasn’t skewing my post to use a better definition that was closer to what I wanted to portray…as you are implying.
I’m NOT an atheist regardless of whatever mental hoops you choose to try and go through to make me one. But do as you will. Makes no difference to me.
-XT
Look, we’ve tried to explain this to you before. This is not a valid argument. Billions of people have had no problem with geocentrism, human sacrifice, and Britney Spears, but that doesn’t make any of them a good or correct idea. Just because you can find someone else who can’t come up with any real evidence for god doesn’t mean god exists.
Exactly. No material evidence for god. None. At all. Nothing. Nada. Nihil. Bubkis. No evidence whatsoever that god has directly affected even the smallest bit of matter in reality. Now, what does that tell you? Oh, wait, we already know this. It tells you that you should immediately devote your life to the idea and unhesitatingly believe absolutely everything about it and make sure everyone in the area knows what you think about it.
Ouch. This actually hurt my brain to read. Where did it disappear to? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
If it is personal then keep it to yourself. You wanna think about invisible people in other dimesions? Fine, knock yourself out. Just don’t be surprise that other people disagree with you when you start making your personal things public.
Maybe cuz you won’t shut your mouth about it? For a personal issue you do seem to spray it around on anything it might stick to. An athiest might feel the need to attack god because he’s tired of having it shoved in his face day after day.
I see, it’s the old everybody is wrong but me routine.
It certainly isn’t, I can’t see any trace of it ever having been around.
God is not in space, He is within you, remember Jesus said: “The Kingdom of God lies within you.”
As others have said, just because people believe in something is no proof that something exists.
No it won’t. Whenever I’ve ever told a believer that I don’t believe in god, all I get is an argument that I’m going to hell and why don’t I want to go to heaven.
Personally, I would love for there to be an afterlife, it would tend to beat the other option which is to stop existing altogether… I just don’t believe it.
Not a valid argument for you maybe, OK for me and most other people.
Well, gee, God is not material, so, that is not evidence of non-existence. Neither is energy, consciousness and a million other things we believe in.
This world we live in is a very ordered world, look at all the physical laws scientists have discovered, there is no randomness and never was to begin with.
I am not surprised that people disagree with me, why would I be posting here, I expect disagreement, that is what debate is all about.
Maybe someone is shoving God down your throat, but I have not asked anyone directly to change their beliefs, exactly what I meant about jousting windmills.
I have no personal stake in what you believe, why would I?
“God” is a tag, and we know the tag “God” exists because it is in the dictionary. Now tags point to things. Sometimes, they are pretty well defined, like the tag “apple” pointing to a round fruit - sometimes red, sometimes green. Sometimes tags point to concepts only, even if they are nouns, like the tag “unicorn.”
Now, the tag God points to lots of stuff. It’s pretty fuzzy in your case, but it seems that your “god” points to a different definition than Tom’s god which is different from a fundamentalist’s god. Atheists don’t create definitions of god for our use of the term to point to, since any we do create would be strawmen. We just try to figure out what definition you people are using, and if there is any evidence for the actual existence of a god under that definition. We’ve looked at lots of gods and haven’t found anything convincing. And, by the way, a billion people believing in 100,000 different deities is less convincing than if they all believed in one or two. Though exact definitions are sometimes hard to pin down, pretty much everyone agrees that an apple is not square.
So we don’t accept that there is anything actual being pointed to by the tag “God” but just that the tag exists.
You should take a break from reading your spooky books and read some General Semantics. It might clear your mind.
Maybe not proof, but certainly evidence.
I never told anyone they are going to hell, you are not going to hell, and eternal life is your birthright, no one can take it from you. Some Christians tell people that in order to “save” them, but you are not lost, God knows and loves you just the way you are right now. I know where you are too.
Yes, there is an afterlife and it is open for all, nothing necessary to be, do, or believe to get there.
Now, where did I get all this info, from near death experiences, my own and hundreds of others. Loosen up you are ok with God and the world. Did you ever see a sparrow feel the need to justify its existence.
He said material evidence, not that God is material.
Read some physics after you read General Semantics. The underlying universe is totally random, but the laws of statistics makes it nonrandom at the macro level. So, read some statistics after you get done with those two things.
People wear different clothes, they eat different food, they play different games,…ad infinitum.
Does that mean people don’t exist?
:rolleyes: All people eat food, most wear clothes, and pretty much all have two legs, two arms, a head and some extraneous bits. Give me anywhere close as good a definition of god.
Well, this post clearly disproves your earlier comment that
