I think that for many people, the working definition of ‘arrogant’ is ‘Refuses to agree with me, when it is so clear that I am right’ - I don’t think either side has a monopoly on arrogance (or false perception of it in the opposition) - people are just stubborn animals and if it wasn’t religious issues we were arguing about, it would be something else, such as which end should be opened first when eating a boiled egg.
Because by asserting that gods don’t exist you’re saying that your knowledge is limitless – you know that gods don’t exist ergo you are unable to entertain the possibility that existing gods have not revealed themselves to you; that you possess all the information there is to make a definitive, uncompromising statement such as that.
This is what I was getting at, though more plainly stated by agiantdwarf:
Though I am not limiting the arrogance factor to atheists. I believe any Jew, Muslim, Christian, and atheist who invalidates an opposing belief on the basis of “You have to be wrong because I’m right,” is arrogant. It’s as if they’d cornered the market on the Ultimate Truth. You don’t have to agree, just don’t be arrogant about it. What’s bullshit to you is enlightenment to another. What’s more, saying it to their face is arrogant and rude!
I’m guessing by your response to agiantdwarf that we agree. Correct me if I’m wrong. 
I definitely believe there’s no reason to assume that men are/will be able to explain/know everything. After all, being able to understand quantum physics is only a by-product of our evolution history, and there’s no reason to assume that this accidedental ability would be sufficiently develloped to allow us to eventually understand everything. Actually, I very strongly doubt it. That’s assuming that “understanding” could even apply to any question we could wonder about. And that “everything” would make sense if not to us, at least theorically to someone/something which would have much more develloped abilities. Possibly it doesn’t make any sense.
And by the way, what I wrote above apply to the future too. IMO, the widespread belief that eventually we’re going to understand the universe is build on lousy grounds.
However my issue with agnosticism isn’t there. My issue is that agnosticists apply a double standard. They’re agnostics regarding god(s) but you won’t find many people stating they’re agnostic concerning other tales. You can’t know for sure whether there are fairies or not, either. Do you then state that this is impossible to know, hence that nobody could state “fairies don’t exist”? Why is agnosticism a philosophical stance which only apply to the knowledge we may have about deities?
The exact same things that can be seen in theism can be seen in atheism. Arrogance and pride tends to be one that lurks in every belief system; those who have it loathe it in others.
You’re not adressing the point made by the poster you’re responding to. By asserting there’s no yogi flying, you’re also saying that your knowledge is limitless. You * know * that yogis don’t fly ergo are unable to entertain the possibility that you simply never met/watched a flying yogi. What’s the difference?
So, theists are “arrogant” because they are bitter condescending jerks who hate the fact that you’re smarter than they are? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Again, there’s this probelm of people inserting the word “all” into my post and the saying, “Aha, you said all A is B.” Don’t do that.
The Bible is a collection of legends. Yes, there is a country named Egypt, that doesn’t change the fact of the Exodus being a myth.
So you’re saying that anyone who has answered a question on poll as undecided is full of it? They really wanted to pick A or B, but they’re lying or something?
Let’s see, here’s one:
< > A) Homosexuality is a product of nature (innate).
< > B) Homosexuality develops as a result of experiences during life (acquired).
< > C) Unsure.
Well, my answer would be C. Having no idea, I can’t say one or the other, can I? Am I lying? Do I really know and I’m just not saying? I know a few heterosexuals that have experimented with homosexuality. I also know a few homosexuals that experienced nothing but homosexuality. Why that happens, I have no bloody clue.
But wait, let’s take your example. I’m standing on a cliff contemplating jumping off. The uncertainly lies not in where I am (it’s wholly obvious I’m standing on a cliff since I haven’t jumped), but in what my course of action is going to be. I could jump off or I could not jump off. What’s going to happen? Ah, uncertainty. Tune in next time… [font size=1]And for those of you who really wish I would jump off the cliff, don’t put any money on it! Sorry to disappoint[/font]
Not everything is so black and white. There are shades of grey in this world, dear.
This answers the OP. Atheists (at least “hard atheists”) claim to know for sure something that cannot be known for sure (and that, theists believe, isn’t even true); and they claim the opposing position is “absurd” rather than taking it seriously, even though the majority of people throughout history have held this “absurd” opposing view.
Yes, I am saying that it is possible to possess sufficient information to make the direct, uncompromising statement that there is no such thing as a god.
The previous point has been made before, but no one has explained why denial of the existence of gods somehow requires omniscience. Consider the following claims:
- The Holocaust occured.
- Leprechauns don’t exist.
- The Psychic Friends can’t really read your mind.
No one is told they’re being arrogant or asserting infinite knowledge when making statements like this. What puts the existence of a god in a special category?
And if infinite knowledge is required to deny the existence of god, is infinite knowledge also required to assert it?
I reject claims of the reality of god on the same (perfectly valid) grounds that I reject claims of yogic flying:
- The premise violates known facts and valid theories about the world.
- The claim does not stand up to objective scrutiny.
- No direct evidence exists.
- Accepting it as true causes myriad difficulties which otherwise don’t exist.
- Things which should also be true if this claim were true, clearly are not.
- If I accept as valid the logic that allows me to believe this claim, following such logic in other areas of life will lead me to false and unhealthy beliefs.
- The motives and methods of those making the claim do not appear to be unbiased and objective.
That’s enough to support a categorical denial, imao.
