it's no surprise that it goes over your head al.
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Agnostic... atheist... same thing. This distinction is meaningless and only propagated by those without the intellectual testicular fortitude to be honest in a primarily theistic society.
Braindead, do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior? Do you live your life as though the Christian God exists and has a tangible effect on the world and your life? Do you live your life with the expectation that if you have faith in Christ that you will be rewarded with eternal salvation?
If you do not do so, then to a Christian, you are not a Christian. You live your life as if God does not exist and are therefore an atheist."Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
"I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi
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Ah, a lapsed Muslim claims a final say on who is or isn't a Christian. Kind of like a bizarro version of the brouhaha over Obama...
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Originally posted by Elok View PostAh, a lapsed Muslim claims a final say on who is or isn't a Christian. Kind of like a bizarro version of the brouhaha over Obama...
From a non-denominational Protestant source:
http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/why-cant-I-live-my-life-as-an-agnostic
There are logically only two options: either we have full-bodied theism with life after death where true and ultimate justice is meted out, or we have no meaningful basis for our ethical decisions and actions. If there is no God, all of your ethical conclusions are meaningless. While Kant stopped short of embracing God in more traditional ways, contrary to the understanding of some Kant was a theist. He embraced God through reason in ethics, and insisted that we must live as though there is a God.
In other words, if there is no just God, and morality is flexible. Why be moral at all—if I can be immoral, get away with it, and better my position? Carried to its logical conclusion, immoral behavior, even at its worst, does not matter. As explained by R. C. Sproul, a moral choice without God would be an effect without a cause, which is irrational! The agnostic must ask himself, "Why should I be moral today?"
Put more simply, either God is or God is not. Even atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair recognized that there is no in between on this issue. She said that an agnostic is just an atheist without guts. As put by Phillip Johnson (in his book Reason in the Balance), it may be rational to argue about whether God is real or unreal, but it is clearly irrational to assume that a God who is real can safely be ignored. And put yet another way, "practical atheism" is really the acknowledgement of God, but living life without God.
And from Cardinal Camillo Ruini describing the Papal position:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/125081?eng=y
The reply that Joseph Ratzinger gives to this problem brings us back toward the reality of life: in his judgment, in fact, agnosticism cannot actually be lived out in practice; it is an impracticable program for human life. The reason for this is that the question of God is not only theoretical, but is eminently practical, impacting all areas of life.
In practice, I am, in fact, forced to choose between two alternatives, already identified by Pascal: either to live as if God did not exist, or to live as if God did exist and were the most decisive reality of my existence. This is because God, if He does exist, cannot be an accessory to be removed or added without changing anything, but is instead the origin, meaning and end of the universe, and of man within it.
If I act according to the first alternative, I adopt a de facto position of atheism, and not only of agnosticism; if I decide in favor of the second alternative, I adopt the position of a believer. The question of God is, therefore, unavoidable. It is interesting to note the profound similarity that exists in this regard between the question of man and the question of God: both, because of their supreme importance, must be faced with all the rigor and commitment of our intelligence, but both are always eminently practical questions as well, inevitably connected to our concrete decisions in life.
"Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
"I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi
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Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View PostAgnostic... atheist... same thing. This distinction is meaningless and only propagated by those without the intellectual testicular fortitude to be honest in a primarily theistic society.
Braindead, do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior? Do you live your life as though the Christian God exists and has a tangible effect on the world and your life? Do you live your life with the expectation that if you have faith in Christ that you will be rewarded with eternal salvation?
If you do not do so, then to a Christian, you are not a Christian. You live your life as if God does not exist and are therefore an atheist.
A religious person believes there is something divine (eg Christians belive there is a god). I have no conviction that there is god. I am not a believer in god.
I do not know whether or not there is a god. I do not have faith and I do not have evidnce either way. That makes me an agnostic.
"Not knowing" is not a question of "intellectual testicular fortitude". For example: I have haven't the faintest idea whether or not there is life in the Andromeda galaxy simply because I have no information to make a firm decision.
I must admit I find the concept of atheism somewhat offputting because so many of the atheists I have encountered seem rather dogmatic and fundamentalist in their views.Last edited by Egbert; February 19, 2011, 01:02.
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JM, do you believe (haha) that belief without evidence is rational because of the psychological benefits? That is, you're going to enjoy the game more if you believe your team will win, or you're going to be more motivated to change the healthcare system if you believe the alternative is better?Scouse Git (2) La Fayette Adam Smith Solomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!
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Agree wholeheartedly with Al. He's quoted it correctly.Scouse Git (2) La Fayette Adam Smith Solomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!
