Do you consider yourself agnostic or atheist? Why? [Open to all posters.] (blood, choices)
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I don't believe in anything manmade (man invented)as far as gods and supernatural stuff goes. All the gods people believe in now are just as real as Zeus and Thor and all them are/were. Throughout history, humans have explained things with sagas and legends and that's all it is, tales.
Practically speaking, I don't think there is much of a difference between agnosticism and atheism. An agnostic would say "I don't know" or "it's impossible to know." But why would it be impossible to know whether or not something exists if it does in fact exist? That doesn't make sense to me.
It seems to me that most agnostics agree that the there's no evidence for the existence of God, and that this evidence will likely never exist. This is why I think agnosticism is a kind of soft atheism in disguise.
Practically speaking, I don't think there is much of a difference between agnosticism and atheism. An agnostic would say "I don't know" or "it's impossible to know." But why would it be impossible to know whether or not something exists if it does in fact exist? That doesn't make sense to me.
It seems to me that most agnostics agree that the there's no evidence for the existence of God, and that this evidence will likely never exist. This is why I think agnosticism is a kind of soft atheism in disguise.
Atheism is a position about belief; agnosticism is a position about knowledge. I am an agnostic atheist; I don't believe god CAN be proven or disproven just as leprechauns cannot be proven or disproven (there are some legends and stories and some people with unverified claims of having encountered them, but no empirical evidence, but on the other hand no mathematical formula, say, that "proves" the do not and cannot exist). But I consider the likelihood so vanishingly small that I do not believe in either god or leprechauns.
A gnostic atheist would say god is disproven and he knows god does not exist. Ultimately the distinction is nit-picky because both gnostic and agnostic atheists are unbelievers. Fundamentalist Christians are often under the misapprehension that all atheists are gnostic atheists; actually very few of us are, at least in my experience.
Fundamentalist theists are gnostic theists; they know god exists and they believe in him. The further you get from fundamentalism the more you have agnostic theists; when pressed it becomes apparent that they believe in god but more in general principle and the belief is loosely held; they are more interested in the Golden Rule than in cultivating a "relationship" with god. They feel creepy about the idea of KNOWING god, it sounds a bit crazy and over the top. They want to identify with the "good guys" who believe in god but not the nutjobs who claim to KNOW him and (shudder) talk to him. To them, god is ineffable.
I discussed the above in the context of (dis)belief or (lack of) knowledge with respect to the Christian god; it's important to note, however, that atheism is a position about ANY god. Even fundamentalists are atheists about all gods except their own, but their belief in their god disqualifies them from the atheist label as commonly used and understood. Besides, their unbelief in other gods is an unexamined thing for the most part. Atheism is a reasoned position about the concept of belief about gods generally, not about some particular doctrine or belief system about some particular god.
Some come from a position of belief others come from a position of disbelieve and some just don't give a flying one about the whole religious mumbo-jumbo.
Personally, I have no way of specifically knowing whether or not a god exists, and do not feel comfortable giving a definitive answer, when I don't have definitive facts. That said, while I might not pass myself off as an athiest, I will continue to go about my life under the impression there is no god, until "he" proves otherwise.
Do you consider yourself an agnostic or atheist? Why? I'm just curious about the two perspectives differ, and more importantly how agnostics and atheists differ.
I consider myself a highly skeptical agnostic. As I understand it 'god' is defined as a 'supernatural' entity that is beyond the perception and understand of humans. Such a concept seems completely impractical/useless to me because, by definition, it's impossible to know if such a thing exists because there is, and probably never will be evidence to support or discredit such a concept.
While I do acknowledge the existence of god is technically possible, at present there's absolutely no way we can know, and probably never will. So if something is unknowable, being in any way concerned about it seems like a complete waste of time and energy.
I don't identify myself as an atheist because most atheist I know of seem just as convinced there is no god as most theists are convinced there is. Consequently, many atheists and theists are imperious and self-righteous - personal characteristics that, to me, seem counterproductive.
