It's official: atheistic fundamentalism exists.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I don't think it is logically possible to attain scientific evidence of the standard Abrahamic God.

That's the problem of those who defined him. Not mine.

Which is the reason why I am would classify myself as agnostic, despite beleiving in God.

If you do not believe that the existence of your God is provable then you do not require proof to be a theist. You believe he exists. It is a faith-based claim.

What I don't understand is how someone can require scientific evidence to beleive in things, yet be a nonagnostic atheist.

I don't see why not. I am not a strong atheist. I lack a belief in God. I do not believe that there is no God any more tha I believe that there is not aether. I believe that the aether, if it exists, does not work the way 19th century physicists thought it did, because their predictions were demonstrably false. How can I believe in the nonexistence of something for which there is no evidence either way? I am unconvinced as to the existence of any given god. I am also unconvinced as to the necessary existence of any god at all (or even supernatural beings or forces).

[Robert]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I like you Cybershy, you're funny. In a 'laugh at, not with' kind of way

I'm happy that I'm entertaining you
I'm also suprised that you didn't mature at all in all those years. Still refusing (or being unable) to come with good arguments, but still very good at insulting people! You go girl

Oh, and I'm a little bit worried about your sense of humor!

[Arrian]

What KH said. Without the physics stuff, of course, 'cause I've no idea what he's talking about

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

You are a theist, Jon. Given theism and a lack of belief in any given religion you must be an agnostic, because there must be a true religion, whether it has yet be created or not, and whether or not it would be possible for a human to know which one was true.

Atheists need not be agnostics, as it's not necessary for them to believe that some unknown religion is true. Some might, and some might not. Strong atheists are probably not agnostics.

Again, this is using my definitions. Yours are more one-dimensional, and form a simple spectrum.

[Jon Miller]

I really think that most people are beyond this explanation thing. (necessarity of god/supernatural to explain things)

It is the old gods, Zeus/etc whose reason for being was to explain things (lightning for example). The Christian God is different, because the reason of Christianity is not to provide an explanation of some aspect of the physical world. This is despite the fact that there is Creation mythos in the Abrahamic tradition. The Christian God isn't needed to explain the universes physics. That isn't the point of Christianity.

My point about the lack of the possibility of scientific evidence for the Abrahamic God is that it means that using evidence as a ruler is meaningless in that case. All there is is beleif (either for or against).

The only counter for this is the beleif that everything that exists is knowable... which seems to require at least as much beleif as beleiving in God.

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Well, we can get away from using one word descriptions of ourselves. Although those are usually telling as to our unvoiced inclinations.

JM

[Arrian]

Third option: knowing everything is not possible (at least w/o an infinite amount of time for study), and that's ok.

In other words, there are those who don't need an answer.

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

I don't see how that is pertinent to anything I or KH have said?

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I really think that most people are beyond this explanation thing. (necessarity of god/supernatural to explain things)

I don't understand how that's relevant. I never claimed that all or even most theists believe in a God of the gaps, though I do harbour a feeling that many do. Most people are completely unscientific, and will generally make some extremely ignorant claims about a lot of things (for example "alternative medicine"). I don't think that theism requires proof. I have seen enough theists tell me that they have no proof of God's existence to know that.

It is the old gods, Zeus/etc whose reason for being was to explain things (lightning for example). The Christian God is different, because the reason of Christianity is not to provide an explanation of some aspect of the physical world. This is despite the fact that there is Creation mythos in the Abrahamic tradition. The Christian God isn't needed to explain the universes physics. That isn't the point of Christianity.

At least it isn't today among the most mainstream versions of Christianity...

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you here (about anything other than our definition of agnosticism).

[Jon Miller]

There was a sentence that I somehow am still wanting to address (but I am not really sure what post it was in). But also, I feel like I should be concentrating a bit more on work (stuff is running in the background, but I should be doing other projects while it does so).

So we can disagere on the defintion of agnosticism for now... as that is all you can really do with definitions (I know that I hold some unique definitions, not saying that yours is unique).

Jon Miller

[KrazyHorse]

My point about the lack of the possibility of scientific evidence for the Abrahamic God is that it means that using evidence as a ruler is meaningless in that case. All there is is beleif (either for or against).

Now here is where I disagree with you. Some people feel, for whatever reasons, that God must exist (without any evidence). Some people feel that God must not exist (without any positive evidence of nonexistence). In my mind, those are both illogical and mistaken positions. I have a lack of belief in either position. But the belief in an entity for which there is no evidence is a position more often proven wrong than is the belief in the same entity's non-existence. Humans come up with a lot more ideas than there are things which actually exist, so on a given claim, if you have to bet, it's generally best to go with the anti-believers (distinct from non-believers). If you tell me that a particle of mass 2.6 GeV with charge +3 exists then I'm going to be more often right than wrong if I say "no it doesn't".

[Jon Miller]

But you have given it properties that one can measure. Those properties also fits (or in this case, doesn't fit) it into theories of how the universe works.

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

Hm, I like your definitions of atheism and agnosticism.

xpost

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
But you have given it properties that one can measure

And what if it has 0 cross-section (or close enough to 0 that we have no chance to measure it)?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Hm, I like your definitions of atheism and agnosticism.

xpost

I didn't come up with them.

Again, this is all trivial stuff. It's just that most people haven't been sufficiently exposed to the thinking of actual theologians.

Some of the discussions here are extremely fuzzy-headed...