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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

Leumas said:
No attack intended and no labeling purposed. Just trying to establish where you are on the SPECTRUM from Fundamentalist to Atheist.

If anything I was also trying to help you to INTROSPECT and find out where you are.

If you are more comfortable to distort an English word into some Hebrew tradition because of PERCEIVED taboo instilled into you from youth, and are unable to listen to reasoning as to why this distortion is in fact meaningless and pointless then your agnosticism is way to the right side on the spectrum.

I am not attacking or accusing or labeling….just trying to establish where you stand…..and maybe also make you think about it too.

I just explained to you why spelling out God as G-d is a totally meaningless practice. The reasoning behind it is utterly UNSOUND and fundamentalist to the point of the ridiculous.

If you are unwilling to accept that….jolly well….it is up to you. But maybe you would like to INTROSPECT as to why you are unwilling or unable to write out the word God properly as it ought to be written?

I am not saying that you HAVE TO write it that way….. you are free and I am not a despot. I am not ORDERING you to think about it either. I am just engaging in a debate about a peculiar and in my opinion misguided practice that reflects a level of fundamentalism and fear of a PARTICULAR DEITY called YHWH to the extent where even writing out God is frightful because of this despotic deity.

I am sure you know that the word YeHoWaH is written out in full when vowels are used and there is no taboo as to writing it out. The taboo is only in sounding it. Added with the fact that God is not a Hebrew word neither in sound or in writing, and it is not the name of YHWH then I cannot see how an agnostic can still fear to write out God?

But please go ahead….it is your prerogative….but it is also my prerogative to now think that you are quite more theistic than you are atheistic.

No pejorative intentions whatsoever….just establishing where you stand….that is all.
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This pretty much sums up my position as well.
 
The Norseman said:
'My little game.' LOL

Hokulele already posted it, but here's my position.
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Yes, your little game. You did not really care to find out what my position is or you would ave asked that directly rather than trying to come up with your own description based on how I answered your questions. As it happens, I could also use what Hodulele said. But I choose not to and why I do would drive this thread further off topic. Feel free to do a search for the other threads where people try to tell others how to describe themselves and you can find plenty of info there if you are actually interested.

It's not my problem if you wish to remain incoherent.
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We will see if that is really true depending on how you respond.
 
slingblade said:
DevilsAdvocate said:
Us actual atheists seem to be a rather small minority here. Piggy is the only name that comes to my mind, but there are probably a few others I can’t remember (or aren’t aware of).
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:w2:
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slingblade said:
I guess I am, too. But I don't care for the ignostic label, really. Nah, not exactly sure why....except it does kind of make me look like an agnostic who can't spell :p.
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devnull said:
I would classify myself as a "strong" atheist, if that helps.
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Ditto to all of the above...,:talk016:
 
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Robrob said:
Agnosticism is logical in that it's pretty impossible to "prove a negative." OTOH, if forced to bet, most agnostics would probably lean toward the "no God" than the "yes God" side of the coin.
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So then being afraid to spell out the word God because YHWH forbids us to sound out his name in full in Hebrew despite being able to write it out in full in Hebrew....must be quite theistic....no?

If one is afraid of a certain god to the point of distorting spellings in a language foreign to this god then one is more inclined to believe in the existence of this god than not...no?

Also....an aspect of being agnostic means that you are WILLING to REASON....and reasoning means evaluating facts and concluding from them REASONABLE results...no?

So if one cannot overcome even the most meaningless taboos of a certain religious tradition then one is a PRISONER of that religion regardless of how much one WISHES to think that s/he is an agnostic....no?
 
RobDegraves said:
I wonder what is so wrong about saying "I don't know".

Are atheist right or are theist right? I don't know.

Do Unicorns exist... somewhere? I don't know.

What I do know is that, based on the lack of evidence concerning unicorns, I am not buying that unicorn horn that shady looking dealer is trying to sell me.
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Well...first, I'd have to know what you mean by "somewhere." If you mean, "at an unknown location in the universe," I'd have to say that's an unfalsifiable statement.

If you mean here on Earth somewhere, then I can counter that, although not everyone may agree with my reasoning. But I feel I do know that unicorns of the classic, mythological type do not exist on earth, because it is impossible for them to exist.

