Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

[Patashu]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Atheism practically is the same thing as being agnostic, they just evoke different things when you hear them.

Labels are funny like that, huh? Sometimes they're redundant - sometimes deliberately so, because one sounds nicer to people than the other.

I don't care about God as in the question 'is there a God or not' is meaningless*, but I do care about God in the sense of how believing in religions effects you, your associates and society, because religion's presence has measurable effects.

*Without prescribing more characteristics, as in 'I believe in the judeo-christian god as proposed by a reading of the bible'. Then we can analyze the bible for what we should find in the real world.

[mhss1992]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Atheism practically is the same thing as being agnostic, they just evoke different things when you hear them.

hmm...
Well, most atheists I know would disagree with you. Atheism is a negative position regarding the belief in God, not a neutral one like pure agnosticism.

[tofurox]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

hmm...
Well, most atheists I know would disagree with you. Atheism is a negative position regarding the belief in God, not a neutral one like pure agnosticism.

I understand that. When I listen to most atheists they truly are "against" a superior being, not simply "doubtful" or not believing. It's a much more tenacious outlook on religion. They specifically disprove the presence of a godly figure and are completely against it.

Personally I am basically agnostic Catholic, sounds like an oxymoron does it not? My parents (grandparents too) would probablly shoot me (not literally) if they heard me talking like this but in all honesty I find it very difficult to believe something that does not have very much evidence to prove anything. Yeah sure people were there, but things like that can be forged. People can be duplicitously convinced something has happened for whatever reasons there may be.

If someone were to bring fourth hard evidence that something of this nature has happened, it would allow me to believe it more. I am almost leaning to my Earth and Space Science teacher who is a die hard evolutionist (though that's a topic for another thread).

[foxfire667]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

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.

But that is exactly what I mentioned throughout the rest of my post. There is no evidence for either side, making it a null, and basically doesn't even consider itself into the equation of "belief" or "disbelief". It has no grounds to be considered in either direction, which makes it utterly pointless to debate about it. When I say "by logic I cannot believe" I mean this because it has not even stepped up to the level of decision upon the matter yet. My wording could have been revised for less confusion though, so I apologize for that.
Example: I am God's brother. Disprove that I am God's brother. It's null, and without evidence either way, it fails to really come to the level of logical decision making.

But this is without adding science into the equation. It has been stated before that we have been able to explain the creation of the universe and life without adding God into the equation. A lot of these theories have a considerable amount of research and ground behind them. If you add this into the equation, then the amount of information that goes against many of the worlds religious deities is greater than the amount for them (in essence, 0). Now does this mean it disproves ALL supernatural hierarchies? I suppose you could say that this is not quite the case, and once again, we are back to the "null" region of thinking. It's null on either side, so again, it doesn't even bring itself to the level of logical decision.

Again, deciding whether or not there is a plasma TV floating around the deep regions of space with no evidence on either side, makes it null. You could deduce by common sense that this is not the case, but this doesn't mean that it isn't out there. With nothing on either side, logical decision making is null. It's like telling a computer to decide (when there is only 0, and 1) the correct answer when nothing is told to guide it. It could guess randomly, I suppose, but it could never guess based on logic.

[mhss1992]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

But that is exactly what I mentioned throughout the rest of my post. There is no evidence for either side, making it a null, and basically doesn't even consider itself into the equation of "belief" or "disbelief". It has no grounds to be considered in either direction, which makes it utterly pointless to debate about it. When I say "by logic I cannot believe" I mean this because it has not even stepped up to the level of decision upon the matter yet. My wording could have been revised for less confusion though, so I apologize for that.
Example: I am God's brother. Disprove that I am God's brother. It's null, and without evidence either way, it fails to really come to the level of logical decision making.

But this is without adding science into the equation. It has been stated before that we have been able to explain the creation of the universe and life without adding God into the equation. A lot of these theories have a considerable amount of research and ground behind them. If you add this into the equation, then the amount of information that goes against many of the worlds religious deities is greater than the amount for them (in essence, 0). Now does this mean it disproves ALL supernatural hierarchies? I suppose you could say that this is not quite the case, and once again, we are back to the "null" region of thinking. It's null on either side, so again, it doesn't even bring itself to the level of logical decision.

Again, deciding whether or not there is a plasma TV floating around the deep regions of space with no evidence on either side, makes it null. You could deduce by common sense that this is not the case, but this doesn't mean that it isn't out there. With nothing on either side, logical decision making is null. It's like telling a computer to decide (when there is only 0, and 1) the correct answer when nothing is told to guide it. It could guess randomly, I suppose, but it could never guess based on logic.

Well... That means you agree with the initial premise of the thread. You're an agnostic, not an atheist.

[Izzy]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I usually don't consider myself belonging to any particular label. Religion and all related aspects are just irrelevant to my life because they never get brought up in ever day life so it doesn't matter.

[RE_Alioth2]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I wouldn't know what Atheism is like because I do not consider myself that yet. However, I am agnostic, and I know that my religion in particular is too conservative to modern acceptances for me to even consider into my life again. If I were to consider becoming religious, it would have to be with something more modern, which is non-existent at the moment.

[fido123]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

I usually don't consider myself belonging to any particular label. Religion and all related aspects are just irrelevant to my life because they never get brought up in ever day life so it doesn't matter.

I'd personally say these topics are a part of your every-day-life for the sole fact that you live.

I'm an agnostic. I think us as a human society know only an very small portion of our/the universe's origins. I look at the world around me often and I'm overwhelmed at the thought that all of this couldn't have happened without intelligent intervention, but the idea of intelligent intervention is just as overwhelming. I just look at all of this as question that I'll probably never have an answer to, so why should I pretend to know by "picking" a religion and sticking by it. Far too many people pick an answer that agree's with most of their personal morals and crusade their way through life like a total tool. A girl I know is a bhuddhism and actually believes the earth is an egg or some crap like that. I honestly think these people are dumb stupid tools. Although we don't know much, we still know quite a bit about the planet we live on, and I don't see why I have to take those views seriously and tolerate them. I'm apparently an asshole for telling her that the planet is in fact not a ****ing egg. I am however tolerant to most religions because again, we don't know, so why pretend to know and force my beliefs upon others? I think the way things probably happened is something along the lines of what atheists think, but unless we can look billions of years into the past I can't stand by it as fact and utter truth.

I wouldn't know what Atheism is like because I do not consider myself that yet. However, I am agnostic, and I know that my religion in particular is too conservative to modern acceptances for me to even consider into my life again. If I were to consider becoming religious, it would have to be with something more modern, which is non-existent at the moment.

Sorry to call you out on this but this is exactly what I hate. People "picking" a religion because they feel like they need a personal stance on life or something. Why don't you become religious because you actually believe it? The concept of "picking" a religious sounds completely retarded to me.

[Reach]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

While I do agree with most of what you're saying, I would like to elaborate on a few points:

Stop saying that your belief is what "science" and "logic" claims. Science and logic have LIMITS. They do not give you enough authority to affirm whether God exists or not.

For many people that take a scientific approach to the issue, it isn't about confirming or denying the existence of God. It's about an evidence based approach to thinking.

I would never claim to know that 'God' doesn't exist, but I wouldn't claim to know whether 'X' exists either, where X can represent any concept I can't falsify.

Concepts without falsifiability have no scientific utility. Science and logic have limitations, but those limitations reject hypotheses that cannot be falsified.

Thus, those that rely on science as a philosophical framework reject the concept of 'God' because it serves no scientific purpose and has no place within a scientific framework.

With that said, an infinite number of possibilities for 'God' of course still remain, any of which could be elucidated at a future date and turned into a scientific hypothesis. Until then, however, I request evidence based arguments before I seriously consider something as plausible.

Otherwise, endless, irrelevant debates ensue. D:

[mhss1992]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Concepts without falsifiability have no scientific utility. Science and logic have limitations, but those limitations reject hypotheses that cannot be falsified. ... Until then, however, I request evidence based arguments before I seriously consider something as plausible.

You know... This bugs me a little.
I believe that facts remain true regardless of their utility to humanity, science or whatever.

I am by no means trying to hinder science's progress by forcing scientists to always think "the results of this experiment are a strong evidence to 'X theory', but God is still an option". That's absolutely useless (though pretty harmless).

It's just that possibilities are out there. There are certain things that will never (or at least as long as we are alive) have any form of evidence, like different kinds of matter and universes, but that is not an excuse to take a negative position regarding their existence. The answer is just "I don't know". It's that simple. The fact that they're not important to us does not change that answer. This thread is actually just a complaint against the arrogant people who think they know too much, and I've seen far too many of those.

[gnr61]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

As Patashu touched upon, the difference between "agnostics" and "atheists" with which you are so fixated is not much more than a semantic hiccup. There is no black and white divide here, it is very rarely a "negative position" versus a "neutral position," at least when dealing with well-thought individuals. To say atheists and religious people are those who take, respectively, absolute negative or absolute positive theistic positions is reductionist, and would confine 99% of intelligent individuals, no matter what their leaning, to being lumped together as agnostics--thereby deadening the labels you put so much stock in.

Okay, we might acknowledge that even the most rigid atheist or theist must allow room for doubt in their position, because their position is ostensibly unfalsifiable: call it the "I don't know" factor. You have to understand that the very presence of this factor does not necessarily indicate agnosticism. No thinking atheist will attempt to absolutely dismiss the possibility of God's existence, any more than he will attempt to absolutely dismiss the possibility of the existence of an invisible green elephant living in his closet; BUT he can assert with some degree of certainty (based on presence or lack of evidence) the likeliness of these things.

