Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

[Etylukah]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I think that every person everywhere is forced to be an agnostic by default until it's either proven that God or whatever exists or not. If they don't they're just in denial because they can't prove that God exists or not and are therefore by definition agnostic?

I also think that Religion was a weapon created by humans to control people so, i'm going to stay far away from this thread. >:
I mean, trolling is an art.

[~kitty~]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I've noticed that people who tend to not believe in Religion and/or God have a very distinct personality, or are wannabe's. They're usually of relatively moderate intelligence, or are of severely low intelligence... however, those who tend to argue and debate about it tend to be butthurt trolls, and along with being arrogant and closed-minded, they seem to think believing in Religion or God is just retarded.

However, it's not really dumb to believe in God or Religion... I personally think many religions are expressed in a way where it's used as a coping mechanism, for things that scare all living things... death. However, when someone digs deeper into the meaning of all of this, it may actually be possible that a higher being exists, and that these paradoxes and confusions are man-made, and do not necessarily exist this way. Just because it doesn't seem so probable, doesn't mean it's stupid to believe in it.

People probably thought about the ability to fly in the same way like this (I haven't studied it), but we ended up doing it. Just saying, and I think it's pointless to argue these things, since no matter what happens, people on either side will be closed-minded to the other, and nothing will change them... at least nothing online.

[Patashu]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

If something is useless then its truth value is irrelevant. If something is useless and true, everything proceeds the same compared to if it was useless and false.

I could claim that a teacup was in orbit and residing somewhere in the Oort cloud. Such a theory cannot be proven false, but whether it is true or false does not effect any of our theories or how we should act in any situation.

Similarly, a deistic belief along the lines of 'God exists and created the universe exactly as we see it today' is useless unless personality characteristics are rigidly prescribed to such a God, such characteristics being useful to make operational predictions.

Also, an assumption you make is that atheists think 'I know there is no God.' More likely they think either 'I know the Christian God does not exist in any meaningful way' or 'I know that there is no evidence for any God that is meaningful to my life' or 'The statement 'God exists' is useless and impossible to ascertain a truth value for, so I live my life ignoring it'. They're not anti-God, just lack-of-God.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

If you're religious you're either ignorant, delusional, laughably wishful, or plain stupid.

Science suggests agnosticism. Probability suggests atheism. Therefore I am an agnostic atheist. "Although I don't think we can ever be 100% sure, it's probably well over 99% likely that there is no God. We can also explain things without needing a God to begin with."

[foxfire667]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Why is it logical to disbelieve in something that was not proven? Shouldn't saying "I don't know" be more logical?

Logical in terms of what? If I have been given no instance of why something exists, then I, by logical reasoning, cannot say that it does.

Obviously something that has not been proven has room for belief and disbelief, and varying opinions in between, but the reason why religion differs so greatly from something that has "not been proven" is because there is nothing to indicate that it has existence. The difference between, religion, and say...a traditional theory is that there is some sort of evidence or ground to what is being stated.

Like for the cell theory, as an example, there was a considerable amount of ground and research that went into the foundation of the original theory (and has been modified at various times), so I can say that it holds enough ground to be a general truth (maybe more altercations are necessary, you never know, but still something holds the ground for the thought). When it comes to religion, there is no grounding or foundation for me to assume that something is correct or not. If there was such a factor, some sort of evidence that could lead to the possibility of something divine...THEN it comes into the question of whether or not it would have happened. There are things that I am unsure about of coarse, but whether or not I am unsure about them should only some into play when some ground has been given.

If you tell me, right now, that there is a plasma TV floating in the deep regions of space...it wouldn't be a question of belief. Now if there was even a single piece of ground information (telescope recordings find images of small unidentifiable object, one was sent into space, etc.) then I could take the information I have been given and tell you whether I believe it or not.

[dore]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Logical in terms of what? If I have been given no instance of why something exists, then I, by logical reasoning, cannot say that it does.

Logical in terms of... ... logic? If you have been given no proof that something exists, then that neither proves nor disproves that that something exists. It proves that you didn't find any evidence, which holds no truth value either way.

[IMM lol]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

op: you're sensationalizing what is a very trivial point. you've essentially pointed out the humian problem of causality (which is that we can never explain causality; if we try to break down processes in terms of their causes, you'll hit an infinite regress of microprocesses) and then injected God into the equation.

my answer to that is who cares? no one; not the scientist, anyway. if you're willing to relegate God to the inexplicable of science, then go ahead, but at that point your God is simply a tautology for "randomness" "chaos" or whatever else you want to call it.

yes, the Deist has long been able to claim total compatibility with the sciences, and this is because the Deist essentially adds nothing to the equation; you're only giving another name for the same phenomenon which is inexplicable in terms of science or faith. you're really saying nothing at all.

