Your post is only valid in a very narrow interpretation of what “god” means. If you mean “a supernatural being that controls the world” I will fully agree that it doesn’t exist. However, for many agnostics and people in general this isn’t the case. I would say you are being arrogant if only because you’re cherry picking the definition of god that suits you and discarding all others.

I listen to my logic and reason and have a healthy respect for life and death. bout the only difference is I think there is a god… do you no any religons like that anyone? or am I just a breed of my own?=) I Love science and understand the need for it. I also hate those ‘Evolution Abolutaly cant be real!” peopl. even if u do belive in god, why couldnt he have made evolution? he can do anything according to everyone right? so whats the problem. I guess I kind of Mix Science with Religon….I dont know im screwed up huh? Just does anyone know what I might fall into catagory wise? thax!

I DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING.

The reason for this is fairly simple. All data I have ever recieved has come through my domnstrably fallable senses, and was filtered by my unavoidably subjective concepts and pre-concieved models of existance. Therefore all data I have for building “knowledge” are of questionable certainty. To “know” anything would require at least one unquestionable fact as a basis, I’ve yet to find one. Therefore I question my “knowledge” of the existance of the I’m sitting on as well as that of ANY god. I’m inclined to question the possibility of attaining any knowledge.

Then there is the concept of faith or belief as many refer to it. Well I find faith in anything I find doubt in to be foolish and dangerous and limiting. These concepts I’m sure are familiar to you as an atheist, so there is little need to go into them. But this is the reason I don’t believe anything. This includes the existance or non-existance of ANY god.

You might ask how one can function without faith or belief or knowledge. Well it’s fairly simple I accept that none of the perceptual models of the world I utilise may be correct however with observation I can see that within any given one things often appear to function within certain parameters. For example when I put a glass on a table despite my lack of belief in the model of existance that says these two objects exist I’ve yet to percieve the glass falling through the table so that is a fairly reliable action in that model and it’s not necessary to belive in either object or the model to see that within that model that action has fairly reliable results within the context of that model. Just as the average person need not concern themselves with the phsics question of whether the objects can actually touch to do the same action and get similar results.

In reference to the existance of gods, this question is one I find profoundly more difficult to find working moels for so I usually stick to intelectual musings and watching the interactions others have with their percieved gods within their personal models. Which by the way if you explore the Discordian religion and several other of the modern religions of similar form you’ll find people who don’t even belive in their god at all, yet have a working model of interaction with it.

As for tha analogy of 2 + 2 = 4, I hope you know this is cheating. The confines and rule of the universe of mathematics as we utilise it, are defined explicitly and clearly. One can aregue that it is a construct of man or that we discovered it and that it pre-existed us and we just came up with symbolic representations for it. But in either case the accepted system we use has clearly defined rules. Whether addition is inherent to the universe in some form or not our rules for it are defined by man. Our mathematical model is concrete and indisputable within it’s own pre-defined confines, so obviously 2+2=4. This is irrelevant when discussing the nature of existance not affected by the model we see it through. THE MENU IS NOT THE MEAL. Mathematics is a model, existance is not. Models are defined by man and thus within their own confines provable, the nature of existance is not defined by man and is only arguable through the use of perceptual models (whether or not they are correct.)

As a final note I was raised an atheist, however through the years I came to the realisation I don’t have enough faith to be one, this realisation was very liberating to me, but left me with the same problems with agnosticism you have mentioned in these two posts. With time and consideration and reading I’ve ended up where I am now. Just saying not all agnostics are atheists who haven’t thought about it. Some are atheists who thought about it alot throughout there life and had a failure of faith.

I hope you take the time to reply.

“When you talk about the different godS(Zeus, Shiva, God, Neptune, Boudha, etc.), don’t you think(try to be theist for a second, just to understand) they are all the same? Different names for one guy(or girl, wathever). Religions are just a different view of the same concept.”

