Thread: Tell me about Agnosticism

Originally Posted by spockman

It depends how far you take that argument, though. I, for example, believe in God but would never say that I know he exists. I don't. But does that make me an atheist in your opinion?

An atheist, by definition, does not believe in god. The crux of my argument is that belief does not equal knowledge, either for or against.

And although direct proof of God may not be possible, evidence pointing towards a divine being or conciousness is possible even though such evidence is bound to be infered.

But here's the problem with that: we have no way of knowing whether something is the work of a divine being, or something like aliens with superior technology. We can in no way tell if something is the work of god or prankster extraterrestrials or any other thing. Even if the constellations rearranged themselves to spell out "God is Real", we wouldn't know if it was a hoax, or the work of a divine being, and if the latter, which god?

Originally Posted by Mario92

An atheist, by definition, does not believe in god. The crux of my argument is that belief does not equal knowledge, either for or against.



But here's the problem with that: we have no way of knowing whether something is the work of a divine being, or something like aliens with superior technology. We can in no way tell if something is the work of god or prankster extraterrestrials or any other thing. Even if the constellations rearranged themselves to spell out "God is Real", we wouldn't know if it was a hoax, or the work of a divine being, and if the latter, which god?

And that is why I said it was infered evidence and not direct evidence. Here is an example- Out of ten major religions who all claim that fasting gives prophetic and healing powers from spiritual sources, (let's assume this is the onlt tennent of the religions,) only one religion has followers who consistently have accurate visions of the future. As many variables as possible have been eliminated from countless studies which all show that this religous group knows more about the future than should be possible without outside intervention. No other religion seems to display abnormal phenomena. Further, people of that religous group have an astronomically higher recovery rate from terminal diseases like cancer than the rest of the world. Eventually, enough evidence shows that exhibit A. actually can predict future events and that they can heal from diseases that they should not be able to heal from.

If what the evidence points to is taken as fact, all it directly prooves is that on average the followers of Religion A have prophetic and regenerative capabilities beyond the normal person. However, one can infer that their religion is valid. Yss, it could be aliens or some other outside variable, but that is why the conclusions from evidences like these are inference.

As far as your belief/knowledge thing, it is your definition of belief itself I am asking about. According to this definition,

Let me put it this way: if you genuinely don't KNOW that something exists or doesn't, then you don't believe in it.

myself and a great many other religous people are not actually religous at all since we choose not to suspend all of our disbelief.

And that is why I said it was infered evidence and not direct evidence. Here is an example- Out of ten major religions who all claim that fasting gives prophetic and healing powers from spiritual sources, (let's assume this is the onlt tennent of the religions,) only one religion has followers who consistently have accurate visions of the future. As many variables as possible have been eliminated from countless studies which all show that this religous group knows more about the future than should be possible without outside intervention. No other religion seems to display abnormal phenomena. Further, people of that religous group have an astronomically higher recovery rate from terminal diseases like cancer than the rest of the world. Eventually, enough evidence shows that exhibit A. actually can predict future events and that they can heal from diseases that they should not be able to heal from.

If what the evidence points to is taken as fact, all it directly prooves is that on average the followers of Religion A have prophetic and regenerative capabilities beyond the normal person. However, one can infer that their religion is valid. Yss, it could be aliens or some other outside variable, but that is why the conclusions from evidences like these are inference.

To quote Hippocrates for a moment:

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But, if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.

What we have here is an unexplained phenomena. We understand that condition x produces effect y, but that is all. We don't know why it happens or what causes it to happen. The followers of the religion attribute this effect to the divine, but we cannot be certain. Again we are conflicted with a lack of evidence.

As far as your belief/knowledge thing, it is your definition of belief itself I am asking about. According to this definition, myself and a great many other religous people are not actually religous at all since we choose not to suspend all of our disbelief.

Please pardon my inability to correctly articulate my thoughts in a way that makes sense. If you look around, you'll notice my liberal use of the thanks button. This is because people have a tendency to phrase things better than I can. That statement I made in regards to self-proclaimed "agnostics." The people who claim to be absolutely positively unsure of what they know and what they believe. It is the case that these people, who do not actively believe there is a higher power, are de facto atheists. Belief is separate from knowledge, as I have stated, and agnosticism is compatible both with theology and atheism, but cannot stand on its own.

Originally Posted by Mario92

1.) To quote Hippocrates for a moment:


What we have here is an unexplained phenomena. We understand that condition x produces effect y, but that is all. We don't know why it happens or what causes it to happen. The followers of the religion attribute this effect to the divine, but we cannot be certain. Again we are conflicted with a lack of evidence.