[robertsona]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I've noticed that people who tend to not believe in Religion and/or God have a very distinct personality, or are wannabe's. They're usually of relatively moderate intelligence, or are of severely low intelligence... however, those who tend to argue and debate about it tend to be butthurt trolls, and along with being arrogant and closed-minded, they seem to think believing in Religion or God is just retarded.

However, it's not really dumb to believe in God or Religion... I personally think many religions are expressed in a way where it's used as a coping mechanism, for things that scare all living things... death. However, when someone digs deeper into the meaning of all of this, it may actually be possible that a higher being exists, and that these paradoxes and confusions are man-made, and do not necessarily exist this way. Just because it doesn't seem so probable, doesn't mean it's stupid to believe in it.

People probably thought about the ability to fly in the same way like this (I haven't studied it), but we ended up doing it. Just saying, and I think it's pointless to argue these things, since no matter what happens, people on either side will be closed-minded to the other, and nothing will change them... at least nothing online.

none of this makes sense and very nearly none of it is relevant (first paragraph in particular). you could apply your last sentence to nearly any argument--the point isnt necessarily to convince the other side that youre right (though that's nice) as much as it is to open both sides' minds.

[~kitty~]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

none of this makes sense and very nearly none of it is relevant (first paragraph in particular). you could apply your last sentence to nearly any argument--the point isnt necessarily to convince the other side that youre right (though that's nice) as much as it is to open both sides' minds.

The first paragraph is just a briefing of what I've seen in the personalities of such people, and the last paragraph was meant to imply that even though something seems impossible, you can't really eliminate it as a possibility.

EDIT: I do realize what you're trying to say, but the point is that you can't really talk about religion without having such people as I've described, due to the fact that religion isn't a topic that can ever really have definitive answers or come to terms with others without bringing a lot of emotional baggage into it, for either side really.

[IMM lol]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

thanks for the skepticism 101 briefing but i think everyone here knows that. however just because something is a possibility doesn't mean we shouldn't argue the validity of it

[~kitty~]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

thanks for the skepticism 101 briefing but i think everyone here knows that. however just because something is a possibility doesn't mean we shouldn't argue the validity of it

If people could argue the validity of it effectively, there wouldn't be a problem.

[robertsona]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

no um not all atheists/agonstics are people who instantly dismiss all other opinions but besides even if they were what would that matter, it's as if you're trying to weaken the other side's point by just casting them off as stubborn jerks

[~kitty~]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

no um not all atheists/agonstics are people who instantly dismiss all other opinions but besides even if they were what would that matter, it's as if you're trying to weaken the other side's point by just casting them off as stubborn jerks

That's not what I was saying, and it applies for both sides equally, however online, there's a more popular atheist view, so there's no need to say anything about any other side, since everyone else is going to say it anyway.

[Patashu]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

hey let's have something interesting to think about with regards to religion, since it focuses on the effects of religion as a thing practiced and spread by humans, rather than talking about Gods which never goes anywhere

http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/

[mhss1992]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

IMM lol:

If you don't care, just shut up.

If something is useless then its truth value is irrelevant. If something is useless and true, everything proceeds the same compared to if it was useless and false.
Also, an assumption you make is that atheists think 'I know there is no God.' More likely they think either 'I know the Christian God does not exist in any meaningful way' or 'I know that there is no evidence for any God that is meaningful to my life' or 'The statement 'God exists' is useless and impossible to ascertain a truth value for, so I live my life ignoring it'. They're not anti-God, just lack-of-God.

If you don't care about the existence of a God, knows that there is no evidence for the existence of a God, doesn't that actually mean you don't know whether there is or isn't a God?
Isn't your definition of atheism practically the same thing as an agnostic?

If they're the same thing, why did someone bother creating different words for it?

Well, most atheists I know actually side with the "probably God doesn't exist" thing, which I've proven wrong.

Also, if you really don't care, why are you even discussing here?

Science suggests agnosticism. Probability suggests atheism. Therefore I am an agnostic atheist. "Although I don't think we can ever be 100% sure, it's probably well over 99% likely that there is no God. We can also explain things without needing a God to begin with."

Actually, probability suggests agnosticism. Read the answer to argument II in the beginning.