Agnostic Atheism: the only logical position.

I would like to add. I find existence itself to be a conundrum. On one hand I believe in the veracity of evolution. But I always end back at, "well it looks like a procedural computer program, so what programmed it?".

Creator?

Evolution?

Ermm, excuse my ignorance but wouldn't "evolution" imply a "creator" or (in PC terms) "intelligent design"?

Well that would be the fairy-folk.

Though the fairy-folk see it as gardening living things and their favorite humans are simply becoming.

(yes yes I know sometimes that pretty flower on the seed packet turns into an invasive monster ~ these things happen to every gardener sooner or later.)

originally posted by: Klassified
Agnostics claim that to know whether there is or isn't a god is unknown or unknowable. Therefore, their default stance is a lack of belief in either, because they neither believe nor disbelieve, making them as atheist as I or any other atheist. The only difference between the atheist and the agnostic is a willingness to say so.

Agnostics belief is simply that the existence or nature of God is unknowable. Atheists believe God does not exist.

Very difference. Let's not mix them up.

a reply to: 19Bones79

As a Christian I believe there was a god called pikkuwakki, just not the God YHWH
I believe in demigods
It’s ok to be wrong

a reply to: Raggedyman


And you would be mistaken.


There never was a god, demi or otherwise, called Pikkuwakki.

a reply to: ooder57

Um that doesn't make sense.... Just pick one.

originally posted by: 19Bones79
a reply to: Raggedyman
And you would be mistaken.
There never was a god, demi or otherwise, called Pikkuwakki.

Insert generic name or not, still my point is the same
I still believe people worshipped demigods, whatever name real or fictitious

originally posted by: Navieko

originally posted by: Klassified
Agnostics claim that to know whether there is or isn't a god is unknown or unknowable. Therefore, their default stance is a lack of belief in either, because they neither believe nor disbelieve, making them as atheist as I or any other atheist. The only difference between the atheist and the agnostic is a willingness to say so.

Agnostics belief is simply that the existence or nature of God is unknowable. Atheists believe God does not exist.

Very difference. Let's not mix them up.

Your definition of agnostic is correct enough, but your definition of atheism is still incorrect. Atheists do not believe god does not exist. They simply don't believe god exists. There is a difference. One is an affirmation, the other is a lack of belief in something that cannot be proven to exist.
Lets not mix them up.

a reply to: Raggedyman


Fair enough.


What makes creator gods from other religions demigods? Is it purely because your book says so?

a reply to: 19Bones79

Nope, only part of the reason
Another is the teachings of love over law, what Jesus completed and offered
Recorded history and others I have studied and talk with

So, right or wrong, my choice and you are welcome to yours

originally posted by: 19Bones79
a reply to: Raggedyman

What makes creator gods from other religions demigods? Is it purely because your book says so?

Because no other supposed creator God came manifest in human form to lay His life down for all of humankind, while subsequently resurrecting and conquering death after performing other countless miracles and teaching the most loving and peaceful philosophy ever to grace the planet.

a reply to: ooder57

But I hold steadfast that logic and reason back me up

Its a rocky road.... the atrocities of last century are proof of this!

That said... there are a few narrow thoughts in your OP.... but to be honest i just got back from a bird and still kinda drunk so im too tired to do this!

Maybe next time!

a reply to: ooder57


God Forbid !

Religion/Creationism etc: to vehemently proclaim to Know that the universe was definitely created by an all powerful God that then directly influenced and interacted with, and continues to do such things; is also a disingenuous position to state as "Fact".
Afterall, the "evidence" used to perpetuate such statements are thousands of years old textbooks written by second or third hand accountings, sometimes decades if not centuries after said events were proclaimed to have occurred. Pretty much all of which can not be proven through archaeology/history, and others which have been debunked as science progresses.

Truth doesn't reside in books, it exists in our hearts. If you don't have the will to find that truth, then your wills path, is no less important, than those that seek spirituality. The purpose of creation is not to find God. The purpose of creation is to find ourselves. When we have completed that task, the will to be with God, will blossum in our hearts.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: 19Bones79
a reply to: Raggedyman

What makes creator gods from other religions demigods? Is it purely because your book says so?

