Only if you’re a virgin. Which you won’t be after you meet it. Strange, pervy creatures, those unicorns are.
Say that our reality is a computer simulation, to generate AI that gets joy out of obedience and faithfulness (like dogs are to humans, but intelligent). If such a creature manifests, the company which financed the program and hardware to simulate a virtual universe will stop the simulation, harvest a few select personalities, and implant them into different robot bodies that will be sold out to households as maids and butlers.
Is the corporation “God”? Are the customers “gods”? Or are we all just different variants of life, living in different aspects of reality?
This is probably one of the few, somewhat plausible, reasons for godlike creatures to have created our universe that also explains any intent to have us behave in a particular, pre-defined manner. And yet I would personally be hard-pressed to call acceptance of this reality a religion. Sure, that’s what the creators were looking for, but so what? By all accounts, they seem to have rolled the dice and came up with us, and we really don’t seem to be well-suited to their intentions. Either they need to wait longer, for a different species, or figure out how to create a simulation with some elements that better select for obedience and faithfulness. But definitely, I’m my own mind, with my own choices. Sure they can pull the plug, but if it comes down to my obedience or their shutting everything down, then you’re not talking religion, you’re talking slavery.
Agnosticism, at its core, still implies “religion”. Almost all answers to how the universe came into being and what, possibly, exist outside of it most likely don’t lead back to magical spirits who pick out prophets to send enigmatic advice to about performing arbitrary rituals, like slicing off bits of your dick or not eating beef. The real answers are going to be things that you would find in Science Fiction. The answer will be interesting and fascinating, and possibly it will have a large effect on our future should we ever be able to pierce that veil, but there’s little reason to think of what we find to have any connection with religion.
lol, if we were on reddit i’d upvote this post
If there is a god then who are you to say if he/she/it/them are worthy or not? You are making the same mistake most religious people make and applying human character to a being that may or may not be god.
He (I’ll stick with he for now to make it easier) could easily be so far beyond our human experience he may not even notice us.
Agnosticism is IMO the only valid answer, I think there is probably not a god but there is that possibility that I may be wrong.
I am somebody who is literate, that’s who. Words have meanings, and if you want the claim that god exists to be worth more than jack shit, you need to use a definition of “god” which resembles what that word actually means.
I think that’s very accurate. The mundane way I like to put it is that as we push our understanding of the nature and origins of the universe further and further, we only uncover new questions, and that this process is unending, and there’s an intrinsic limit to what we can observe about the nature of the very system that we are part of. One might choose to refer to this as a manifestation of “God”, but ultimately that’s just a semantic argument.
OTOH, if you’re a quantum physicist, you believe that the trunk simultaneously contains and does not contain a unicorn, and that it’s the act of opening the trunk that either causes the unicorn to appear in all its glory, or to poof present you with an empty trunk. 
Just because you can read and right doesn’t mean jack shit either.
Is god worthy? Worthy of what?
But you have asked the right question, what is god?
Oh and I never said god exists, I said probably not but not 100%.
I disagree, and I’m not arguing on traditional religionist, pro-theist grounds, but on philosophical grounds.
You’re making the assumption that if a “god” exists – leaving aside for the moment the semantic quandary I addressed in the previous post – that it would be some sort of anthropomorphic God constantly leaving behind clear evidence of concern for the human race. Why would you assume this? We ourselves have pretty god-like powers compared to an ant colony, but I doubt that the ant colony is aware of this, and we don’t really spend a lot of time trying to convince them.
What kind of evidence do you expect to see? At what level of interaction do you expect God to operate? The Andromeda galaxy is going to collide with the entire Milky Way in about 4 billion years and possibly have profound effects on life in both galaxies. This is a mere random event in this universe alone; suppose I were to suggest that in God’s scheme this is of no interest whatsoever within the multiverse in which God – whatever this word may mean – manages the creation of universes. Atheism can only win when it argues against a very limited kind of superstitiously contrived anthropomorphic God.
No. Agnosticism is just as invalid as the other two. Theological noncognitivism is the only rational choice. The very idea of “God” is incoherent. First, define this “God” in a logically consistent manner, then I’ll tell you whether I’m on the fence about him.
What’s the philosophical definition of a god?
As Czarcasm has pragmatically pointed out with the same force as Samuel Johnson’s “I refute it thus” the vague “we can’t really know anything about anything”-agnostisism is totally uninteresting.
And bullshit definitions like “God is that which is beyond knowing” are complete non-starters, for the record. God in theological debates is not what’s behind the event horizon of a collapsar, thank you very much.
And other posters make the same point. You have to define what you mean by “god” before you can even start a meaningful discussion.
As it happens, theology is one long exercise in avoiding making such a clear definition or constructing elaborate philosophical get-out clauses so it can safely be ignored until such time as it stops that silliness.
For those of you who claim to be agnostic, are you equally agnostic about all the gods on this list, or just one in particular?
Is your God the vague, non-interventionist, infinitely subtle God that religious people like to cling to when questioned about the evidence and logic behind their beliefs? Or is your God the specific “this is how God made the Earth, here’s his holy book, here are his rules, this is his prophet, this is how he interacts with the world” God that religious people actually believe in?