Why, you ask? Well might you ask! I'm glad you ask! Thanks for asking! :D

The heraldic unicorn is a chimeric beast. It is composed of a horse's body and head, a lion's tail, and the hooves and beard of a goat. The single horn is unique, and not ascribed to any given animal, although some may associate it also with a goat or stag. Other, earlier depictions describe it as having a horse's body, a boar's tail, and a stag's head, but the heraldic version is the more common depiction today.

Genetically speaking, this animal must be comprised of the DNA of three non-related species. And that can't happen. Frankly, a lion would rather dine on the goat and the horse than attempt to mate with either, but even if they mated, no offspring would ever be produced. Not to mention the fact that it would have to be a superfecundate mating, as you're going to need the genetic material of three animals, instead of the usual two. I suppose, for argument's sake, you could first mate the horse with the goat, and then mate the lion to the resulting offspring...except there wouldn't be any.

Given what we know of biology and genetics, I can say with firm assurance that I know this beast not only doesn't exist, but has never existed. Even with modern genetic manipulation, I'm not sure we could ever make a viable heraldic unicorn, although I could be surprised. One-horned goats, however, we can do. But not classic unicorns. In fact, I know that no chimeric beasts have ever existed, for the same reasons.






...waits patiently for someone with bigger brains to utterly destroy her clever argument and reduce her to a weeping heap of quivering, humiliated flesh. :boxedin:
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
For a claim that there is a God, we can look at more than just the claim itself. We can look at why someone made the claim in the first place.
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With a lot of folks, I think it's a combination of stubbornness (i.e. this is how I grew up, this is how my parents believed, and this is how a good person is 'supposed' to be) and not being able to handle the idea of an uncaring universe where nobody's tending the light at the end of the tunnel...and the light itself may just be a supernova about to consume your world.

The old 'being necessary to invent him' thing. I think this is how a lot of people come to the Christian faith after being non-committal or not really thinking about god. If you've ever had problems in your life, if you've ever felt like you've hit rock bottom (i.e. everyone on this planet ever) and your kindly friend says "Come to church with us" and you have a tale spun around you of a being powerful enough to fashion the universe into being, but that still cares about you and wants to have a relationship with you, it's very powerful - especially backed up with the everything the church is good at. The pageantry, the cadence of the voice the message is delivered in, and then the peer pressure of seeing other people answer the altar call. You feel like you just want to break down and scream out at this invisible being to help you, and then there's a hand on your shoulder that guides you through talking to this being. Then later that day there might be a dinner. Then there might be a study or a singles group later on that week. It's a great deal of human reinforcement built up around an idea.

That's what many people are afraid of, I think. Not losing their belief, but losing the church and the fellowship that grows out of it as it becomes entwined inextricably with the believer's life. Their kids go to the Sunday school and make friends, they have a softball team they're a part of.

This is something that most atheists and agnostics just don't do well. Our ideas may be more based in science and reality, but we don't really come together that well. Sure, there's SITP in most larger cities, but if you're in the Bible Belt like me, there's not that much to choose from. You can spit and find a church full of nice people, but when it comes to atheists the whole "herding cats" analogy applies.

So that's what we're up against when we ask someone to think critically about their beliefs. We're asking someone to risk losing a whole chunk of their social lives. We're erasing an entire line of their "Mazlow needs."

That's what they refer to in the business as a "hard sell."
 
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Well, if we're still at doing introductions, I'd say I'm a fundamentalist agnostic ;) but that also includes that whatever God or Goddess you can think of, I'm pretty sure chances are against that. I don't know if there is a god, and I think it's fundamentally impossible to disprove anyway, but even if there were one, out of trillions of imaginable gods, any particular god you can think of is probably not it.
 
Piggy said:
By that definition I'm simultaneously a "strong atheist" (i.e., one who believes we now know enough to state without reservation that God/gods doesn't/don't exist) and an ignostic.
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You and I probably hold nearly the same beliefs, but I still call myself an agnostic atheist because I can't find a way to assign a zero probability to the existence of any and all gods. The chance is vanishingly small, and would be counted as zero in any algebraic calculation, but something in me (probably stubbornness) refuses to deny the possibility of some very intelligent entity who is doing his best to decieve me with his incredible superpowers.