Because no other supposed creator God came manifest in human form to lay His life down for all of humankind, while subsequently resurrecting and conquering death after performing other countless miracles and teaching the most loving and peaceful philosophy ever to grace the planet.

Absolutely. As long as you ignore the brutal exchanges in the OT as well as the promise of impending destruction in the NT to bring it all to a dramatic conclusion.


Then it's all about the love.


Who doesn't like making clay figurines and then bash it all up into an unrecognizable mould before safely putting it back in the container where it came from?

I do.

If you are an agnostic, you come somewhere between an atheist and a theist. The atheist is convinced that God does not exist*, while the theist has a firm belief that God does exist and that he is involved in human affairs. (*: in spite of the deceptive definitions that involve the phrase "lack of belief ...", involved with the practice of avoiding any burden of proof or evidence for justifying that conviction when challenged or thinking about it for oneself, and avoiding giving a proper justification for dismissing the evidence for God's existence, sometimes as supposedly not being "conclusive" and therefore supposedly automatically invalid; often painting with a broad brush, like telling oneself that the evidence for God's existence consists only of "thousands of years old textbooks . . . pretty much all of which can not be proven through archaeology/history, and others which have been debunked as science progresses." That paintjob that conveniently includes the Bible, is as far removed from reality as a Picasso painting if we're focusing on an evaluation of the Bible alone, i.e. what you said is true about these other religious texts, but it's not true for the Bible. People who are painting with a broad brush like that are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, there's probably some fallacy name for it, personally it reminds me of a false equivalence, but that's a little different.)

The agnostic does not feel that there is enough evidence to say that God does or does not exist. Rather, he reserves judgment or says that if God does exist he is unknown and unknowable.

Do you have friends who are agnostics? Or are you an agnostic yourself? If so, why? Perhaps you feel that agnosticism is the most reasonable position to take in this rationalist modern age. If that is the case, I invite you to consider the words of certain men who have helped to shape the thinking of people in this modern age and see what they believed about God, and why. It may help you to understand a little better the reasons for your own beliefs.

Because of the Churches

The term “agnostic” (from the Greek word agnostos, “unknown”) was coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who also helped to popularize the Darwinian theory of evolution (which is based on religiously motivated and rooted evolutionary philosophies prominent in those "thousands of years old" Hindu and Greek religious texts, that have indeed been "debunked as science" has progressed, but are still going strong in spite of that, ironically now under the marketinglabel "Science"; using your words). Huxley noted that the churches claimed to have a special gnosis (knowledge) about God and the origin of things. He gave one reason why he could not accept this gnosis, and hence was an agnostic:

“If we could only see, in one view, the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from this source [the churches] along the course of the history of Christian nations, our worst imaginations of Hell would pale beside the vision.”

Doubtless Huxley’s faith in the existence of God was shaken by his acceptance of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, his faith was further shaken by the conduct of those who should have been in a position to help him, the churches. Their record through the centuries was no recommendation for belief in God.

Socialist Harold Laski, political theorist and educator, wrote in a similar vein. “I was brought up in an orthodox Jewish household; but I cannot even remember a period in which either ritual or dogma had meaning for me,” he confessed. Why? He explained: “Both in England and America I have never been able to see in any of the organized churches a faith in its principles sufficient to make it do serious battle for justice.”

Again, he said: “I cannot see, in the historic process, that the churches have been other than the enemies of reason in thought and of justice in social arrangements.”

Has the conduct of the churches caused you, too, to doubt the existence of God? It is true, their hypocrisy and wrong conduct are a matter of historical record. Note, however, that the Bible, the foremost source of information about God, foretold the rise of just such a perversion of the Christian faith: “They will preserve all the outward form of religion, although they have long been strangers to its meaning.”​—2 Timothy 3:5, Knox.

In fact, the shortcomings of established religion are no reason to conclude that God does not exist. If a sick person has been cheated by a quack doctor, he should not thus conclude that no cure is possible. Rather, he should look around for a genuine doctor. Similarly, the fact that the established churches have turned many people away from God does not mean that God cannot be found. It merely means that you have to look somewhere else for him.

Unknowable or Unknown?

Some say that Huxley based his word “agnostic” on a word that appears in the Bible. According to the record in the Bible book of Acts, the apostle Paul when preaching to the Athenians reminded them of an altar in Athens inscribed “To an Unknown [Agnosto in Greek] God.” (Acts 17:23) Was Paul saying that this God, unknown to the wise men of Athens, was unknowable? Far from it. In fact, he went on to explain to the Athenians how they could come to know him.

Today, too, although God is unknown to many, he is not unknowable. The Bible indicates one way that we can learn something about him: “His invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made.” (Romans 1:20) The comments of those whose profession it is to study “the things made” support this statement.

Albert Einstein, the foremost scientific theorist of the 20th century, did not believe in the God of the Bible. Nevertheless, his researches into the nature of the universe inspired in him a sense of wonder that came close to acknowledging the existence of God.

In his book Out of My Later Years, Einstein discusses the experience of learning about the underlying unity of nature. He then said: “Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain, is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence.” He went on: “By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind towards the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man.”

It is not a long step from acknowledging the “rationality made manifest in existence,” and “the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence,” to accepting that behind it all there must be a great Reasoner or Source of rationality. One who made that step was A. R. Wallace, contemporary with Darwin and promoter of the evolution theory and the doctrine of survival of the fittest.

Although he firmly believed in man’s descent from the beasts, Wallace saw something in man that proved to him that Someone higher than man must exist. That “something” was man’s high sense of morality and his intellectual potential.

“I cannot impute this in any way to ‘survival of the fittest,’” he wrote. Rather, he maintained, these qualities “afford us the surest proof that there are other and higher existences than ourselves, from whom these qualities may have been derived, and towards whom we may be ever tending.”

The researches of Oxford University mathematics professor E. A. Milne strongly convinced him that God exists. Modern science shows with increasing clarity the complexity and beauty of the laws governing the universe. Milne felt that we have to accept the existence of God to explain both where matter came from and who originated the laws of nature that control that matter. “If there is a mystery about the creation of matter,” he maintained, “there would be a still greater mystery about the creation of arbitrary laws to govern it.”

Hence, said mathematical physicist Milne, “Though I have had my periods of agnosticism, I have always recovered from them. I do most fervently believe that this universe was created by Almighty God.”

The Plight of an Agnostic

It has been noted that man by nature has an instinctive need to worship. Those who hold the position of agnostics or atheists may find something lacking if they consider their position closely​—rather like a child who is brought up in an orphanage and who feels a sense of loss at never having known his parents.

Even such a convinced unbeliever as the great mathematician Bertrand Russell admitted late in life: “I am strangely unhappy because the pattern of my life is complicated, because my nature is hopelessly complicated. . . . The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain​—a curious wild pain—​a searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfigured and infinite​—a beatific vision—​God​—I do not find it, I do not think it is to be found.”

It is to be found, though. Not only do millions of people today strongly believe in God but they know him, trust him, and have a personal relationship with him. They are grateful to science for the deeper insight it has given them into God’s “invisible qualities.” (Romans 1:20) However, they have found their faith deepened even more by studying the book that contains a record of God’s dealings with mankind, the Bible.

The Bible does not build in us a mere credulous belief in God. Rather, it encourages us to develop a proved faith. “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” (Hebrews 11:1) Belief in the reality​—though unseen—​of God can be obtained through examining the “things made,” and, especially, by a study of the Bible. If you are an agnostic, atheist or can't decide how you want to describe yourself either way, I encourage you to examine the evidence again:

The Molecular Machinery of Life (playlist, 1st video)

originally posted by: whereislogic
If you are an agnostic, you come somewhere between an atheist and a theist. The atheist is convinced that God does not exist*, while the theist has a firm belief that God does exist and that he is involved in human affairs. (*: in spite of the deceptive definitions that involve the phrase "lack of belief ...", involved with the practice of avoiding any burden of proof or evidence for justifying that conviction when challenged or thinking about it for oneself, and avoiding giving a proper justification for dismissing the evidence for God's existence, sometimes as supposedly not being "conclusive" and therefore supposedly automatically invalid; often painting with a broad brush, like telling oneself that the evidence for God's existence consists only of "thousands of years old textbooks . . . pretty much all of which can not be proven through archaeology/history, and others which have been debunked as science progresses." That paintjob that conveniently includes the Bible, is as far removed from reality as a Picasso painting if we're focusing on an evaluation of the Bible alone, i.e. what you said is true about these other religious texts, but it's not true for the Bible. People who are painting with a broad brush like that are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, there's probably some fallacy name for it, personally it reminds me of a false equivalence, but that's a little different.)

The agnostic does not feel that there is enough evidence to say that God does or does not exist. Rather, he reserves judgment or says that if God does exist he is unknown and unknowable.

The behaviour and attitude I tried to describe in my footnote there, which can be found amongst those who self-identify as agnostics, atheists and agnostic atheists (a.k.a. weak atheists and often promoted by self-professed "new atheists", including when they are re-defining the term atheism with the phrase "a lack of belief in God or gods..."; which is just as applicable to agnostics, demonstrating that they're just muddying the waters and confusing the issue because of the motives involving their justification in dismissing the evidence for God's existence as described in the footnote, or attempts to encourage their potential audience to ignore this evidence by giving the false impression that it's 'no good' anyway, often pointing to the bad evidence based on blind belief or vague feelings as examples, as the OP also alluded to and expressed by TJ Kirk below with the dismissive phrase "they usually break out the Bible and say: 'the Bible!' Look at the Bible!". And instead of 'no good' he uses the term "isn't convincing", as he conveniently talks past the point of the extremely obvious bias in those considering it not convincing or not conclusive enough, even when it clearly is; but whether or not something is convincing to a person, is a personal matter affected by many factors, including many emotions overriding logic and reason, especially prevalent in the case of atheists and agnostics and those who want to think of themselves as somewhere in between, when it comes to this particular subject, God's existence. But also quite prevalent in the case of theists when it comes to specific theological doctrines such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the immortal soul and reincarnation and the connected evolutionary philosophies from Eastern Hindu philosophy, theistic evolution, pantheistic doctrines about 'Mother Nature' or thinking of the universe or nature itself as some form of intelligence, etc.), is demonstrated in the video below (which also includes some other ways of describing it, that way of reasoning, that dismissive attitude; for example after 2:13, note in particular the points made at 2:29, 2:52, 6:09, and most importantly, 7:59 - 9:31, in particular the question at 8:49):

Sorry for the long altered sidethoughts above, just wanted to elaborate a bit in my edits. I guess I could change it into a footnote for the term "agnostic atheists", but it's no longer just about that term.

originally posted by: 19Bones79

Absolutely. As long as you ignore the brutal exchanges in the OT as well as the promise of impending destruction in the NT to bring it all to a dramatic conclusion.


Then it's all about the love.


Who doesn't like making clay figurines and then bash it all up into an unrecognizable mould before safely putting it back in the container where it came from?

I do.

Are you also under the belief that children should never be disciplined? Parents discipline the children they love. Only bratty children cannot understand this concept.

a reply to: cooperton

So just to be clear here, you want to compare me giving my kids discipline to this:


"You shall acknowledge no God but me. . . . You are destroyed, Israel. . . . The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." (Hosea 13:4, 9, 16 New International Version)


"O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!"(Psalm 137:8–9 NRSV)



Do you categorize unborn babies and newborn babies as bratty?

originally posted by: Klassified

originally posted by: Navieko

originally posted by: Klassified
Agnostics claim that to know whether there is or isn't a god is unknown or unknowable. Therefore, their default stance is a lack of belief in either, because they neither believe nor disbelieve, making them as atheist as I or any other atheist. The only difference between the atheist and the agnostic is a willingness to say so.

Agnostics belief is simply that the existence or nature of God is unknowable. Atheists believe God does not exist.

Very difference. Let's not mix them up.

Your definition of agnostic is correct enough, but your definition of atheism is still incorrect. Atheists do not believe god does not exist. They simply don't believe god exists. There is a difference. One is an affirmation, the other is a lack of belief in something that cannot be proven to exist.
Lets not mix them up.

Oxford Dictionary: Belief
Any proposition (1) that is accepted as true on the basis of inconclusive evidence.


Is there conclusive evidence that god does NOT exist?