Janey

I don't want to belabour the point, but I think that you are incorrect in your definitions.

there are basically two:

1) Those who believe or disbelieve because of faith.
2) those who believe or disbelieve because of proof (which by the way, contains all four of your definitions)

and again I'll re-iterate: I am not dismissing any atheist. they believe what they do. Intellectual position notwithstanding, they are not accepting any proof that God doesn't exist. They are basing their position on faith. Just as the most august Roman Catholic Church, or the Eastern Orthodox Church does, or Islam, or Judaism base there doctrines on faith.

furthermore, this act of faith is not irrational. It is quite rational from the perspective of their paradigm. Faith does not require proof. It just requires belief, thus it is sustainable, and inpugnable.

As d*d stated earlier, empirical proof must by definition adhere to the natural universe from which we can perform the observation (measurement) and is therefore limited to that which is created. If the creator is by definition extende to outside that which is created, all those who await empirical evidence of God, may go on waiting for eternity, and therefore have their belief remained unresolved. They remain unknowing, or Agnostic.

I hardly think that it is arrogant to think this. simply organized.

asaris

I wasn't entirely clear on this in my post, but I meant it to be two completely seperate points. In any case, it's not completely accurate to say that, for Kierkegaard, "knowing does not matter". He emphasizes the historical portion of Christianity so that, while it's possible to come to the thought "I need grace" through natural reason alone (and yes, I do believe that Kierkegaard believes this), the leap to Christian faith requires both the leap and a knowledge of at least a minimal amount of the historical content of that faith.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

tspikes51

^ He speaks the truth.

__________________
"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox

buddle

Agree totally... I find very few christian/muslim/aethist fanatics if you compare the number to the actual group of people.

The example from the first post is a person that you find all over the globe... An idiot..

__________________
im in love

bingle

Hmm. My definitions meant to encompass both of these points, actually. I talked about those who don't accept proof, but believe (which would be believing through "faith")


I meant rational in the philosophical sense of the word - that is, accepting that human reason can solve this problem. The group of "rationals" are people who feel that reason can be applied to metaphysical questions.

However, once again, we're not talking about empirical proof. (Or at least I'm not). Empirical proof is very weak, and can't actually prove anything in a strong sense. Deductive reasoning can. At least within the bounds that asaris and I discussed.

Bingle

bingle

I missed this in my first reply, sorry.

There is a difference, though, in the amount of faith required to accept, say, the theory of gravity and the existence of God. Or, to use another poster's example, to accept the existence of Santa Claus. Do you say that people who believe in Santa Claus and those who do not are each using as much faith as the other? What about those who believe in oranges and those who do not?

If I postulate the existence of an invisible pink space unicorn, do you believe in it? Is it equally acceptable to be convinced of its existence as well as not? How do we then distinguish between reality and fantasy? What decision process can we go through to separate the two?

Bingle

asaris

But the idea that there is no rational proof does not mean that there is no evidence.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Janey

I see where you are going with this. But I think that faith is binary. It is either there or not, and one cannot have various degrees of faith. A sliding scale of faith would imply that that remainder is taken up by empirical proof. (by the way, I do speak of empirical, even though it is limited, that being part of d*d's arguement).

I can readily accept the existance of gravity because scientific proof exists to demonstrate its repeatable measurement, and predict it's behaviour. I cannot accept the existance of your unicorn, because so far there is no proof of its existance. You have not produced it. I cannot accept it on faith. Nor can I discount it's existance on faith. But I can postpone my acceptance (or lack ) of it until there is proof (empirical) and therefore remain agnostic to its existance.

Similarly, I can demonstrate the existance of oranges and so can you. I can do it repeatedly and yield the same result. If somebody doesn't believe in it , in them, then they have difference in interpretation. Regardless, the orange is there.

The crux is why do I accept the definitions of scientific proof? Do I have faith in Science? No. I have confidence, so far demonstrated, that the method of proof used by science is repeatable and dependable. As our sophistication in measurement develops, so shall our capablility to measure that which is currently out of our ken, and our accuracy.

I think that deductive reasoning is a very valuable tool, but falls short of the aims of faith. Faith implies acceptance without proof, regardless of its source (dedcutive reasoning or empirical evidence).

Faith allows one to accept that wich is not designed to be provable. When you talk about those who have faith as being the ones who discard the proof :

( I talked about those who don't accept proof, but believe which would be believing through "faith")

They are they are still utilizing faith regardless of the evidence.

RCAlyra2004

Again I feel that I must defend my position from my own perspective. Atheism is not an entrenched position of faith. I recently had a person tell me that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a christian...