Believe it or not, there are such things as mutually exclusive statements. If you believe that Niagara Falls is on the US/Canada border, and I believe that it is not, then if you are right, I am wrong. And vice versa. End of story. If a theist says “There is a God”, then if s/he is right, I am wrong. Has nothing to do with arrogance. It’s simple logic.
Ah, the lure of relativism. It’s so soothing to the mind, after all.
Bullshit is bullshit. One is not enlightened by believing bullshit, even if one feels really uplifted by it.
Dwarf wrote that s/he’s puzzled why people would consider it arrogant for atheist to assert that they are right. So I think you’ve misread.
[QUOTE=verybdog]
The woman who sings that song is a christian. A big one. (so I hear)
Please explain why the existence of god should be beyond the bounds of proof. What is it about god that makes its existence “something that cannot be known for sure”? I’m curious about that.
On the contrary, one can only determine that a claim is absurd if one takes it seriously enough to investigate. For example, the claim that “Penta Water” has been molecularly reconfigured by sound waves to go into your cells faster because it is less prone to make large clumps, is absurd. But one can only know that if one knows why such an assertion is absurd. It is not enough to say, “I don’t believe it, therefore it must be absurd”.
I cannot accept, and see no valid reason to accept, majority opinion as evidence of truth. Especially when there turn out to be good reasons why people should believe things that are untrue (I recommend “Why People Believe Weird Things”).
I consider myself agnostic because I just don’t know whether god/God/gods exist. But in regards to your last question… What type of fairy are you speculating about?
I feel that there is much in the world that humans do not understand or understand incompletely. Ghosts, in my opinion, may or may not exist. I don’t have enough information to make a judgement. I do feel that most (maybe 99%) of all ghost reportings are false if they aren’t all false. I have friends that say that their home is haunted. I’ve been there many times, I’ve never seen a thing… but I have seen them get all worked up over nothing.
ESP is another thing, researchers wanting to either prove or disprove ESP have done many tests and none of them (IIRC) have ever shown that anyone has ESP. I had an experience as a child that to this day I cannot explain. Okay, maybe it was coincidence, maybe something outside the realm of normal experiences. To me, I know something weird happened, but I don’t know what it was. Due to the research, tempered by my experience, I’ll only go so far as to say that they’ve proved that either these so-called psychics are frauds, or that ESP (if it exists) can’t be turned on and off like a light bulb.
If we turn to something more tangible, say dragons for example. I feel that there is ample evidence that they don’t and never have existed. I think it’s a difference between what can be proved by research and evidence, and what cannot be proved one way or another.
All this is a long answer saying that for me I’m agnostic about everything that I don’t feel there is enough evidence for or against. As for feeling that we can never know of god’s/God’s/gods’ existance, I feel that the only way we’ll ever know in this life for sure is for Him/Her/them to actually tell us.
No, of course majority opinion doesn’t prove that something’s true. But the more people there are who believe something—at least if they’re clear-minded, rational people whom I respect, some of whom have had a lot more experience or who have spent a lot more time thinking about it than I—the more benefit of the doubt I’d give it; I’d approach the question with more humility and would require a lot stronger argument to decisively dismiss it.
(And some weird things are true: see relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. for examples.)
This is why this is a rather pointless debate. Not all theists claim that disbelief in a god is arrogance - though some make the argument about “knowing the unknowable.” I specifically stated that people on both sides of the argument are arrogant. Obviously, both sides state a mutally exclusive truth, and fundies on both sides think the other side is arrogant and full of BS. That doesn’t make either belief true or not.
Frankly, the simple fact is that the “evidence” for religion is not physical. Atheists tend to be looking for some big guy with a beard in the sky as “proof.” Religion is, of course, an emotional and mental critter. Because something manifests itself as a non-physical entity is not proof that it does not exist - it simply does not exist to your perceptions. Do you refuse to believe everything that you do not personally see, touch, smell, and taste?
So what’s wrong with that?
To be a bit more technical, Drawf completely misread one of my sentences and put words in my mouth to show that religious folk are hypocrites. If we’re after the truth here, we might as well be truthful.
I talkt to people everyday who have intense emotional and mental experiences that they find absolutely real. These people are schizophrenic and their experiences, while real to them, have zero basis in objective reality.
Let us us say that you have had a vision of the tapddancing Buddha with a million bodisattvas singing backup. That may be intensely real to you, but without convincing evidence there is no reason for anyone else to believe you.
shrugs People see flying saucers every day, too. They aren’t there, but does that mean that observable events have zero basis in objective reality?
I never asked you to. Religion is an individual exploration.
My feeling is exactly like clairobscur’s.
I suppose we need to get back to the definition of God. What do you mean by tangible/intangible? Is God intangible? Does it mean that it can not be sensed? Hence science can not disprove its existence?
Then we’re back to things that have been discussed ad nauseum. An IPU is something that we can not sense. No scientific enquiry can prove/disprove an IPU’s existence. Should we be agnostic about it?
But we have alreadty agreed that flying saucers are not real, so they do not count as observable events, do they?
People observed them. They even caught them on video. I stated my belief that they are not real, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. I can say it is highly, highly unlikely for a variety of reasons, but I can’t rule it out.
In any case, your example of schizophrenics is not conclusive. There are billions of people on this planet who are not, in fact, schizophrenic, who do believe in a form of god.