2.) Please pardon my inability to correctly articulate my thoughts in a way that makes sense. If you look around, you'll notice my liberal use of the thanks button. This is because people have a tendency to phrase things better than I can. That statement I made in regards to self-proclaimed "agnostics." The people who claim to be absolutely positively unsure of what they know and what they believe. It is the case that these people, who do not actively believe there is a higher power, are de facto atheists. Belief is separate from knowledge, as I have stated, and agnosticism is compatible both with theology and atheism, but cannot stand on its own.

1.) Sure, and I see what you are saying. So if a group of a thousand people see a six armed ghost somewhere that no one has before spotted and then those people attribute it to some religion only because that religion could possibly explain their sighting, they are being illogical. But it is a somewhat different scenario if a priest of some religion claims that his god has told him that if he does some ceremony the six armed ghost goddess will appear and once the ceremony is complete, a large group all sees that six armed ghost. Since a prediction was made beforehand and said prediction was based off of religous practice and philosophy, well, scenario two is by far more compelling than the first scenario using inference. Even scientific theories and laws come about largely using infering evidence. If I predict that something will occur based on a scientific principle, and my prediction turns out to be correct, the principle may be flawed and I could have gotten lucky, but if I repeat this process enough times eliminating as many variables as possible then the evidence will eventually infer that my scientific principle is true.

2.) Not at all, the vast majority of the time I feel you are precise in your opinions. This was just an instance where I was unsure as to what exactly you were saying and now that you have elaborated I am actually in agreement with you.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Let me put it this way: if you genuinely don't KNOW that something exists or doesn't, then you don't believe in it. You are de-facto atheist. You don't have to claim it doesn't exist. You don't have to know it doesn't exist. What it comes down to is whether or not you believe it exists. You either can, or can't. I hold that believing something without any evidence is far less wise than not believing in it. Choosing not to believe in no way means you have ever said it does not exist. It can exist. For someone who claims to be so bright, why is this such a difficult concept for you?

Please note that atheists aren't denying evidence. It is literally impossible to collect any evidence whatsoever for any divine being.

Perhaps I have argued with far more athiest than you. There are three terms, and there is a distinction between them, you are denying this.

I was not arguing that belief is binary, in this I agree with you. Belief is based on evidence, and only evidence--but the investigaition is not about the term belief. Ignorance does not formulate an assertion, which you are claiming it does. However, by this distinction, those who believe are just as much athiest in your terms because they have no evidence.

Athiest do not believe in God, and they say God does not, cannot exist. There are two parts to this, so forgive my stupidity for seeing it.

There is also something else, the definition of "God" as being anthropomorphic, and being a metaphor. There are far more permutations that your simplicity is admitting. However, the distinction I made is that both athiest and so called believers are both making assertions based on ignorace, the agnostic however simply says "they don't know."

Since predication is the inverse function of abstraction, and since the agnostic is the only one of the three who follow this principle, they are the only one honest of the three. So forgive me for being so simple.

You have made the most primitive form of error, for the inability to make a judgment is not the same as making one. A permutation denied by your assertion.

When you add assertion and denial to the inability to assert or deny, you form three categories, all you have to do then is match them accordingly. No great exercise in wit. Children play this game with Yes, No, Maybe.

Athiest do not believe in God, and they say God does not, cannot exist.

This statement is false. Did you actually read any of my other posts?

To the rest, I have no idea what you're saying or what your point is supposed to be.

Originally Posted by Mario92

..To the rest, I have no idea what you're saying or what your point is supposed to be.

I take that as a given.

I'm not sure why people think it's useful to argue about semantics like "it's de-facto atheism... no it's not... yes it is...." Everyone's internal representation of what that label is is different. That's what makes the world interesting, if you don't get caught up in semantics.

Having said that, my interpretation is pretty simple: Agnosticism is NOT a weak, "on-the-fence" position. It's actually a STRONG assertion that not only do you not know, but you CANNOT know. What differs is people's reaction to that understanding. Some become miserable, and others say, "lighten the hell up, and realize how wonderful this is - it means you can create your own meaning! Practice whatever makes you happy, and don't oppress other people because their views are different from yours." That's all there is to it

Sorry to interject, but I lolled at Philosopher's understanding that his posts often go over the heads of many readers. With the exception of some bits (I'm still trying to understand the "predication is the inverse function of abstraction" - can you explain that a bit?), I understand the bulk of the post.

I've been agnostic for some time given the simplest understanding of the term - I don't know, so I don't make any decision for or against a god/God existing, now or ever.

since the agnostic is the only one of the three who follow this principle, they are the only one honest of the three.

This is a statement I've believed in since realizing there was a name for what I call my 'beliefs'.

I'm not one for debates such as these unless they are kept from getting severely side-tracked into minuscule and largely irrelevant nitpicking, and since they rarely are ever devoid of it, I leave threads and discussions like these with a "to each their own, so long as it makes everyone happy" closing statement.