Thread: Agnosticism is more than you think

Originally Posted by Xei

I believe that there isn't a teapot orbiting the Sun because there's no reason to believe that there is.

As far as I know, every teapot in existence is orbiting the sun...

Originally Posted by juroara

That's the ATHEIST argument. The "strong' agnosticism isn't saying you need evidence before you can logically believe in God. That is atheism. The "strong" agnosticism argument is about that you CAN NOT KNOW. In this case, you can not KNOW God. In other words, even if there was a God, there is no evidence in the world that could ever prove it to you because if there is a God, such a God is BEYOND your human capacity of knowing such God.

How are people not getting this?
Some are arguing as if there were no difference between atheism and agnosticism
and are arguing exactly the atheist standpoint - which is a totally different one.

Also agnosticism doesn't make a statement about any perticular god; atheists
seem to be focused always on the fairy tale version, whereas agnosticism
says that the very concept of god is beyond reach for the human capacity.

It is not indecisive, because both, the atheistic and theistic concept, are not
being considered. That is if we are talking about the actual definition of agnosticism.
It also doesn't have anything to do with the (in)famous 'flying spaghetty monster'
argument.

Originally Posted by juroara

That's the ATHEIST argument. The "strong' agnosticism isn't saying you need evidence before you can logically believe in God. That is atheism. The "strong" agnosticism argument is about that you CAN NOT KNOW. In this case, you can not KNOW God. In other words, even if there was a God, there is no evidence in the world that could ever prove it to you because if there is a God, such a God is BEYOND your human capacity of knowing such God.

I'm still not seeing a discernible difference. Like I've said a number of times, the concept of not being able to know is almost universal to all atheists; all atheists would agree that we cannot know, but that remains irrelevant, because although we cannot know, there is no reason to suggest it, thus we don't believe it. Of course we cannot know, its very hard to disprove anything.



That's the ATHEIST argument. The "strong' agnosticism isn't saying you need evidence before you can logically believe in a teapot revolving around the Sun.. That is atheism. The "strong" agnosticism argument is about that you CAN NOT KNOW.

Almost universally atheists are atheist and agnostic to these two ideas. Maybe we're not disagreeing.

You cannot know, because it would be out of reach of the human ability to understand.

Not because the claim can never be scientifically proven or disproven.

It is comments such as those:

Atheist's don't say there is no chance that a deity could exist, they just believe it just as unlikely as a number of random claims. Atheists don't really have a belief on the issue as such, since its a non-issue. Are you atheist to the idea of purple unicorns?

An agnostic doesn't claim that it is unknowable that God exists, they just claim that right now it is not demonstrable that God exists, therefore we can not "pretend these conclusions are certain." Therefore they do not claim either way that it is certain that God exists, or it is certain that he doesn't.

All agnosticism is, is normal, logical reasoning, that we should only treat things with certainty when things are demonstrable with proof

What I'm saying is that agnosticism is barely even a perspective since its almost universal.

Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not have belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity does not exist. Ask any atheist if truly, he knows that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real. Yet since there is no evidence to suggest there is they don't have a belief in it.

I am an agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden.
—Richard Dawkins

A lot of people would say we can't really know anything, so in essence we should all be agnostic in relation to everything to some extent. It's just a matter of using sound reason. No evidence to suggest it, so reason to believe yet we obviously don't actually know, as we know much

that people disagree with. And that I think Huxley would disagree with.

You continuously refer to a specific deity. But that just misses the point.
The very concept of god is not seen as it has been written in the bible or
any other scriptures, but as 'impossible to comprehend'.

So it is not a universal perspective of logic and reasoning, but claims that
if a god, any 'god' or higher power, were to exist, it would be beyond logic.

As far as I'm concerned, the only honest people I've ever met were either agnostics or gnostics. Theists and atheists alike are biased so they are not willing to conform their beliefs to their experiences but rather demand that their experiences conform to their beliefs (or unbeliefs). I learned something here about agnostics and that how it is a positive assertion. That is true, huh? Well, it may be a positive assertion, but the confusion comes from that it is a negative term. Agnostic is A+Gnostic, which mean one who doesn't know. So thank you for educating me on the finer meaning of the philosophy.

If you take the metaphor of a city of blind men but there is one doctor who can see, and he tells the rest about light and color, there are four possibilities for the people:

1. Some will believe him and say "Yes there is light, and it is beautiful, I have never seen it, I just have faith that this man is telling the truth"

2. some will say "Show me this light and give me evidence of this light and then I will believe you, until then, I don't believe you and I think that you are either crazy or a con man"

3. Some will say "Whether or not there is light or not, I cannot see it because I don't have eyes and I don't know that the doctor has eyes either."

4. And maybe only one or two will say to the doctor "Will you please operate on my eyes so that I can see?" And then they will know once they can see whether or not for a fact that there exists light certainly or not.

This metaphor is flawed because we already know that there is light. So let us say that you tell your friends that you are in love. Now there is no way to prove that you are in love.
Some friends will believe you and say "wow, I am so glad for you".

Some friends, who have known you for a long time and seen you fall in and out of love depending on the mood you were in might say "I don't believe you, you were just in love last week with someone else".

Some might say "Well, you are quite fickle, but who knows? Maybe you are in love for real this time. Maybe you really found the right person, but maybe not. I have no way of knowing so I will support you and be happy for you however I won't be surprised if tomorrow you come to me and say that you were just in a silly mood."

Only you can know if you are in love or not so only you can be a gnostic in this example.



So, the theist and the atheist are both wrong. The point is not whether or not you believe or disbelieve, but what is the truth? The theist believes that God is a certainty even though he doesn't know, as if just by him believing hard enough makes it true, while the hard atheist thinks that by him disbelieving makes reality conform to his disbeliefs. An atheist is a theist standing on his head.