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1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.I need a foot massage
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Originally posted by Braindead View PostAn atheist believes that there is no god. I do not share the belief that there is no god. I am not an atheist.
A religious person believes there is something divine (eg Christians belive there is a god). I have no conviction that there is god. I am not a believer in god.
I do not know whether or not there is a god. I do not have faith and I do not have evidnce either way. That makes me an agnostic.
"Not knowing" is not a question of "intellectual testicular fortitude". For example: I have haven't the faintest idea whether or not there is life in the Andromeda galaxy simply because I have no information to make a firm decision.
I must admit I find the concept of atheism somewhat offputting because so many of the atheists I have encountered seem rather dogmatic and fundamentalist in their views.
Look, braindead, there are only two options as Cardinal Ruini summarizing the Pope and alluding to Pascal pointed out... you believe God exists and so you worship him (whether it's the Christian God or whatever else) or you don't believe he exists and you don't worship him.
Those are the only logical positions. God exists but you don't worship him and God doesn't exist but you worship him are not viable positions for obvious reasons.
If I act according to the first alternative, I adopt a de facto position of atheism, and not only of agnosticism; if I decide in favor of the second alternative, I adopt the position of a believer. The question of God is, therefore, unavoidable."Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
"I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi
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Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View PostLook, braindead, there are only two options as Cardinal Ruini summarizing the Pope and alluding to Pascal pointed out... you believe God exists and so you worship him (whether it's the Christian God or whatever else) or you don't believe he exists and you don't worship him.
Those are the only logical positions. God exists but you don't worship him and God doesn't exist but you worship him are not viable positions.
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Originally posted by gribbler View PostHe said he doesn't believe in a god. Believing and knowing are different things. He doesn't claim to know if there are any gods.
Is it logical to believe that God exists but not worship him? No.
Is it logical to believe that God does not exist but worship him? No.
Is it logical to believe that God exists and worship him? Yes. Religious people do this.
Is it logical to believe that God does not exist and not worship him? Yes. Atheists do this.
Braindead does not worship God. Braindead does not believe in the existence of God. Braindead is an atheist as per the Vatican."Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
"I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi
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Why do you care what the vatican thinks? I thought you were a muslim apostate? And since when did the vatican have the right to tell everyone else what atheism is? The world doesn't revolve around them.
Is there a practical difference between agnostics and atheists? No. That's pretty trivial but I guess you don't have anything interesting to say.
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Originally posted by gribbler View PostWhy do you care what the vatican thinks? I thought you were a muslim apostate? And since when did the vatican have the right to tell everyone else what atheism is? The world doesn't revolve around them.
The robust Muscular Christian haranguing us from the pulpit of my old school chapel admitted a sneaking regard for atheists. They at least had the courage of their misguided convictions. What this preacher couldn’t stand was agnostics: namby-pamby, mushy pap, weak-tea, weedy, pallid fence sitters. He was partly right, but for the wholly wrong reason. In the same vein, according to Quentin de la Bedoyere, the Catholic historian Hugh Ross Williamson ‘respected the committed religious believer and also the committed atheist. He reserved his contempt for the wishy-wasy boneless mediocrities who flapped about in the middle’
There is nothing wrong with being agnostic in cases where we lack evidence one way or the other. It is the reasonable position. Carl Sagan was proud to be agnostic when asked whether there was life elsewhere in the universe. When he refused to commit himself, his interlocutor pressed him for a ‘gut feeling’ and he immortally replied: ‘But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it’s okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in’ The question of extra-terrestrial life is open. Good arguments can be mounted both ways, and we lack the evidence to do more than shade the probabilities one way or the other. Agnosticism, of a kind, is an appropriate stance on many scientific questions, such as what caused the end-Permian extinction, the greatest mass extinction in fossil history. It could have been a meteorite strike like the one that, with greater likelihood on present evidence, caused the later extinction of the dinosaurs. But it could have been any of various other possible causes, or a combination. Agnosticism about the causes of both these mass extinctions is reasonable. How about the question of God? Should we be agnostic about him too? Many have said definitely yes, often with an air of conviction that verges on protesting too much. Are they right?
I’ll begin by distinguishing two kinds of agnosticism. TAP, or Temporary Agnosticism in Practice, is the legitimate fence-sitting where there really is a definitive answer, one way or the other, but so far lack of evidence to reach it (or don’t understand the evidence or haven’t the time to read the evidence, etc). TAP would be a reasonable stance towards the Permian extinction. There is a truth out there and one day we hope to know it, though for the moment we don’t.
