Art Thou Religious?

[Wycoff]

Grew up in a new order Mennonite church, currently agnostic/ soft atheist whatever you want to call it.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Drogue
Irreligious. I'm not really a staunch athiest, as I don't concretely denouce any potential existence of a deity, but I don't believe in one either.

That makes you agnostic atheist, the same as me.

There are all sorts of different lables used for types of belief and non-belief in deities, but I think this system is by far the clearest:

gnostic theist - claims to KNOW that there exists a god or gods
agnostic theist - believes in the existence of a god or gods, but does not claim to know either way.
agnostic atheist - Lacks a belif in god (or believes that there is no god or gods), but claims no special knowlege either way.
gnostic atheist - Claims to know that there is no god or gods.

Gnostic atheists are a tiny, tiny, TINY minority of all atheists. I've never met one, and I think that the gnostic atheist position is as untenable as the the gnostic theist position (which is unfortunately quite common). Yet still, for some reason, people who know little of atheism seem to assume that atheist = gnostic atheist. That's like assuming that theist = Christian flat-earther.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by MightyTiny


That makes you agnostic atheist, the same as me.

There are all sorts of different lables used for types of belief and non-belief in deities, but I think this system is by far the clearest:

gnostic theist - claims to KNOW that there exists a god or gods
agnostic theist - believes in the existence of a god or gods, but does not claim to know either way.
agnostic atheist - Lacks a belif in god (or believes that there is no god or gods), but claims no special knowlege either way.
gnostic atheist - Claims to know that there is no god or gods.

Under these definitions, I'd probably put myself somewhere between gnostic theist and agnostic theist. I wouldn't say I know for sure, but I don't think belief is a strong enough word either.

[Barnabas]

Catholic, former lutheran

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Alexander I


Under these definitions, I'd probably put myself somewhere between gnostic theist and agnostic theist. I wouldn't say I know for sure, but I don't think belief is a strong enough word either.

No need for in-between categories - there are different levels of belief.

I believe that it's going to be a sunny day tomorrow, but I wouldn't be willing to bet much on that. I also believe that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, and on that, I'd be willing to bet anything - but I cannot absolutely KNOW this, since, it might be, that before tomorrow morning, a fleet of interstellar boogey-men decides to use their ultra-hyper advanced weaponry to whipe out the entire solar system.

My belief that there is no god, is certainly closer to my belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, than it is to my belief that it'll be a sunny day tomorrow.

What makes me agnostic is that I, intellectually, acknowledge my own falliblity, and the fact that no matter how strongly I believe something, as a fallible human I am subject to making mistakes, and thus cannot reasonably claim absolute certainty

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by MightyTiny

No need for in-between categories - there are different levels of belief.

Yes, this is true. That's what I was trying to convey.

Originally posted by MightyTiny
My belief that there is no god, is certainly closer to my belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, than it is to my belief that it'll be a sunny day tomorrow.

What makes me agnostic is that I, intellectually, acknowledge my own falliblity, and the fact that no matter how strongly I believe something, as a fallible human I am subject to making mistakes, and thus cannot reasonably claim absolute certainty

I feel similarly about my theistic beliefs.

[Sirotnikov]

the Judaism option was somehow hidden so I voted other.


I consider myself non-observing Jewish.

I prescribe to beliefs which would be called "Reformist" and I learnt in a school with a "reformist" tendency.

I think I'm an agnostic theist. I would even call "belief" a somewhat strong word.

I can't combine the two ideas of absolute scientific universe (as we know it now) and an all powerful diety together. So I hold both beliefs at ones, referring each time to the one relevant to my question.

When I need to describe the universe I turn to science. When I need to give it meaning, or need some spiritual support - I turn to the deity.

Slightly odd, but I can live with both ideas, even though they are canceling each other - at least the scientific explanation cancels god, I think.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
at least the scientific explanation cancels god, I think.

I really don't understand this. My brother claims the same thing.

JM

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


I really don't understand this. My brother claims the same thing.

JM

I didn't exactly get that either; it sounds a bit vague. I think what is ment by that might be that scientific explanations for the universe we live in cancel the NEED to invoke god.

That, I would agree with.

I do also think that scientific understanding of cognition does undermine the thought that a cognitive being could be the first cause - that a cognitive being could exist without requiring an enormously intricate structure - structure which would require explanation more than the universe itself. Thus making the "God did it" explanation actually just bring in an added level of complication, rather than explaining anything: if God finetuned the Universe, who finetuned God?

So in that sense, I do see scientific knowledge undermining the god-belief as well.

One more thing that statement might mean is that science functions under a naturalistic assumption: it looks for naturalistic explanations, whereas the god-belief relies on the supernatural. The existence of supernatural could be argued to conflict with the evidence of the success of the scientific method.

[Jon Miller]

In reference to the first paragraph, depends on why you think there is a God. If it is to give a reason for lightning to exist, yeah.

Your arguments/discussion in the third paragraph assumes that God would be like what we already know. This seems to me to be a leading assumption.

As far as the last paragraph goes, we have seen that there is a natural explanation for things that use to be considered supernatural. Thinking that we can come up with a natural explanation for everything that is/was/ever will be seems to be the height of hubris to me...

Jon Miller

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Your arguments/discussion in the third paragraph assumes that God would be like what we already know. This seems to me to be a leading assumption.

But conversely, if God's cognition is somehow non-complex, non-intricate, non-explanation requiring, that to me seem to be a highly questionable assumption: every example of cognition we have is produce by an enormously complex piece of biological machinery that is the brain. It seem to me that to assume cognition to be possible without the very structure that does all the work "under the hood" is... absurd. And it beggs the question: If cognition can be produced without any "machinery", without any structure (whether material or somehow immaterial), then why on Earth do we carry around these redundant, energy cosuming, needlessly complex grey lumps in our heads to produce something that could be produced without such complication?

I'f fleshed out the argument in more detail (including anticipating some common responses to it) here: http://mightytiny.freepgs.com/747_argument.pdf

This is probably the primary reason I find god-claims to be implausible.

As far as the last paragraph goes, we have seen that there is a natural explanation for things that use to be considered supernatural. Thinking that we can come up with a natural explanation for everything that is/was/ever will be seems to be the height of hubris to me...

Jon Miller

That wasn't exactly what I was referring to with the success of the scientific method.

The scientific method's success requires that nature functions in a predictable manner, consistently. Supernatural does not follow such consistent rules. The scientific method has been successful in explaining the universe we live in to a sufficient degree that we daily trust our lives on the technology science has enabled - thus effectively every use of technology, and every repeated scientific test, is evidence for the validity of the naturalistic assumption.

If there is such a thing as supernatural, it is very difficult to see how it would fit into a world where the naturalistic assumption has proven so powerful.

This doesn't mean that I assume that the naturalistic assumption cannot be shown not to work in some circumstance that we haven't encountered yet - I just highly doubt it, based on the long-standing success of the scientific method, and the even longer standing failure of the claims of supernatural to gain tangiable evidence behind them, that would stand in the light of reasonable scrutiny.

[Will9]

Christianity (Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant/Polygamist/etc.)

I was Baptist when I lived in Memphis, but due to a lack of a Baptist church here, I'm part of an independant church now.

[Cort Haus]

Godless scum

[Perfection]

Re: Art Thou Religious?

Originally posted by Alexander I
I put down Christianity.

I do too! It's a hobby of mine!

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Will9
Christianity (Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant/Polygamist/etc.)

I was Baptist when I lived in Memphis, but due to a lack of a Baptist church here, I'm part of an independant church now.

You gotta be kidding. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting a Baptist church around here.