A stance of simply "I don't know," the "pure agnostic" position you advocate regarding unfalsifiable claims connotes compromise, neutrality, a middle-of-the-road mindset that lends equal weight to all possible answers; obviously some people favor, based on their assessment of the evidence, one answer over the others. We call these people atheists or theists depending on which, and not agnostics because doing so would render the word meaningless.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

You know... This bugs me a little.
I believe that facts remain true regardless of their utility to humanity, science or whatever.

I am by no means trying to hinder science's progress by forcing scientists to always think "the results of this experiment are a strong evidence to 'X theory', but God is still an option". That's absolutely useless (though pretty harmless).

It's just that possibilities are out there. There are certain things that will never (or at least as long as we are alive) have any form of evidence, like different kinds of matter and universes, but that is not an excuse to take a negative position regarding their existence. The answer is just "I don't know". It's that simple. The fact that they're not important to us does not change that answer. This thread is actually just a complaint against the arrogant people who think they know too much, and I've seen far too many of those.

I think you're misinterpreting Reach. He's saying that there may very well be things out there that are "true," but if there's no way for us to tell, we can't say much about them at all. He's not saying that we need to take a negative position when there's no evidence. There's nothing necessarily wrong with saying "I don't know," but this answer doesn't satisfy many people, which is why religion is so appealing.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

BTW to clarify agnosticism versus atheism:

Agnosticism is all about how "knowable" something is. It's a statement about knowledge.

Atheism is simply a "non-theist." That is to say, someone who does not subscribe to any theistic religion:

1. Gnostic theist: "I believe a God exists, and I know this to be true."
2. Agnostic theist: "I believe a God exists, but I don't claim that I know it's true."
3. Gnostic atheist: "I don't believe any Gods exist, and I claim to know this to be true."
4. Agnostic atheist: "I don't believe any Gods exist, but I don't claim to know that this is true."

Agnosticism by itself is a sort of 50-50 probability weighting. I could be a pure agnostic about the statement "There is a Starbucks on the next block here in Manhattan." I may not know if this is true or not true, and I might weight each probability at 50%.

But it usually doesn't make as much sense when we're talking about God. People claim to be agnostic in the sense that the probability between God existing and not existing is 50-50. Evidence strongly pushes this distribution far in favor of God NOT existing, which is why "agnostic atheist" is a more appropriate term for most atheists today (but we'll still call them "atheists" anyway). It's just bad science to claim something is true without any evidence, but theistic nuts take advantage of this by blowing it out of proportion: "So you admit that you DON'T know for sure! See!"

Yeah, we don't know FOR SURE, but that's like saying that I don't know FOR SURE that there isn't a pink unicorn under your bed. They are both equally ridiculous scenarios. It's just that the proof against the unicorn is more easily understood by most when compared to the evidence against God... which really requires a deep understanding of abiogenesis, evolution, cosmology, quantum physics, psychology/utility, mathematics, statistics, logic, physics, etc. The more and more you understand those subjects, the more you'll come to understand why God is a pretty unlikely thing. This is also why more intelligent people tend to be atheists.

[mhss1992]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

Evidence strongly pushes this distribution far in favor of God NOT existing, which is why "agnostic atheist" is a more appropriate term for most atheists today (but we'll still call them "atheists" anyway). .

What evidences?
If that's really the case, try to answer directly to my arguments in the first post.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

BTW this is Rubix on a new account, just so you know.

Ill briefly address your own points before moving onto mine in the next post:

I. Sure, there are logical inconsistencies with God, but this depends on how one defines God. I think certain definitions of God are incompatible with what we know about our universe, but that doesn't mean all definitions are incompatible. I don't think this is a strong atheist argument, so I think it should be removed.

II. I think this is a fair point any rational atheist would make. There are an infinite number of possible Gods we could believe in, and they're all just as arbitrary and devoid of direct evidence. They are indeed invented by humans, and I think this is an important point to make.

III. This is also a fair point. If we can explain something with variables A, B, and C, why invoke an arbitrary, ill-defined D? Why not also tack on E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, and/or M, while we're at it? Ultimately, we gain nothing by just tacking on "possibilities" that we can't really test or observe in any real way. It doesn't help us in terms of truth or knowledge, and if anything, it can do damage if people are making decisions based off something without evidence.

IV. Most atheists ARE agnostic to some degree -- just not a 50/50 split. Many people assume atheists are gnostic when they aren't. Again, remember that (a)gnosticism is a claim about knowledge, while (a)theism is a claim about belief. I think it's always good science to be agnostic to some degree, because it's a bad idea to say that something is knowably certain (otherwise you're appealing to something unfalsifiable even if it's actually untrue).