But there is also a deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting, which I shall call PAP (Permanent Agnosticism in Principle). The fact that the acronym spells a word used by the old school preacher is (almost) accidental. The PAP style of agnosticism is appropriate for questions that can never be answered, no matter how much evidence we gather, because the very idea of evidence is not applicable. The question exists on a different plane, or in a different dimension, beyond the zones where evidence can reach. An example might be that philosophical chestnut, the question whether you see red as I do. Maybe your red is my green, or something completely different from any colour that I can imagine. Philosophers cite this question as one that can never be answered, no matter what new evidence might one day become available. And some scientists and other intellectuals are convinced – too eagerly in my view – that the question of God’s existence belongs in the forever inaccessible PAP category. From this, as we shall see, they often make the illogical deduction that the hypothesis of God’s existence, and the hypothesis of his non-existence, have exactly equal probability of being right. The view that shall defend is very different: agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn’t. It is a scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something pretty strong about the probability.
In the history of ideas, there are examples of questions being answered that had earlier been judged forever out of sciences reach. In 1825 the celebrated French philosopher Auguste Comte wrote, of the stars: ‘We shall never be able to study, by any method, their chemical composition or their mineralogical structure.’ Yet even before Comte had set down these words, Fraunhofer had begun using his spectroscope to analyse the chemical composition of the sun. Now spectroscopists daily confound Comte’s agnosticism with their long-distnace analyses of the precise chemical composition of even distant stars. Whatever the exact status of Comte’s astronomical agnosticism, this cautionary tale suggests, at the very least, that we should hesitate before proclaiming the eternal verity of agnosticism too loudly. Nevertheless, when it comes to God, a great many philosophers and scientists are glad to do so, beginning with the inventor of the word itself, T.H. Huxley.
Huxley explained his coining while rising to a personal attack it had provoked. The Principal of King’s College, London, the Reverend Dr. Wace, had poured scorn on Huxley’s ‘cowardly agnosticism’:
“He may prefer to call himself an agnostic; but his real name is an older one – he is an infidel; that is to say, un unbeliever. The word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.”
Huxley was not the man to let that sort of provocation pass him by, and his reply in 1889 was a robustly scathing as we should expect (although never departing from scrupulous good manners: as Darwin’s Bulldog, his teeth were sharpened by urbane Victorian irony). Eventually, having dealt Dr Wace his just comeuppance and buried the remains, Huxley returned to the ‘agnostic’ and explained how he first came by it. Other, he noted,
“were quite sure they had attained a certain ‘gnosis’ – had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion… So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘agnostic’.”
Later in his speech, Huxley went on to explain that agnostics have no creed, not even a negative one.
“Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle… Positively the principle may be expressed: In matter of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other considerations. And negatively: In matter of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him. “
To a scientist these are noble words, and one doesn’t criticize T.H. Huxley lightly. But Huxley, in his concentration upon the absolute impossibility of proving or disproving God, seems to have been ignoring the shading of probability. The fact that we can either prove or disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on even footing. I don’t think Huxley would disagree, and I suspect that when he appeared to do so he was bending over backwards to concede a point, in the interests of securing another one. We have all done this at one time or another.
Contrary to Huxley, I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other. Even if hard to test in practice, it belongs in the same TAP or temporary agnosticism box as the controversies over the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions. God’s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice. If he existed and chose to reveal it, God himself could clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in his favour. And even if God’s existence is never proved or disproved with certainty one way or the other, available evidence and reasoning may yield an estimate of probability far from 50 percent.
Let us, then, take the idea of a spectrum of probabilities seriously, and place human judgments about the existence of God along it, between two extremes of opposite certainty. The spectrum is continuous, but it can be represented by the following seven milestones along the way.
1) Strong thesit. 100 percent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’
2) Very high probability but short of 100 percent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3) Higher than 50 percent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain but I am inclined to believe in God.’
4) Exactly 50 percent Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’
5) Lower than 50 percent but not lery low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I am inclined to be skeptical.’
6) Very low probability, but short of zero. De Facto atheist. ‘I cannont know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’
7) Strong atheist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung “knows” there is one’
I’d be surprised to meet many people in category 7, but I include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated. It is in the nature of faith that one is capable, like Jung, of holding a belief without adequate reason to do so (Jung also believed that particular books on his shelf spontaneously exploded with a loud bang). Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist. Hence category 7 is in practice rather emptier than its opposite number, category 1, which has many devoted inhabitants. I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7 – I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of my garden.