If a person does not see any evidence that there is a God, or diety, or dieties it does not imply that they have taken a position of "faith that there is no God"

It simply means that they cannot see God, "Therefore she does not appear to be there." After rereading all of your posts I get a sense that you feel it necessary to define atheism from a perspective of faith. Atheism by accepted definition is an non-theistic perspective on the world. That is to say that my world view does not currently have God in it.

Again... I would like there to be a God... I just can't see her yet. She doesn't speak to me, she seems not to exist. No tangible evidence, not even voices in my head, thoughts or dreams. No "presence of God" experiences exist for me!

If I were to take a position against God in light of the (possible) evidence listed above, it would take a form faith that says the experience can be exhaustively explained through science. EVEN SO... if I were to doubt a possible "presence of God" experience and look for an alternate and plausible scientific answer, atheism is not a religion! It is faith that calculable science inevitably answers the questions that arise. The same way that new and exciting revelations in molecular DNA analysis further prove evolution as the means of our actual creation. The hand of God isn't even necessary for us to be here!

One day, when God pokes her nose through the clouds (or whatever God might choose to do) and I see her with my senses, and touch her face I will beleive that she is there. Even so she will have to prove her character to me! Is she Omnipotent? Is she omniscient? Does she love us? Does she have an afterlife prepared for us? Are we eternal beings with a soul? Does she care that I hurt, laugh, cry etc.

To say that atheism is an entrenched position of faith is simply silly and defies logic. A-theism = Non-theism

Athiests still wonder if there is a god out there... there just isn't any proof yet. Just ask us, we'll tell you!

Shades of gray... shades of gray!

By the way.. the last post you made, right before this post one is truly great... this post is only clarification and is an attempt to further define how I see things. I love the way you express yourself!

__________________
Living on the edge of sanity

roachboy

does the notion of evidence mean that you have already decided on the question at hand (whether there is or is not a god)?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Robaggio

I'm curious. Why do you postpone faith-based acceptance of a pink unicorn when you embrace the notion of the conventional god? Neither entities have any more "proof" going for them- why one over the other?

Janey

Hmm... Maybe the way I state thoughts comes out unclearly, but I actually postpone my acceptance of both the pink unicorn and a conventional god. Both based on the same line of reasoning.

RCALyra, I may be off base here myself, but I define theists as being those who believe in god (they may do so because of pure faith - and people say blind faith for a reason, blind being the operative term for not requiring to see the proof for their faith, or they may do so because thay have actual proof, some sort of divine rapture - yes I did see the Simpsons last night).

I define atheists as those who do not believe in god, and they do not believe in god , based on faith, that is they do not have any proof for the lack of god.

somehow, i think that your definition of atheism:

maps to my definition of an agnostic. I see no evidence that there is a god, nor any evidence to the contrary. I therefore cannot accept either position, and must await the so called 'proof' for one of these positions.

You are correct (in my view) when you say that if I do not see any evidence, it doesn't imply that I have to take a position of faith that there is no god. In my view, I do not. I have to take one of three positions:

1) faith that there is a god
2) faith that there is no god
3) Not knowing either way (agnostic)

while in any of these three positions, if I am presented with actual proof, I can translate to one of two more positions:

a) Knowledge that god exists
b) knowledge that god does not exist

In which case it is impossible for me to hold tenure on position 3), but 1) & a) or 2) & b) can co-exist.

klugey reply, but I am trying to work this out myself...

asaris

My position is that there is a God.

The difference, Robbagio, between pink unicorns and God is that we have reasons (or, at least, can come up with them) for thinking that the existence of God might not be completely obvious. But if there are pink unicorns, why hasn't anyone seen them yet?

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

roachboy

asaris:

so that means arguments can be advanced without agreement as to premise. which means that arguments for/against this god fellow operate in different registers up front.

which goes back to the basic objection that i had to this thread (not to your posts on it)....which is simply that the premise of the thread is already a move within an argument, an attempt to put those who do and do not believe on a common ground by de facto imposing belief understood in terms particular to a system like protestant christianity on everyone. round it goes.

everything else i might say should follow in a straight line from the above: what for you might be evidence for me might be a random collection of facts. even the Big Ones.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

asaris

Indeed. I think the problem is that people are confusing assumptions with faith. Everyone makes assumptions, and it's impossible to avoid making them. But faith seems to me to be a different thing altogether. People can have faith in God (clearly), faith in public leaders (as in "I have faith in Martin Luther King" which means about the same as "I believe in Martin Luther King") or in their friends and family ("I have faith my wife won't cheat on me"). Faith is being used in all of these cases in a roughly similar way. But saying "I don't believe that there is a God" is something different. Of course it's based on assumptions, some of which you undoubtedly share with Christians (such as the belief in the general reliability of science). But that doesn't mean it's a faith, or faith-based, or however you want to put it.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Robaggio

If we could see the unicorns, then we wouldn't need faith in their existence, because we'd have proof. Now, if you're trying to say that you have proof god exists, I'm sure everyone would like to hear it.