The theist suppresses his disbelief. Somewhere in his subconscious he asks himself 'What if there is no God, and I am deceiving myself? Does that make my life meaningless? How can I live my life without any meaning?" But he suppresses it deep into his subconscious so that he is unaware of it until death comes.

The theist suppresses his belief. Deep in his subconscious he asks "What if I do have a soul? What if there is something Divine? What if I survive death and my actions here on Earth affect my afterlife?"

Both the theist and the atheist are divided into belief and disbelief, the only difference is which they allow into their conscious awareness and which they keep in their subconscious. But existentially, they are the same. The point is that neither of them know for sure. So they would be much more honest to admit that they don't know and say that they are agnostic. Maybe that can be liberating to them. maybe they can say, "Well, i don't know but you can't blame me. It is unknowable (by me as i am)."

The agnostic is honest because he remains open and but says "I don't know what the truth is and the truth remains independent of my belief or disbelief and that is the truth."

I respect the hard agnostic. He is the very salt of the earth.

I also respect the gnostic, but they are so rare and few and far between, and so many people claiming to be gnostics that the true hard gnostics are hard to recognize. But with a little discernment they can be recognized. But, all the same, if you do encounter a gnostic, don't fall into the old trap and believe or disbelieve him, but try to know for yourself and become a gnostic yourself.

Wow guys, this is a great thread!!

Here's my perspective, as someone who very recently became interested in the New Atheism, as expounded by Dawkins and his cohorts. It freed me from the more fundamentalist concepts so deeply embedded in christianity.

How can I explain this?

I've never been religious, but there was always a nagging doubt inside that maybe they were right, you know? And since I hadn't really learned much about christianity or any religion beyond the common knowledge, I wasn't really able to separate the nonsense parts from the core. Well now, thanks to the work of the New Atheists and those people who spread their word (Hi Mario! ) anyone not deeply invested in a fundamentalist view can clearly see the logical flaws and blast away the exterior... the dogmatic, hidebound surface. That means, once you've done that, you're either an atheist with no religious/ spiritual leanings at all, or you're free to explore spiritual or religious ideas unencumbered by the BS.

For me it's opened the way to exploring spirituality, thanks to a bunch of the good folks on this board who are pointing the way.

So there is a good side to atheism if it allows this.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

For me it's opened the way to exploring spirituality, thanks to a bunch of the good folks on this board who are pointing the way.

So there is a good side to atheism if it allows this.

So, isn't this Agnostic or is it Atheist? Yeah, organized religion is the dead fossil skeleton of true spirituality. They murder the spirit and worship the tombstone then forbid you to look for spirit anywhere telling you that it is evil or satanic. But just take the word of their representative. I have never ever believed in that dogmatic fundamental bullshit of any religion, is this what new atheism is? To me it is common sense like not believing in Santa Claus or the tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But I have always percieved a field of energy/non-energy that is everywhere that supports all forms that itself has no supports or reliances. It has no story so any story you tell or any qualities you project onto it it will absorb but they all will be false lies.

I don't think I explained it very well... let me try this again.

Perhaps what I'm LEFT with in the aftermath is agnosticism... I don't know. I won't even try to label it... at this point I claim no knowledge at all, I;m just finally free to EXPLORE ideas of spirituality. (I don't claim to be Gnostic or Agnostic... I'm just a Gnoob )

Somehow I was never free to look into spirituality in the past because of the looming spectre of Christianity. I don't know why this is, but somehow Christianity, with all its fossilized dogmas and assertions was like a gigantic stone wall looming over me imposingly, and it blocked me from any real exploration into the nature of what spirituality could be. LIke I said, I had never BEEN religious, but it seemed like if I ever did turn that way it would have been to christianity... I suppose just because it's the dominant religion in the US. I was loath to enter that massive portcullis, and I kept my back turned to it.

And then when I started looking into the writings of Dawkins and Stenger and the other New Atheists it was like a salvo of missiles that devastated the fossilized wall (the wall of dogmas and assertions... the fundamentalist parts of christianity). Previous to reading their ideas I always took the position that it would be rude or impolite to say anything to a religious person that might damage their faith, so I didn't really examine their beliefs closely or think much about the foolishness of them.

So, it was definitely reading the work of the new aggressive, hardline atheists that brought that imposing edifice tumbling down and let the sun begin to shine through onto what was left... the core of untrammeled spirituality itself, discovered through exploration and through research into various different religions/ spiritual belief systems - extrapolating and comparing, weighing and balancing etc... to see what FEELS right, what fits together.

I suspect there are a lot of people like me, who have never really thought much about religion or spirituality but always just kind of figured that if they DID, it would be straight into the christian church, with all its dogmatic assertions.

Yes, I knew many of those assertions were dumb and untrue, but I didn't realize you could pick and choose and take the core parts of religious belief without the assertions. That came as a revelation to me. It's not that I'm stupid really, I just never thought about it before.

So, the point I was trying to make is this... the New Atheism was exactly what I personally needed to destroy the fossilized dogma and reveal the core of spirituality. It's like Fundie Dogma = matter and Hardline Atheism = antimatter. Smash them together in a Supercollider and they cancel each other out, leaving you FREE!!!!! The earlier, weaker atheism wasn't capable - for me anyway - of destroying that wall and freeing me.

So yes, as people have mentioned in here numerous times, Atheism and Theism are opposites at war with each other, but once they destroy each other in the heart of one person, it clears the way toward spirituality. So I think the atheism is needed to combat the long-term stranglehold that fundamentalist religion has had on the world.

Wow! Matter and Antimatter destroying each other! I like that!