The spectrum of probabilities works well for TAP (temporary agnosticism in practice). It is superficially tempting to place PAP (permanent agnosticism in principle) in the middle of the spectrum, with a 50 percent probability of God’s existence, but this is not correct. PAP agnostics aver that we cannot say anything, one way or the other, on the question of whether or not God exists. The question, for PAP agnostics, is in principle unanswerable, and they should strictly refuse to place themselves anywhere on the spectrum or probabilities. The fact that I cannot know whether your red is the same as my green doesn’t make the probability 50 percent. The proposition on offer is too meaningless to be dignified with a probability, to leap from the premise that the question of God’s existence is in principle unanswerable to the conclusion that his existence and his non-existence are equiprobable.
Another way to express that error is in terms of the burden of proof, and in this from it is pleasingly demonstrated by Bertrand Russell’s parable of the celestial teapot.
“Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather that of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed by even our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part oh human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth ever Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
We would not waste times saying so because nobody, so far as I know, worships teapots;* but if pressed we would not hesitate to declare our strong belief that there is positively no orbiting teapot. Yet strictly we should all be teapot agnostics: we cannot prove, for sure, that there is no celestial teapot. In practice, we move away from teapot agnosticism towards a-teapotism.
[* Perhaps I spoke to soon. The Independent on Sunday of 5 June 2005 carried the fo9llowing item: “Malaysian officials say religious sect which built scared teapot the size of a house has flouted planning regulations.’ ]
A friend, who was brought up a Jew and still observes the Sabbath and other Jewish customs out of loyalty to his heritage, describes himself as a ‘tooth fairy agnostic’. He regards God as no more probable than the tooth fairy. You can’t disprove either hypothesis, and both are equally improbable. He is an a-theist to the exactly same large extent that he is an a-fairyist. And agnostic about both, to the same small extent.
Russell's teapot, of course, stands for an infinite number of things whose existence is conceivable and cannot be disproved. The great American lawyer Clarence Darrow said, ‘I don’t believe in God as I don’t believe in Mother Goose.’ The journalist Andrew Mueller is of the opinion that pledging yourself to any particular religion is no more or less weird than choosing to believe that the would it rhombus shaped, and borne through the cosmos in the pincers of two enormous green lobsters called Esmerelda and Keith’. A philosophical favourite is the invisible, intangible, inaudible, unicorn, disproof of which is attempte4d yearly by the children of CampQuest.* A popular deity on the Internet at present – and as undisprovable as Yahweh or any other – is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who, many claim, has touched them with his noodly appendage. I am delighted to see that the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has now been published as a book, to great acclaim. I haven’t read it myself, but who needs to read a gospel when you just ‘know’ it’s true? By the way, it had to happen – a Great Schism has already occurred, resulting in the ‘Reformed’ Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
*CampQuest takes the American institution of the summer camp in an entirely admirable direction. Unlike other summer camps that follow a religious or scouting ethos, Camp Quest, founded by Edwin and Helen Kagin in Kentucky, is run by secular humanists, and the children are encouraged to think skeptically for themselves while having a very good time with all the usual outdoor activities (www.camp-quest.org). Other Camp Quests with a similar ethos have now sprung up in Tennessee, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, and Canada.
The fact that orbiting teapots and tooth fairies are undisprovable is not felt, by any reasonable person, to be the kind of fact that settles any interesting argument. None of us feels an obligation to disprove any of the millions of far-fetched things that a fertile or facetious imagination might dream up. I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Claf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.
Al of us feel entitled to express extreme skepticism to the point of outright disbelief – expect that in the case of unicorns, tooth fairies and the gods of Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Vikings, there is (nowadays) no need to bother. In the case of the Abrahamic God, however, there is a need to bother, because a substantial proportion of the people with whom we share the planet do believe strongly in his existence. Russell’s teapot demonstrates that the ubiquity of belief in God, as compared with belief in celestial teapots, does not shift the burden of proof in logic, although it may seem to shift it as a matter of practical politics. That you cannot prove God’s non-existence is accepted as trivial, if only in the sense that we can never absolutely prove the non-existence of anything. What matters is not whether God is disprovable (he isn’t) but whether his existence is probable. That is another matter. Some undisprovable things are sensibly judged far less probable than other undisprovable things. There is no reason to regard God as immune from consideration along the spectrum of probabilities. And there is certainly no reason to suppose that, just because God can be neither proved nor disproved, his probability of existence is 50 percent. On the contrary, as we shall see.Last edited by Al B. Sure!; February 19, 2011, 01:47."Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
"I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi
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