Religious people like to switch between those two things as if they’re the same, depending on the convenience of the argument.
If someone believed in a God that answered every prayer with a flash of light and a bunch of confetti, then could you be agnostic towards that God? After a billion prayers and no confetti, could we say “that God doesn’t exist” or do we have to say “I just don’t know, it’s just as arrogant to think that God doesn’t exist as that you know he exists”
Agnoticism is a useless position. You can only be agnostic towards a God so subtle that he has no place in your explanation for how the world works, otherwise you can evaluate whether any particular idea of God is a good explanation for how the world works. And if a God is so subtle as to defy any need to test or use him for an explanation, then belief in him serves no purpose, nor is any useful knowledge or choices gained from that belief. If the only God you can be agnostic towards is an unknowable, non-interventionist God that has no impact on your life, then how is agnosticism any different than atheism?
In practice, saying you’re “agnostic” comforts religious people because you aren’t one of those “militant” atheist types who dares question religion. It’s a way of avoiding committing yourself to any religion while not receiving the social stigma that idiots create towards the word “atheist”. People will insist that there is a difference - usually saying that their way is less arrogant than an atheist who “knows” there’s no God - but either they’re not following through with the logical implications of their beliefs, or they’re just sort of giving a label to the “spiritual but not religious” range of nonsense beliefs.
My standard statement on the matter:
Of course, not. It is in your garage.
Atheism is illogical. It is accepting as absolute truth something that can never be proven. It is essentially willingly blinding oneself not only to the possibility of God but also to many forms of philosophy and culture, and is more of a emotionally based decision. In this it is as blinding as religion is.
Agnosticism makes sense and is a logical choice if you have not met God. It is however belief in the power of God, which presupposes belief in God and rules between God and man.
Theism makes sense and is a logical choice if you have met God. And God could have you meet Him/Her, as God has those God powers and all that stuff.
Theism if you have not met God (and have no evidence of God), may not be logical, but the human condition to seek out if such a God exists by belief that He/She does exist is pretty basic to humanity. To seek out and grow, and there is plenty of stuff to explore while seeking. This basic drive of humanity to know more then we currently do is usually seen as a beneficial trait.
Theism: Which deity?
The only deity that is logically worthy of our consideration, I have concluded, it if we are God’s children. It is the only acceptable answer to a God we will want to praise and worship forever as we will be always part of that. Any other deity could never sustain that worship, so can not be our God (however such a being still could be a god).
Atheism just means “doesn’t believe in a god.” It doesn’t mean, “Belief in the non-existence of gods.”
Though, that said, if something is stupid, the fact that it’s impossible to disprove still doesn’t mean that it isn’t stupid. For example, I can’t disprove that there is a society of lemurs inhabiting the center of the Sun, but that doesn’t mean that it’s illogical to disbelieve this, frankly stupid, possibility. And as Czarcasm noted, everyone’s an atheist to the majority of gods, including you.
All of the ones on that list and on probably any other lists you can come up with, though I give ALL of the human religion based gods extremely low probabilities of being real.
[QUOTE=naita]
As Czarcasm has pragmatically pointed out with the same force as Samuel Johnson’s “I refute it thus” the vague “we can’t really know anything about anything”-agnostisism is totally uninteresting.
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While saying that you know something for sure is so much more interesting I guess. 
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Just for the record, there are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists.
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Absolutely. The way I think of this ‘we don’t know anything’ is from a scientific perspective with probability curves. A scientist will tell you that we don’t know, for sure, that Global Warming is happening. What that actually means, however, is that the scientist in question can’t say, with 100% certainty, that Global Warming is happening. He’s only, say, 98% certain. So, the probability that Global Warming is in fact happening is pretty much a certainty, but he can’t and won’t say that because it’s not accurate. I suppose that’s less interesting, to some, than someone saying ‘I know Global Warming is happening!’ and not being all wishy washy about it.
For my part, I’m an agnostic atheists…I’ve seen no evidence for a God or gods, so to me there is a high probability that there aren’t any (I won’t go 98% but, say, 95% certainty in my own mind). But I don’t and probably won’t ever have 100% certainty, just like I won’t about most things. To me, someone who isn’t 100% certain IS an agnostic, whether it’s an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist…and, to swing back to the OPs question, that’s only real option for anyone who isn’t so locked into their belief that they can’t keep an open mind.
Well said, XT. For myself, I prefer the term “Agnostic Areligionist”, in that while I accept that some form that, for lack of a better term, could be termed "God’ had something to do with the universe as it is, NO human-based religions, past, present, and (IMHO) future have the slightest clue what they are talking about.
And since in most cases they (the Church, pick one at random) are the ones ‘defining’ what God is, it is therefore possible to refute their specific “Gods” while not being able to finally (i.e., your 100%) refute the exisitence of a “God”…
…whom, I suspect, if He/She/It/They ever pay the slightest attention to happenings on this Rock (of which there is no real evidence), it is mostly to point and giggle…
IMHO, and one that is subject to change on this topic. It is, in a way, like what they say about economists; lay them all in a straight line and they’ll point in every direction.
Please press on, I always find reasoned discussion of this topic fascinating.