Why do people who have faith in god believe that pink unicorns don't exist? Because there's no proof of pink unicorns? Well, there's no proof of god either. People don't have to believe in pink unicorns, but if they believe in god, they cannot disbelieve them.

asaris

You miss my point. God is the being than which none greater can be conceived, right? Well, if that's the case, and he exists, it at least makes sense to think that he's beyond our perception. There's no reason to think that pink unicorns are beyond our perception. Plus, see what I said above about evidence. There's evidence that God exists; you might not think it to be very good, but there's evidence. There's no evidence that pink unicorns exist. Keep in mind that evidence does not equal proof.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Robaggio

You are correct, there is no reason to think that pink unicorns are beyond our perception. However, there is no reason to think that they arn't either. There is nothing for or against pink unicorns. Therefore, like god, they are an article of faith.

The distinction I was trying to make is that people are somehow able to remain agnostic towards god, and yet, are able to come to a conclution about pink unicorns. How this conclution is made without any evidence is beyond me. If you're agnostic towards god, then you have to be agnostic towards pink unicorns- neither entity has any proof going left or right about them.

Also, I'm confused as to how evidence is different than proof. Could you elaborate?

asaris

Proof looks like this:

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

That's a proof. It "proves" that Socrates is mortal. Evidence, on the other hand, is such that it tends to lead one towards a conclusion. If I'm investigating a murder, I might discover that the victim had a very jealous ex-husband. That leads me to suspect that it was the ex-husband who killed the victim. It's not proof, but it's evidence.

Now, there is no proof like the one above for God's existence. With the possible exception of the Ontological Argument, none of the traditional arguments for God's existence are valid on their faces. But, at least in my opinion, these arguments provide evidence for God's existence. The idea that the universe should have a cause might not proove that there's a God, but it gives one reason to believe that there is a God.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

jwoody

Can somebody tell me what god is?

d*d

in what context, that of the bible, egyptian gods, norse gods, greek gods, creator, your god, my god - It's a semantic mess, a reply to that question will open up any number of further questions critisicisms

Janey

Unless of course, that Socrates was really a woman, in which case she would be immortal. It comes down to definitions.

asaris

No, that's a false inference. The fact that all men are mortal does not entail that everything that is not a man is not mortal.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

lindseylatch

God is love
love is blind
I am blind
I am God

Hmm...

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

Janey

rats. you run rings around me logically...

Zenir

It seems as though Bingle has a pretty good grasp on what the main problem is. The problem is the question and evidence given. The question is posed objectively. Yes, there is generally a normal distribution of people in the poll for opinions and actions. Therefore there will always be extremists and so forth. However, this does not imply that all atheists are zealots, on the contrary it argues against it. This goes both ways though. Those that are zealots are often in the lime-light so it is their opinion which is yelled the loudest over the crowd of individuals.
For evidence, we can not prove that god exists or does not exist at the moment. So, logically we can not say there is definitely no god, also we can not say there is definitely a god. This is why there is faith. The things we can assume from this is that for the moment there is no significant support beyond imposed thoughts and ideas for or against god, and therefore god or not god is somewhat irrelevant for the moment. If he has a hand in things, we won't notice, if he doesn't we obviously wouldn't notice. You could assume that you always have a goblin following you and he hides behind you head without effecting you and is quite indetectable to others. It would be insignificant for everything and everyone but those effected by your actions and your own perception.
As a side note I don't know if anyone has noticed anyone neglecting to say the pledge. I personally don't, I feel it is outdated and has lost meaning. I also don't agree with it. Many people however did not seem to take a fondness toward this. This is in relation with school prayer. How is it possible to allow for mass prayer of every religion, specifically when some don't involve "prayers" this si why there are public and private schools. Private schools allow for individuals to find a place which matches their preferences.

__________________
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.-Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate
(1875-1965)

Telluride

The Constitution does protect the individual right to freedom of/free exercise of religion. I'd say that this would cover school prayer as long as it was completely voluntary.

