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If you state that 'there is a possibility that God DOES exist' ... doesnt this nullify a true atheist position....
No it does not.
The attempts by people like yourself to tell atheists what the words atheist and agnostic mean, while getting it wrong all the time, are one of the group of reasons why I do not identify myself with either of those terms.
I identify myself more subtly than that. I am merely a person who... if told an idea... but I am not shown a shred of evidence, argument, data or reasons to suggest the idea is valid... I dismiss the idea as unsubstantiated, proceed without it, and resist it's use in our halls of power.
That is all.
Now GIVEN you have not got a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasons to suggest a "god" exists, I therefore dismiss the idea as unsubstantiated, proceed without it, and resist it's use in our halls of power.
It is people like you that label me "atheist" or "agnostic" without even bothering to learn the meaning of the words let alone the etymology or history of them. The reason you do this of course is that you would prefer to argue over what label to give people, and the meaning of those labels, rather than face up to the fact that the claim there is a god is entirely... not a little bit but entirely.... unsubstantiated in any way whatsoever.
Last edited by Nozzferrahhtoo; 09-16-2011 at 08:45 AM..
Getting the thread back on track....what specifically would it take for a person to go from atheism to agnosticism ?
Wrong question. What would it take to make a person go from agnosticism to understanding that the logical response to 'Don't know' or 'not sure' is 'don't believe until you do know or are sure'?
Quote:
Oginally Posted by 007.5
1. The actual co-founder of the DNA structure , famous atheist Biologist Dr. Francis Crick, affirmed the accurate calculation of this occuring by naturalism, at a faith-busting 1 in 10^40,000 th probability. (Source : Life Itself book by Dr. Francis Crick) . What IS the only other alternative ?
Quotes mined from supposed evolutionists or 'atheist scientists' can very often be misrepresented. That doesn't even look like a direct quote. I suppose you wouldn't care to give it? In the meantime, I can show that crick's remarks are very often taken out of context and misrepresented to make it seem that he was somehow supporting ID.
(Talk Origins) Quote #74
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle." (Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature, 1981, p. 88)
Again there is an unmarked deletion, this time at the end, following right after "miracle,":
" . . . so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."
Crick's book is about his proposition that life on Earth may have been the result of "directed panspermia." It should be noted that, in the book, he assumes that the aliens who he posits might be "seeding" the universe are, themselves, the product of evolution. In this quote, Crick is simply pointing out how, in the absence of evidence, the appearance of life on Earth might seem like a miracle. But he specifically admits that abiogenesis may have occurred on Earth as a result of ordinary chemical processes that require no resort to outside intelligence. Leaving out that part of it, by cutting off what immediately follows, is deeply dishonest.
- J. (catshark) Pieret
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-16-2011 at 08:53 AM..
Wrong question. What would it take to make a person go from agnosticism to understanding that the logical response to 'Don't know' or 'not sure' is 'don't believe until you do know or are sure'?
.............. Pieret
No...what would it take for a proclaimed Atheist who claims he/she 'doesnt see any evidence for a personal theistic Creator ' and ' is certain there is none' .... to an Agnostic who asserts there could be a personal theistic Creator and im going to keep researching the issue because of its incredible importance and who is willing to go where the evidence leads ? What is needed for the Atheist who comes to the table with an apriori-philosophical bias to get to the place of being a diligent inquisitive Agnostic Seeker ?
I wouldn't care much one way or another if there were an intelligent personal theistic creator. After all, he could be dead by now,....
But I'm not the kind of person who can believe things just because I want to. I look at the evidence, and draw the natural conclusion.
.[/quote]
1. You should be caring about this most important issue, and adopting apathy wont change anything.
2. The personal theistic who is infinite and must be for a finite Universe to come into being complete with 150+ life enabling Constants including the many life forms themselves ... cannot 'die' , cannot fade , cannot be reduced , and cannot be wished out of existence. Only things which are finite can die and are subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
3. No one is asking you to 'believe in things just because ' ; the Creator is asking you to stop rejecting the evidence for a personal theistic Creator /YOUR Creator because youd rather maintain your pride and will to reject God at all costs. And the costs are many.
No one has enough faith to be a true atheist concerning an atheistic worldview , and an atheist philosophy of moral relativism cant even be lived out on a daily basis because the atheist reacts as if there ARE absolute moral laws when he is treated unfairly. Atheism is the least credible thing to believe in and it requires willful self deciet . You dont need that in your life ... you need a personal dynamic relationship with the Creator of the Cosmos who isnt a force, isnt a myth, isnt a dream...but a real and very necessary Person. He awaits your surrender to his authority and love so you can be released from the snare. I know you are capable of doing it, but do you WANT to.. that is where the rubber meets the road.
No...what would it take for a proclaimed Atheist who claims he/she 'doesnt see any evidence for a personal theistic Creator ' and ' is certain there is none' .... to an Agnostic who asserts there could be a personal theistic Creator and im going to keep researching the issue because of its incredible importance and who is willing to go where the evidence leads ? What is needed for the Atheist who comes to the table with an apriori-philosophical bias to get to the place of being a diligent inquisitive Agnostic Seeker ?