I'm also completely open to perspectives of theists as well. As a secularist I'm genuinely curious about what motivates someone to be religious when it seems to me there's absolutely no direct evidence that god exists. I've read a couple books and some psychological research that offers plausible explanations, but am also curious to get first-hand perspective of why some persons are convinced of god's existence.
Not wishing to put too much importance on definitions of the words here, I would consider myself atheist. For a long, long time I thought myself agnostic even though deep down I knew I had never, ever, even as a young child had any belief in a 'god'.
It has been a long journey for me to get to this point: I have been through a lot of adversity in my adult life - particularly I had a very sick child who was ill for a number of years, undergoing chemotherapy. A lot of people told me they were 'praying for my family'. I thought people praying for my son couldn't do any harm. I even considered how people who have faith in god did genuinely seem to find comfort in their everyday lives, but I just could never feel any of that connection myself.
After both my parents died I had a couple of what you might call 'religious experiences' some years apart, that I couldn't explain in any kind of rational sense. Suffice to say both the experiences could easily have turned someone sitting on the fence, into a believer. I struggled with this too for a number of years but still couldn't make any connection with any kind of God.
Recently I had a sort of what you might call an 'epiphany' but in the sense that I had this moment of clarity that I didn't know why I had been spending all this time looking for a god that I just always knew didn't exist. I have had enough opportunities to 'find god' so to speak.
I think some of it is down to social pressure. I wasn't brought up with a particularly religious environment but I always had enough people around me who did believe to make me wonder what they had that I didn't. In the past you would have been almost an outsider by admitting you were atheist.
As time goes on however, I think this will change.
Stephen Fry, one of my all time heroes, sums up for me brilliantly the why reason so many still believe in God and why we find it so hard to let go:
Quote:
"That which I cannot understand I will call God" - which is what mankind has done historically. That's to say God was absolutely everything 1000 or 2000 years ago because we understood almost nothing about the natural world, so it could all be God. And then as we understood more, God receeded, and receeded and receeded, so suddenly now he is barely anywhere. He is just in those things we don't understand...
I think being 'agnostic' no matter how much you think you do not believe, is in a sense for me, still hanging onto god by a thread. The argument goes that you can't prove with certainty that he doesn't exist. I can't prove that the invisible man doesn't exist either but I don't believe in him either. Having spent a loooong time thinking about it, I am convinced with enough certainty that there is no god, that I can call myself atheist.
For the full interview with Stephen Fry who just talks such complete sense:
I'm agnostic about God the same way I'm agnostic about Zeus, Santa Claus and the easter bunny...that is to say there is no way to scientifically disprove any of those things, but we still wouldn't waste time trying to defend their existence, and yet we do so with "God". So for all intents and purposes, I live life assuming non existence of any deities; essentially, an atheist.
As such, knowledge and belief go hand in hand. They are not apples and oranges.
The 3 stages of believing/knowing the truth of a proposition.
1. no belief, no knowledge (starting point)
2. belief, no knowledge (true belief)
3. belief, knowledge (justified true belief)
Huxley's Agnosticism: A Symposium, The Agnostic Annual (1884):
Quote:
1. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.
2. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.
Using Huxley's Agnostic principal, it is impossible to be both Agnostic and a The-ist, or Athe-ist. It is impossible to both believe a proposition is true, and doubt a proposition is true.
Huxley's Agnosticism, therefore, covers stage 1 just fine.
-ists are believers. The-ists believe the proposition "God exists" is true. Athe-ists believe the proposition "God does not exist" is true. A-theist is a more modern definition, that has grown in popularity over the past 50 years, that goes against etymology, and only convolutes everything.
The -ists cover stage 2 just fine.
Gnostics are knowers. Using the same root words, Theos and Atheos, we can add -gnostic suffixes.
The Gnostics cover stage 3 just fine.
Putting both propositions end to end, you get this...
3. belief, knowledge = Atheo-gnostic
2. belief, no knowledge = Athe-ist
1. no belief, no knowledge = Agnostic
2. belief, no knowledge = The-ist
3. belief, knowledge = Theo-gnostic
I am Agnostic and reject the more modern A-theism definition as something that just makes things convoluted and messy.
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