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

RCAlyra2004

Well there you go,

Janey, You and I seem to agree for the most part. I really could care less whether we classify ourselves as atheist or agnostic... because we both see that there is a lack of evidence that any god actually exists. I take the humanist approach in that I beleive that the Bible is actually a book full of myths.

no one walked on water
no one healed the blind
no one was taken away up to heaven
no one was born of a virgin birth
etc etc

I beleive that world is a natural place where the laws of physics prevail...

__________________
Living on the edge of sanity

Jinn

I'm honestly surprised that no one, as of yet, has brought up the principle of Occam's Razor. Heard and often misused in philosophical arguments, Occam's Razor is simply "that one should make no more assumptions than needed. When multiple explanations are available for a phenomenon, the simplest version is preferred."

My personal extension of this belief is that any derivation from this principle necessitates a level of "faith" -- for the less concrete your assumptions, the more that must be taken on faith. The principle can be applied to nearly every temporal or spatial assumption I (or we) make. An easy example would be: A charred tree on the ground could be caused by a landing alien ship or a lightning strike. According to Occam's Razor, the lightning strike is the preferred explanation as it requires the fewest assumptions.Perhaps the best formulation of Occam's Razor is the one which states that, of equally good explanations for a phenomenon, the best one is the simplest explanation which accounts for all the facts.

How does this relate to fanatacism? Simply put, atheism (and certainly agnosticism) requires the fewest assumptions. For me, a person who makes many assumptions ignores the most vital aspects of life: reality. A person who assumes that everyone is happy and that the government is perfect and that everything works out in the end (or their linear opposites) ignores the reality of the situation. In doing so, they breed ignorance. Any creationist who can dispute evolution on the basis that the earth is only 6000 years old assumes too much.

Although these may be disputable, I believe the indisputable aspect of Occam's Razor is that theism requires far more assumption.

For Christianity to be true: Assume there is a higher being. Assume the higher being is named God. Assume that being is omniscient. Assume this being is omnipotent, Assume this being is omnipresent. Assume this being created the Universe. Assume this being created Earth. Assume this being created Humans. Assume this being requires belief in itself. Assume there is a Heaven.

For Atheism: Assume there is no higher being. (YES, ASSUME). Because the rest of the assumptions regard the being itself, they are no longer necessary.

For Agnosticism: Assume nothing -- empiricism may or may not reveal the answer in the future.

-JiNN

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

lindseylatch

wow, JiNN...that was...deep. Seriously, well done. Good use of arguement. Way to jump in there. Fabulous, and I look forward to stuff in the future.

I guess us agnostics are the smart ones then.

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

asaris

Of course, Jinn ignores the complaint that most of us theists would make -- that Atheism doesn't explain everything. But I'm sure he's aware of that.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

lindseylatch

They would assume coincidence, I would think?

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

asaris

No, I'm talking more about things like consciousness and certain features of morality. I understand that it's open to debate whether or not these things require God. But I just wanted to make the point that it IS open to debate.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

lindseylatch

Well, everything is open to debate. This whole topic is just one big debate.

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

roachboy

asaris: i put my face close to teh screen when i was reading no. 153 and could swear that i caught a whiff of kant floating about...

why would anything about consciousness require a god to explain it?
morality? what qualifies as morality for you in the first place (you have a nietzsche quote as your sig--i assume this is fair game), and what elements of it would lead you to work a god into it?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

asaris

Well, Nietzsche and Kant are more closely related than most people give them credit for, but, granted, that's mostly on epistemology than ethics. And my former advisor is a big Kant guy, so I supposed I've picked up a bit.

Insofar as you think consciousness cannot be explained by evolution alone, you might think you need God to explain it. Mind you, even I'm not really convinced by this; I think you need more than a bare materialism to account for consciousness, but do you need God? Maybe, but probably not, at least as far as we know. I just mentioned it as a possibility.

Morality's a bit harder. When I'm being careful, by morality I mean that set of directives that are necessary towards leading the most flourishing sort of human life, and the Nietzschean dictum, "Never act in such a way that you are acting out of weakness rather than out of strength" is not the worst general moral dictum I've heard. But I think that at the end of the day, to explain the existence of categories such as "good" and "evil", "justice" and "injustice", you need God. My reasoning is, well, to be generous, complicated (if you're feeling less generous, you'd call it confused), but I've tried to explain some of my reasoning here before.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

RCAlyra2004

I find it interesting that you... JinnKai would first clearly identify the meaning of Occam's Razor and then begin to make a bunch of assumptions.

