Okay, so if I feel but don’t believe there is a supreme being(s) and don’t believe in the established churches. But believe that a very major event could possibly occur that could possibly convince me, what is the proper terminology other than confused.
I have incorrectly been calling myself an agnostic for most of my life.
I don’t know what the term for that would be. However, you must use the right term, or something horrible would happen!!!
But really, lighten up.
Technically, you’d be a “weak atheist.” That just means you are without a belief in God but that you also don’t have a positive belief that there isn’t a God. A belief that God definitely doesn’t exist is “strong atheism.”
Weak atheism gets so commonly confused and conflated with agnosticism that I’m not even sure if the distinction is more than a pedantic one any more. I self-identify as agnostic rather than weak atheist myself because, ironically, people will generally infer my position more accurately from the technically incorrect term than from the correct one.
Das Cool, because I was still planning to call myself Agnostic or I could go back to the old Navy one.
On our dog tags they want to code our religion.
Nice very old lady didn’t know what agnostic meant and couldn’t code it. (I was 18 she was probably in late 50’s but seemed very old at time) * She decided Agnostic same as Atheist. I didn’t like this, asked if they had any other category. She actually consulted another, even older lady ( Possible she had been doing this from WWII)* and together came up with NA. In this case meant non-affiliated. I was comfortable with that.
Maybe we could use god to refer to creator of local universes, and God to refer to originator of Everything. God would be omniscient, omnipotent…etc. Whereas god is just a powerful entity. The question is, does god exist, and is it God?
Omniscience abolishes the need for observation. And if god is not omniscient, it is not omnipotent, either, although it may be sufficiently powerful and knowledgable.
Maybe the curtains just haven’t been drawn. After all, Christ did not, supposedly, deliver his message till 2000 years ago.
All of this, misses the point. You are relying on science and logic to detect divinity. In the end, they won’t still help you decide whether the subtle sign you’ve found is divine or just another aspect of the natural universe. Like I have said earlier, we are interested in God, primarily for the purpose of teleology. So, the only way to know God uncontroversially is if God programmes us to believe in it, and removes all mechanisms for doubt.
Oh? Perhaps for people with a conceptual basis for understanding that a) there is such a thing as technology, b) technology is different than magic, c) everything is technology and d) if you can find a human cause, it’s not magic, e) everyting that’s not nature has a human cause, then perhaps your theory applies, but:
I think that there were many cultures in the past that weren’t aware of certain items being mere technology rather than magical (e.g. South Americans who had never seen metal armor, guns or horses before or even that episode of Bewitched where they went back in time and were almost burned at the stake in Salem because the pilgrims didn’t understand matches…).
Exactly. The ant may never understand me, but it can know that I exist.
You said it was trying to reveal itself to us. I pointed out that it’s doing a poor job. It has nothing to do with comprehending its existence or purpose.
If God is omnipotent, he can make himself understood, no problem. I’ve never been able to buy that “puny humans can’t understand God” meme. If he can’t explain (and JUSTIFY) himself to me in a way that I can understand then I’ve got no use for him.
It has been my experience that if one really wants to know about God. His intent is honest and his desire strong, then he will.
If he don’t particularly care or is atheistic then he won’t ever.
This is during the normal activity of life.
But sometimes life gets really scary or really hard, and that causes more people to want to know about God. It is always in the hands and responsibility of the individual to seek or not to seek.
However at the end of life, everyone knows.
It would have to be a meeting in the flesh, so to speak. Face-to-face with a demonstration of powers that would convince me.
Hm.
— We can’t assume that God is omnipotent in a technical sense (re: problem of evil).
— I can’t fully understand fluid mechanics (or my xgf for that matter); the idea that I could fully understand God seems ludicrous. ( OTOH, “Puny humans can understand the smallest aspect of God”, would be an odd argument for those who want Him to be a large part of their lives.)
— Er. I know lots of people who won’t justify themselves to me. Some are quite useful.
At least you know they exist and they don’t ask you to do absurd things like worship them or kill people.
Can God zap your brain and make you understand fluid mechanics? If so, then why can’t he make you understand God. If he’s not omnipotent then he’s not God, he’s just some punk with ego issues.
No, if God wants anything from me he’s going to have to explain it.
Once again, precisely.
You are a fairly hard atheist (despite your self characterization as agnostic), because a god concept has no utility for you. There is virtually no evidence that could convince you other than being forced to believe by having God zap your brain and remove your free will (assuming it actually exists, but that’s another ongoing debate! :))
The other end is occupied by the Leakatts, whose entire worldview depends upon their god concept. God has a lot of utility for them. Their entire value system depends upon that belief and fear of punishment in an afterlife. No amount of evidence could convince them that God does not exist. Anything that disputes that belief in any way is suspect at best.
The point (and I do have one) is once again just that no amount of imaginable evidence could convince an agnostic that God exists. The issue is just not an evidentiary one. It is one of utility. What would convince the agnostic is experiencing a strong utility for possession of a god belief. Proverbially the no atheist in a foxhole concept. One looks if one has a need and if one has a need one will believe. No need, no search, no belief.
----Can God zap your brain and make you understand fluid mechanics?
Beats me: I’m an agnostic.
----- If so, then why can’t he make you understand God.
Say he could: he may not want to. For example, full knowledge of God would make me a rather different being, doncha think?
I agree though that, “Mortals can’t understand God”, has the air of an all-purpose explanation/excuse.
----- If he’s not omnipotent then he’s not God, he’s just some punk with ego issues.
I’d say that if He created the Universe then He has claim to the God title. Though perhaps others (Others?) may as well.
Furthermore, if you accept the existence of evil, then God can’t be omnipotent and omnibenevolent at the same time. So pure omnipotence isn’t really a necessary characteristic of God.
Where does Truth fit in?
I have listed 2 broad scenarios whereby I might believe that God exists.
What Gyan said.
My belief meter has covered a fairly broad range concerning God, UFOs, ESP, the efficacy of macroeconomic intervention, punctuated equilibrium driven by meteor crashes and I presume other topics. Perhaps I experience utility from tough-but-fair-minded analysis.
I hate to make this an issue of semantics, but it seems to me that you want to label him (and, I guess, everyone else) as either an agnostic, theist, atheist, or whatever, when in fact people can be more than one. You can be agnostic and be either a thest, an atheist, or neither, if you so desire.
Of course, the definitions vary pretty widely. Some people define an atheist as someone who, like you said here, is simply “without a god concept”, which does not necessarily take into account whether the person believes God exists. And of course, others say an atheist is someone who does not believe God exists, and from there we can quibble about the differences between strong and weak atheism, and so on…but it’s hardly consequential.
Then again, you might not have been suggesting that he can’t be both an atheist and an agnostic at the same time, so maybe I just wasted my time by posting this garbage.
Personally, I used to be a strong theist. Now I’m what I’d call a “realistic theist”, and I doubt I’ll ever be as strong a believer as I once was - short of a divine revelation or something, you know.
(I know some of you would take issue with that, but chances are I’d take issue with you as well.)
After reading this thread, I’m silently pitting a handful of hypocrites, assholes, self-righteous pricks, and some people who are all three. I’d pit these people properly, but I don’t have the time and they probably wouldn’t read it, anyway.
So much for Christian charity.
Hey, I understand where you’re coming from. But why do people jump on a theist when he lashes out at those that criticize him, citing a cliché like “turn the other cheek” or “being a good Christian” or something else that applies to us but not to them? It’s crap, that’s what it is.
And I’m not attacking you here, I promise - but why did you assume I’m a Christian?