Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

[dore]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

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]

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]

Originally Posted by ~kitty~

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~]

Originally Posted by robertsona

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]

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~]

Originally Posted by IMM lol

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]

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~]

Originally Posted by robertsona

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]

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_a...mune_disorder/

[mhss1992]

IMM lol:

If you don't care, just shut up.

Originally Posted by Patashu

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.

[Patashu]

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]

Originally Posted by Patashu

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]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

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]

Originally Posted by dore

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]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Izzy

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.

Originally Posted by RE_Alioth2

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Reach

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.