I'll respond to your last post soon, I'm at work now.
Anyway, to answer this question - and I assume you are talking about an omnipotent God here, not God-is-nature God:
I, for one, would move from being a strong athesit to an agnostic if there were sufficient evidence that omnipotence was possible.
1. You should be caring about this most important issue, and adopting apathy wont change anything.
2. The personal theistic who is infinite and must be for a finite Universe to come into being complete with 150+ life enabling Constants including the many life forms themselves ... cannot 'die' , cannot fade , cannot be reduced , and cannot be wished out of existence. Only things which are finite can die and are subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
3. No one is asking you to 'believe in things just because ' ; the Creator is asking you to stop rejecting the evidence for a personal theistic Creator /YOUR Creator because youd rather maintain your pride and will to reject God at all costs. And the costs are many.
No one has enough faith to be a true atheist concerning an atheistic worldview , and an atheist philosophy of moral relativism cant even be lived out on a daily basis because the atheist reacts as if there ARE absolute moral laws when he is treated unfairly. Atheism is the least credible thing to believe in and it requires willful self deciet . You dont need that in your life ... you need a personal dynamic relationship with the Creator of the Cosmos who isnt a force, isnt a myth, isnt a dream...but a real and very necessary Person. He awaits your surrender to his authority and love so you can be released from the snare. I know you are capable of doing it, but do you WANT to.. that is where the rubber meets the road.
This is the easy way for me to answer this:
Almost everyone one of your premises is either completely untrue or probably untrue.
1. There is no reason to believe that a personal theistic creator was required to create the universe.
2. Assuming you believe the putative God was omnipotent, then he by definition would have the ability to will himself into non-existance.
3. A "Creator" has never asked me anything.
4. I don't reject God because of pride anymore than you reject Zeus because of pride.
5. Christians, and most other theist, are moral relativist to at least the extent of atheist.
6. There is no evidence that anyone is waiting for me to submit to their authority.
7. Etc.
These were all statements of faith by you, but they lack merit as an argument.
007.5: Since you are making such a habit of stating that atheists "don't want" a "personal theistic Creator" (what a phrase that is), why don't you tell us why you do want one so much? And while you're at ait, tell us why it is so important to you whether we believe there is one or not.
BTW, whether atheists "want" one or not isn't the point.
No...what would it take for a proclaimed Atheist who claims he/she 'doesnt see any evidence for a personal theistic Creator ' and ' is certain there is none' .... to an Agnostic who asserts there could be a personal theistic Creator and im going to keep researching the issue because of its incredible importance and who is willing to go where the evidence leads ? What is needed for the Atheist who comes to the table with an apriori-philosophical bias to get to the place of being a diligent inquisitive Agnostic Seeker ?
I consider that a reasonable question. After all, Anthony Flew famously moved from prominent atheism to a deistic Theism. The reason was because he was persuaded that the argument for ID had merit.
One might also presumably be persuaded by the argument from First cause or argument from 'zones of comfort' - the conditions necessary for life to have evolved.
They are the best arguments there are. Even Dawkins said that a case could be made for them, though he added that it wasn't one that he accepted. Neither do I. I think that I could have convinced Flew that he had been bamboozled by convincing - sounding but basically unsound science. However, I never had that chance.
Another way is personal mystical experience. It is a real phenomenon and I suppose that it could convince an atheist that there might be a more convincing argument for 'god' that he or she had thought.
This is of course not an 'diligent inquisitive Agnostic Seeker' which is what many of us atheists are. I do not accept your claim that we come 'to the table with an a- priori philosophical bias' (1). It is theism which comes to the table' with the a-priori bias of an unsubstantiated god - claim. We are always open to argument and evidence, but not the acceptance of doubtful or speculative claims, which is why we don't buy ID, zones of comfort or first cause, nor the god -claim as a 'given' at the outset. And the same applies to the mystical experience.
That doesn't leave much to be persuasive, I have to say but that's the fact. Logically and evidentially the case for any sort of god is not good enough to persuade us to move from our present disbelief position to anything approaching accepting 'god' as a reasonable probability, which is what you need before belief becomes based on reason rather than faith.
Of course, none of that addresses any of the personal gods. The evidence for those, if anything, is poorer even than the case for a sortagod.
I do hope this honestly given explanation gives you what you want to know about how, what I am pleased to call, 'the Thinking atheist' regards the case for 'god'.
(1) to explain the logic, it is not correct logically (and I'd say philosophically) to assume an unproved such a 'god' a priori. All that is needed for atheism is to say that 'we don't know whether there is a god or not' and look at the evidence presented to persuade us that it is a reasonable probability. As stated above it is not good enough and that all that is needed to logically substantiate the atheist belief - position.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-16-2011 at 02:00 PM..
So far, it appears that nobody that has read the OP has made that trip, unless I missed a post.
If this counts as a move to/from, it wasn't until reading the R&P board that I amended my stance from straight atheist to agnostic atheist after realizing the intellectual need to allow for the remote possibilty that there could be a supreme entity of some sort that people might call god..
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