You said:

Occam's Razor is simply "that one should make no more assumptions than needed"

This indeed appears correct to me.

Later on in your argument you state: "My personal extension of this belief is that any derivation from this principle necessitates a level of "faith" -- for the less concrete your assumptions, the more that must be taken on faith."

You also go on to say, "For Atheism: Assume there is no higher being. (YES, ASSUME). Because the rest of the assumptions regard the being itself, they are no longer necessary"

OK JinnKai, lets be really clear about what an atheist is. "Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs, or of actively disbelieving in the existence of deities. Atheism is not necessarily an entrenched position against a deity, but it can be. Atheism is often described as "not seeing any evidence for" any deities."

I am an atheist who sees no evidence of a God... therefore I make no assumptions about God. I do not include any "Gods" in my plans or my thoughts or assumptions, no extra legwork, no extra assumptions.

It seems to me that an agnostic starts with the assumption that there "could" be a GOD. They assume that the existence of a God is plausible without any evidence for the necessity of a god.

Lets be clear... there is no evidence that there is a God, therefore agnosticism starts out with a false assumption.

If you don't agree then try this on for size:

My friend says that she has a big green dragon in her garage. You look into the garage where she says it is but cannot see the dragon or hear the dragon or touch the dragon. Reasonable use of Occam's Razor logic says that the lack of evidence indicates that my friend is incorrect. She could also be lying or deluded.

You can be agnostic about my friend being a liar, or agnostic about her being deluded. But if you are agnostic about the big green dragons existence you have just bought into the "assumption" that it could exist in the first place.

What’s worse is that you did it without any evidence at all.

Therefore: I see no evidence of God so I don't just assume that a god is needed for the world to exist and "work". Instead I try to find out what does really exist. I find out why "Life" seems to work and I try to understand how life could have come into existence based on the Physical laws that I know are true. (Provable Physical Laws!)

Agnosticism seems kind of "weasely" to me. It's full of weasel words and seems to be based on an unwillingness to define what we really know to be true about nature and the universe.

Again: If god were to show up I'd gladly admit her existence, until then there is no proof and I am unwilling to make any extra assumptions about her.

If you define my last two statements as requiring a form of "Faith based assumption" you have truly missed the point of Occam's Razor.

Respectfully submitted

RCA LYRA

__________________
Living on the edge of sanity

asaris

RCA Lyra, you seem to be a bit confused. More specifically, you seem to be confusing the claims (1) "It's possible that God exists" (by which I simply mean "There is no logical contradiction involved in God's existence), (2) "For all we know, God might exist" (which is the agnostics claim), and (3) "God exists" (which is, of course, the theist's claim). (1) seems to be something that, in the absence of an argument against it, is simply reasonable to assume, whatever your position on his actual existence. There might well be something weasely about (2), but given (1), I don't see that it involves any unwarranted assumptions, or, indeed, any assumptions at all. The difference, as I've pointed out before, between God and big green dragons, is that, for one, we can explain why we don't see God (or try to explain it, for you skeptics out there). There's no similar chain of reasoning for why we don't see the big green dragon. And, of course, most if not all Christians are going to claim that there is, in fact, evidence of God's existence. There are reports of miracles which God is supposed to have done, people who testify to experience God's activity in their lives, etc. You might not think this is very good evidence, for one reason or another, but it is evidence, and at the very least, better evidence than your friend saying there's a big green dragon in her garage.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

McDuffie

I am an atheist and I would like to say that atheists can't be fanatics, but I can't. Personally, I think most atheists are assholes. Then again, I think that most evangelists are assholes too.

Like most Christian literalists, most atheists think that evolution = atheism.

Like most Christian evangelicals, most atheists think that 'choose your battles' means 'choose every battle'.

A lot of atheists, maybe not most, think that 'fuck your god' is an adequate argument against the claims of theism.

Most atheists think that it is the job of atheists to argue against the claims of theism.

I used to think that atheists were necessarily smarter than theists, but I have since met too many dumb damned atheists to maintain that belief.

Just my $.02

McD

Suave

[in response to the first post] I wouldn't call those people fanatics, but atheist fundamenalists. And when one completely eschews either religion or science (presuming that those are the two prevailing, if not only, modes of thought in current society), then the one which they embrace replaces the functions of the other, and could be described as such. ie. If someone explains everything in their life and belief through religion, then religion becomes their science; if someone explains everything in their life and belief through science, then science becomes their religion.

*Footnote: I'm using atheist to describe those who revoke all religion, rather than what I believe is the dictionary definition of one who does not believe in a god, or many gods.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato