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I want to make a small clarification. Agnostic and atheism are NOT the same thing. As an atheist, I’m a little concerned with being tide to that line of thought.
Agnostics believe that there is something out there, undefined and that they won’t know till they die. Atheists do not believe in god. I don’t find either idea to be at all similar. It is like comparing apples to a screwdriver. (The tool, not the drink...)
I wonder if anyone in this forum has considered this thought…(?)
Thanks for your comments.
Last edited by Aundine; 08-10-2012 at 03:39 PM..
Reason: formatting was odd
I agree that they are two completely separate things; however I disagree with your definition of agnosticism.
Agnostics is about knowledge acquisition. They believe that it is not possible to know whether or not there is a higher power.
Theism/atheism is about belief..... the belief that is/is not higher power.
Most agnostics are atheistic in their belief: "one cannot know for sure, but I do not believe there is..."
Once in a while I run into an agnostic that is theistic in their belief: "one cannot know for sure, but I do believe there is..."
1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2 : a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics>
If we look at the first definition, the sense in which I am using the word, we see that is makes no claims about the existence of a god, only about the knowledge of that existence. I am agnostic, in that I am not convinced that it is possible to know or prove in an objective manner the existence of a god. I am an atheist, in that I see no evidence that would lead me believe in the existence of a god, therefore I do not believe in one.
The agnosticism you describe would be a very vague agnostic theism, the position that there is something there, but we just don't or can't know about it.
Most people, if they are very honest with themselves and rigorous in their conception of knowledge, are agnostic. Most of us believe or disbelieve something, but are aware that we do not have definitive objective knowledge about a god.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aundine
I want to make a small clarification. Agnostic and atheism are NOT the same thing. As an atheist, I’m a little concerned with being tide to that line of thought.
Agnostics believe that there is something out there, undefined and that they won’t know till they die. Atheists do not believe in god. I don’t find either idea to be at all similar. It is like comparing apples to a screwdriver. (The tool, not the drink...)
I wonder if anyone in this forum has considered this thought…(?)
Thanks for your comments.
Well the reason I will call myself a agnostic atheist is because on an intellectual level I can't disprove or prove the existence of god or the metaphysical. Nor will I waste time better spent in discovery in doing so. Also I find is abhorrent when people in general say "I KNOW!!!!!!" when it comes the the big questions. It just something that personally bother me to no end. Look...while we are the most intellectually advanced animal on the planet...we are still only just getting started in our discovery of the universe and the state of that universe's "true" reality. So we have along way to go before we have "all" the answers...if that even possible. So there is always some doubt as to what created and/or guides existence.
Now with that said. In my day to day existence I live my life as an atheist with no attachment/or reason to believe in a Deity or the metaphysical. I just live my life in a materialist's mindset. Where my views are shaped by science and critical thinking with a splash so skepticism (towards everything).
I would say that Richard Dawkins has admitted he himself is a agnostic. But he also has come up with a scale of the level of agnosticism on which on can measure oneself toward belief in deities and the metaphysical. I think this scale more accurately portrays show atheists/agnostics think of themselves in terms of belief/non-belief.
Also I find is abhorrent when people in general say "I KNOW!!!!!!" when it comes the the big questions. It just something that personally bother me to no end.
I know there is no god because neuroscience determined that god only exist in the brain. it is neurological
Scientists say they have located the parts of the brain that control religious faith. And the research proves, they contend, that belief in a higher power is an evolutionary asset that helps human survival. Steve Connor reports
Scientists say they have located the parts of the brain that control religious faith. And the research proves, they contend, that belief in a higher power is an evolutionary asset that helps human survival. Steve Connor reports
there it is there is no such thing as god or gods it's all in your head
I'm just playing the devil's advocate here, but all of that science might be true and there still could be a god. Just because what one thinks is god being experienced by you is completely wrong, that still doesn't rule out the possibility of a god of some sort existing for real somewhere.
PS - I am an agnostic of the militant variety. "I don't know and you don't either". I am also an atheist.
I'm just playing the devil's advocate here, but all of that science might be true and there still could be a god. Just because what one thinks is god being experienced by you is completely wrong, that still doesn't rule out the possibility of a god of some sort existing for real somewhere.
PS - I am an agnostic of the militant variety. "I don't know and you don't either". I am also an atheist.
Exactly! One can't prove a negative for something so utterly untestable.
(I guess I'm a bit militant too)
I want to make a small clarification. Agnostic and atheism are NOT the same thing. As an atheist, I’m a little concerned with being tide to that line of thought.
Agnostics believe that there is something out there, undefined and that they won’t know till they die. Atheists do not believe in god. I don’t find either idea to be at all similar. It is like comparing apples to a screwdriver. (The tool, not the drink...)
I wonder if anyone in this forum has considered this thought…(?)
Thanks for your comments.
The fact is that an agnostic can be either theist or atheist. An agnostic does not know whether there is a god or not. In fact nobody does, so we are all technically agnostic, but some think that they do know and would presumably regard themselves as non - agnostic.
Those who would admit that they don't actually know, might still regard the probability of a god existing as better than it not existing. They would then be agnostic theists.
Those who do not find the reasons to believe in a god good enough would be agnostic atheists, as I am.
So, while you are correct to say that they are not the same thing, agnosticism is the logical basis of atheism and so they are perfectly compatible.
Many seem to regard agnosticism as the position of not being able to decide whether they believe in a god or not. This is a hard position to be in and is rather based on a false idea that, to be an atheist, one must reject any possibility of a god existing. It is a view I once held myself until I had it explained that one could be open to the possibility of a god existing while still not seeing that the case was good enough for believing in any. That is all one needs to do to be atheist as well as agnostic.
Scientists say they have located the parts of the brain that control religious faith. And the research proves, they contend, that belief in a higher power is an evolutionary asset that helps human survival. Steve Connor reports
there it is there is no such thing as god or gods it's all in your head
From article one.
Quote:
Neurotheologians
Neurotheologians?
Quote:
Neurotheologians argue that the structure and function of the human brain predispose us to believe in God. They claim that the site of God's biological substrate is the limbic system deep within the brain, which has long been considered to be the biological center for emotion. Rhawn Joseph, a prominent neurotheologian, goes a step further to suggest that the limbic system is dotted with "God neurons" and "God neurotransmitters."2
Ok. Show me where these are.
Quote:
Among the limbic structures that have been associated with religious belief, the most frequently credited are the hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus. Neurotheologians point to changes in functional MRI scans in these areas as research subjects engage in religious meditation. They reason that if thinking about God changes the way the brain works, there must be some inherent neural imperative to believe in God in the first place. In making this connection, neurotheologians are following the lead of neuroscientists who claim that changes seen in functional brain scans in persons who are happy, depressed, or obsessed demonstrate that these phenomena are brain driven.
Ok. I'm fine with the reasoning part. But the word Must I find a tad strong. There seems to be strong correlation between religious meditation and brain changes but that doesn't mean with absolute certainty there is a neural imperative toward God. Just to add what was the religious break down of the studies used by neurotheologian? If there were a lot of Buddhists involved. Well I don't think they believe in a god so much as oppose to a spiritual realm so neural imperative specifically toward god really doesn't apply.
Quote:
The following quote from an article published in Zygon, the official journal of neurotheology, typifies the kind of language and reasoning found in neurotheological texts. The authors are Eugene d'Aquili, MD (a psychiatrist) and Andrew Newberg, MD (a neurologist). "We must now turn to the normal functioning of 4 tertiary association areas and to their relation-ship to the limbic system. We postulate that these areas, under certain conditions, may be involved in the genesis of various mystical states, the sense of the divine, and the subjective experience of God."5
[b]Meaning seems to be more toyed with than revealed here as language slips and slides. This is about as far as the arguments of the neurotheologians ever go, yet they proceed to their conclusions as if they have made their point.
See bolded.
Quote:
Dean Hamer, PhD, a behavioral geneticist who has worked at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the NIH, took the neurotheologians' proposal that religious belief has a neural substrate another step and asked: Is God, in effect, embedded in our genes and, if so, which genes? If this were the case, it would mean that people are not only wired to believe in God but genetically programmed to do so as well.
Hamer's work is not about demonstrating the existence of God, which is the domain of religion, but about showing that spirituality is a real phenomenon that can be described and measured. Spirituality, as Hamer sees it, derives from genes, and religion from memes—the cultural counterpart of genes—ideas, values, or patterns of behavior that are passed from one generation to another nongenetically, often by imitation. Religion, he believes, is rooted in nurture and spirituality in nature.
see Bolded
I sorry I could see page two of the report. I keep asking me to subscribe to their magazine. Could you copy past the article so I can read further. Thank You
Article two:
Quote:
Newberg argues that religious belief is often personally and socially advantageous, allowing men and women to "imagine a better future." And he does not contend, as philosophically lazy scientists sometimes do, that a biological propensity toward belief automatically disproves the existence of an object of such belief. "Neuroscience cannot tell you if God does or doesn't exist," Newberg states with appropriate humility. Neurobiology helps explain religion; it does not explain it away.
Nuff said.
Article Three:
Quote:
Religious belief and behaviour are a hallmark of human life, with no accepted animal equivalent, and found in all cultures," said Professor Jordan Grafman, from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, near Washington. "Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and they support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary-adaptive cognitive functions."
Quote:
"There is nothing unique about religious belief in these brain structures. Religion doesn't have a 'God spot' as such, instead it's embedded in a whole range of other belief systems in the brain that we use everyday," Professor Grafman said.
Quote:
Professor Grafman was more interested in how people coped with everyday moral and religious questions. He said that the latest study, published today, suggests the brain is inherently sensitive to believing in almost anything if there are grounds for doing so, but when there is a mystery about something, the same neural machinery is co-opted in the formulation of religious belief.
"When we have incomplete knowledge of the world around us, it offers us the opportunities to believe in God. When we don't have a scientific explanation for something, we tend to rely on supernatural explanations," said Professor Grafman, who believes in God."Maybe obeying supernatural forces that we had no knowledge of made it easier for religious forms of belief to emerge."
Neurotheology, also known as spiritual neuroscience,[1] attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms.[2] It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena.
Proponents of neurotheology say there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.[3] The field has formed the basis of several popular science books[4][5][6] and has been the subject of criticism in the scientific press.[2] Neurotheology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I am in fact very interested in the idea of research into the connection between the human mind and religion. While a quick look seemed to indicate that 'neurotheology' was a bit of fringe science designed to serve religious apologetics, I think, like near death experiences, Out of Body and faith - healing, some properly conducted research is needed. Science should not be afraid to tackle it and indeed, if it does not, it will find, as in leaving the evolution debate to creationists for far too long, will have to make huge efforts to counter a lot of non- science put around in the service of religion.
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I am also an atheist.
Exactly! One can't prove a negative for something so utterly untestable. 