Or it could be aliens.
 
Well, Tricky, the math guys and gals keep trying (unsuccessfully) to convince me that .999999999999 = 1, so wouldn't .00000000000000000000000000000000000000001 = 0?


Meh, it does to me. ;)
 
Tricky said:
You and I probably hold nearly the same beliefs, but I still call myself an agnostic atheist because I can't find a way to assign a zero probability to the existence of any and all gods. The chance is vanishingly small, and would be counted as zero in any algebraic calculation, but something in me (probably stubbornness) refuses to deny the possibility of some very intelligent entity who is doing his best to decieve me with his incredible superpowers.
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Dawkins made a scale, where 1 is absolute belief in god(s) and 7 was absolute belief that there wasn't any god(s).

He then placed himself at 6,5. That's the same spot I would place myself, and from what you're saying, you'd be around there as well.

But me and Dawkins are perfectly happy to call ourselves atheists, while you have to qualify it by saying agnostic atheist. Why is that? When did the definition of atheist change to 'an absolute and total certainty that there is no god'?
 
Tricky said:
You and I probably hold nearly the same beliefs, but I still call myself an agnostic atheist because I can't find a way to assign a zero probability to the existence of any and all gods. The chance is vanishingly small, and would be counted as zero in any algebraic calculation, but something in me (probably stubbornness) refuses to deny the possibility of some very intelligent entity who is doing his best to decieve me with his incredible superpowers.

Or it could be aliens.
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I agree 100% but also define myself as an atheist. I don't quite make it to a 7 on Dawkins' scale. I put the probability of the existence of god even with the probability that I'm a brain in a vat or that I live in the matrix, very unlikely but, as an open minded, scientifically oriented individual, I cannot rule it out completely.


I don't understand what the issue is with the falsification of the definition of god. God is an abstract idea that people feel with their guts and their hearts. Its not really a concept meant to be held up to scientific scrutiny.


I've actually never had the chance, but my first question to an agnostic would be "what god or gods are you agnostic towards and why?". Robert Oz asked that earlier and did not get a good response, imho. She said:
Nicole Friedman said:
Zeus and Thor were Gods of a polytheistic pantheon. When I refer to my agnosticism, I am talking about one G-d. While I may have stated my Jewish cultural roots, when I say "G-d" I'm not just referring to a Biblical G-d but whatever may be "out there".
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She did not explain why only the jewish god and not the others.
 
I am a strong atheist.

I will admit my agnosticism in a theoretical discussion. On the Dawkins scale, I'll place myself on the 6.5 (rather than a 7) with regards to gods in the same way that I am a 1.5 (rather than a 1) with regards to my own mother or prawn cocktail flavored potato chips: Yes, it is theoretically possible that I am fundamentally mistaken about their respective existence - but pondering the idea to any degree of seriousness is just a silly waste of time. It is meaningless. It is meaningless to admit that "yes, there could still be a god" just as it is meaningless to admit that "yes, maybe I never experienced prawn cocktail flavored potato chips and all my memories of having done so were caused by bnrain injury/CIA implants/hypnosis."

I am more agnostic about whether the sun will still be there tomorrow than I am about the existence of god. I do not describe myself as a sun-agnostic, though - so why should I describe myself as agnostic regarding gods? The idea that there is a god is no more worthy of consideration than the idea that the sun might disappear tomorrow.
 
slingblade said:
Well, Tricky, the math guys and gals keep trying (unsuccessfully) to convince me that , so wouldn't .00000000000000000000000000000000000000001 = 0?


Meh, it does to me. ;)
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if anyone tells you that .999999999999 = 1, they're pulling your leg. Actually it's 0.(9)=1. As in, an infinity of 9's after decimal point. And yes, by the same token an infinity of zeroes after the decimal point would make that equal zero too. It should be even easier to see why. An infinity of zeroes and then a 1 is just zero point an infinity of zeroes, which should be easier to see why it's zero. There is no such thing as an infinity and one decimal places, so essentially that 1 never comes.
 
I'm not comfortable with spelling out 'Boobs'. Could you please spell them out as B--bs so as to not offend my cultural orientation?
 
Knockers. Snack Trays. The strongest argument for existence of a God. I got a million of 'em.
 
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