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Throughout life I like many people have pondered the big questions. "Who are we" "Why are we here? How were we created? What is the point?"
I was born a Christian-an Anglican specifically. At the age of five I started to see flaws in the idea of God. In elementary school I researched Buddhism and in Middle School I was a hardcore atheist. I reconnected with some idea of God through Islam and Christianity again, yet I felt disconnected and eventually I abandoned it.
The fact of the matter is that I, a mere man, can and will never know what is out there. I will never know if God is just a story humans created or perhaps truly the creator of what we have. I believe the truth is in layers; more complicated than any of us can understand. I can not absolutely say for sure what is real and what isn't and it is that reason that I call myself an Agnostic.
I suppose the reaction would be to ask 'As an agnostic do you think the god -claims believable or not?' If not, then you are atheist, whether or no. And yet I can understand the position of those who feel that they would prefer not to adopt what is actually a logical mandatory position and say 'I really don't know'.
The problem there is whether one would then engage in religious pursuits on the off -chance that it it true or not.
Throughout life I like many people have pondered the big questions. "Who are we" "Why are we here? How were we created? What is the point?"
The fact of the matter is that I, a mere man, can and will never know what is out there. I will never know if God is just a story humans created or perhaps truly the creator of what we have. I believe the truth is in layers; more complicated than any of us can understand. I can not absolutely say for sure what is real and what isn't and it is that reason that I call myself an Agnostic.
From a scientific standpoint - we know that humans are life forms that have evolved on earth over hundreds of millions of years from non-human life forms. This is how we were "created." Beyond that, there is no evidence of any inherent purpose to our being here. We have the capacity to create our own purposes.
The real question is - Do you accept the reality that a supernatural being who created our universe also created human life and sent his only son to die for our sins because he loves us and cares for us that much?
If the answer is no, then that means you don't believe in the Christian God.
From a scientific standpoint - we know that humans are life forms that have evolved on earth over hundreds of millions of years from non-human life forms. This is how we were "created." Beyond that, there is no evidence of any inherent purpose to our being here. We have the capacity to create our own purposes.
The real question is - Do you accept the reality that a supernatural being who created our universe also created human life and sent his only son to die for our sins because he loves us and cares for us that much?
If the answer is no, then that means you don't believe in the Christian God.
The rejection of a Christian God does not automatically equate to atheism or agnosticism-otherwise anyone who follows another God would be atheist. Evolution has definitely shown how we and other species have evolved since our time on Earth.
The question is where did the first cell come from? Where did the gas before the Big Bang come from? It is the unknown-the uncertainty that allows the reservation of belief. These are questions we will likely never have an answer to.
The rejection of a Christian God does not automatically equate to atheism or agnosticism-otherwise anyone who follows another God would be atheist. Evolution has definitely shown how we and other species have evolved since our time on Earth.
The question is where did the first cell come from? Where did the gas before the Big Bang come from? It is the unknown-the uncertainty that allows the reservation of belief. These are questions we will likely never have an answer to.
Most other religions have beliefs about one or more supernatural beings, interactions between humans and these beings and often incarnations of them as well. Without a supernatural aspect, there really is no religion.
As far as where the first cell came from - even though current knowledge about this is limited, do you suppose this event had a supernatural explanation or a scientific explanation? We do have evidence of organic molecules which exist in interstellar space. More importantly, amino acids which make up DNA have been discovered in meteorites. Scientists also understand the process by which RNA molecules become self-replicating. So, these are all pieces of the puzzle which are slowly coming together and may provide an answer to the question some day.
As for what caused the big bang - this is perhaps the last reserve of God of the gaps. But some theoretical physicists hypothesize that our universe came from nothing. But I ask you this - even if this first cause God does exist, how is this relevant to our life and reality? Do you think hardly anybody cares about this God?
That's pretty much my position. As I said in another post I think of myself as a highly-doubtful agnostic: While I don't think it's possible to know for certain, since there's a complete lack of physical evidence of god's existence and it's impossible to prove or even find evidence for a negative (something that has never existed) I'm highly doubtful.
I try to be humble, so I like to think I'm open to new evidence. If in fact the clouds parted and Jesus or some other deity appeared, and it didn't turn out to be an elaborate hoax, I would humby acknowledge that I was wrong. However, in light of something like that, or some other extraordinary evidence, I'm highly doubtful. Does that make me almost an atheist?
You not currently having an active belief in any particular god, is what makes you an atheist.
The rejection of a Christian God does not automatically equate to atheism or agnosticism-otherwise anyone who follows another God would be atheist. Evolution has definitely shown how we and other species have evolved since our time on Earth.
The question is where did the first cell come from? Where did the gas before the Big Bang come from? It is the unknown-the uncertainty that allows the reservation of belief. These are questions we will likely never have an answer to.
That is quite true. Anthony Flew was a noted example of a former strong atheist who, on being presented with convincing evidence of Intelligent Design, announced that he could no longer call himself atheist.
That should answer a lot of questions about atheism.
However, he was no more religious than he was before and certainly not Christian, churchgoing or worshipping. A creative god was just for him a fact of nature.
To address your second point, ID turned out to be a crock and Flew had been fooled. The question of biological origins and cosmic origins are still wide open open. Technically, when we don't know one way or the other whether a god dunnit or not, we ought to reserve belief until we do know. That is all that one needs to be atheist.
To believe in goddunnit when one does not know is an illogical position. It is an understandable one in view of a lot of cultural religious baggage and the tendency to pop 'God' in as an explanation for everything that doesn't have one.
It is intellectually illegitimate to plaster the 'God' label onto the process by which everything came about, because the 'nature' label is just as valid, given the ongoing argument about what 'intelligence' is.
All that is however an intellectual argument and Faith or religion has no place in it. Unless some convincing proof of an Intelligence beyond the forces that grow crystals, form snowflakes and cause unstable isotopes to radiate particles is produced, the cosmic/biological origins discussion is best conducted from an agnostic standpoint rather than from a Godfaith standpoint.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-08-2013 at 11:46 PM..
As for origins, apart from musing over it on forums, there are really only two realistic positions to take;
I/we don't know
Does it really matter?
^ That's it in a nutshell, alright.
An absent or indifferent god is no different in practice from no god at all. And it might be unwise to attract the attention of a god who is not all-benevolent. BibleGod gives evidence of malevolence, indifference, and at least intermittent absence even in his own holy book, but for me the clincher is that even if "we don't know" weren't in the picture, my reality plays out exactly as one would expect if god were not meaningfully engaged with humanity generally or me in particular, therefore, that is how I order my life.
I wasn't using the more modern A-theist definition, I was using the older Athe-ist definition (strong Atheist, the linguistically correct definition, as the root word is Atheos, not Theos). And, I think it's the newer definition that has mucked up the simplicity of the issue. Broadening definitions conveys less information Atheist now has two definitions, both A-theist and Athe-ist.
As far as I'm concern the modern usage is really all that matters. The root of the word is theist/theism, which is widely defined as a god believer. The "a" can be literally translated as "not", just as in similar usages like apolitical, atypical, asexual, asymmetrical, and so on. By introducing archaic forms, I believe it is you that is broadening the typical definition of the word and adding meaning (or insisting it mean something else) that isn't present today. An atheist is simply a person who is not a god believer. Sure, they can also believe no gods exist (the strong position as some call it, which by the way includes having no god belief), but that's not what the word alone linguistically implies in its modern, typical usage.
I prefer the short hand of "atheist" to writing out "I am not a god believer". I can of course revert to spelling it out completely if it's simpler for some to understand.
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