No, these aren’t just different names for the same god. You have polytheistic religions, and each god has specific characteristics. One religion’s claim of several gods means you have to be an Agnostic on each god.

Not a perfect comparison, either, as a white marble in the bag isn’t something supernatural. Although it’s perfectly OK, after 4 billion black marbles, to assume that they’re all black, the idea of a white one in there doesn’t really require “a leap of faith”.

Well, axioms are all ultimately taken on faith, but that’s sort of beside the point of this discussion.

You can certainly assume after four billion black marbles that they are all black. However, at that point you are stepping outside the realm of logic. You state in the previous article that this is a “logical” thing to do. That is the statement with which I am taking issue.

Logic says you have to check every marble in the bag or come up with some other way to prove that all of the marbles are black.

Whether or not a “leap of faith” is involved in any way has nothing to do with it. It’s simply the way logic works. You can’t look at a problem with an infinite number of possible test cases, do a finite subset of them, and then make such an absolute claim based upon these tests and call it logic.

This is why you can’t really prove scientific theories.

1. Assumption (from a Christian upbringing) - God makes us in his own image.

2. Assumption (from some familiarity with popular science and dictionary.com) - Entropy - The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

3. Assumption (from some familiarity with popular science and dictionary.com) - Life - The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism (summarized as the ORGANization of materials and/or energy and the ability to reproduce from otherwise inert materials subject to Entropy).

Theory: Some willful entity, or “God”, created a self-replicating, cyclic pattern, or “Life”, in the otherwise docile set of resources that follow the simplistic rules of Entropy, or “Universe”. We are a recent cycle in the pattern. The success of the pattern in replicating itself suggests God’s knowledge of how the pattern will unfold, and thus he has intimate knowledge of our existence. Furthermore, God can experience the time axis of the pattern perfectly, rather than from our perception of time as an ordered series of events.

A similar idea is a CRT TV Set. We (like God) see a 3D image on a 2D screen that is actually a series of 1D pixels that are experienced in series of event and location. The CRT only experiences the series of electrons.

Before you throw the razor at this, do it properly. Present another theory that is simpler (having fewer assumptions).

Science does not, as far as I’m aware, have a quantifiable reason for the existence of life in a universe otherwise ruled by Entropy. One of the basic properties of life is the organization of resources (inanimate matter) to sustain itself. It stands to reason that something (self-aware or not, makes little difference) started the pattern of life that however briefly and sporadically works in opposition to the basic assumptions of Entropy. Another key property of life is that it seeks to recreate itself from raw materials to continue the cycle. Without some form of reproduction, life ceases.

Similarly, humans try to recreate themselves in means other than biological procreation. We seek to clone ourselves out of basic elements, build imitations of ourselves with gadgetry, replace missing parts of our bodies when they are no longer whole, teach our thought patterns and behaviors to lower life forms, create synthetic intelligence, and so forth. We, are in effect, trying to create life in our own image, perhaps superior, perhaps inferior. It’s not nearly as basic a drive as our need to procreate biologically, but for some of us it is even more obsessive.

It stands to reason that if we can succeed in duplicating many facets of our being, especially to create an inferior being, but one that has many of the basic attributes for life that we could set into motion our own cyclic cascade of “artificial” life that would ultimately ‘evolve’ into something that could do the same, ad nauseum.

Inside of this is a paradox, that something had to create the pattern of life from which we emerge just as we can create the pattern of life that many of us seek to begin. Perhaps part of that pattern is the environmental conditions for the pattern to succeed (hence, our universe).

Is it more logical that what we see around us every day (the metaphor of a man building a robot) is somehow less likely than what we don’t see everyday from our limited perspective on time and space (the likelyhood that raw materials searching for entropy will somehow find themselves orgnized by chance in such a way as to create chemical and physical reactions that can ultimately reduce and even reverse the trends of entropy for brief periods of time)?

A more apt example would be to have a bag of five billion marbles (or the large number of your choice that is too big for you to really deal with). You keep pulling marbles out of the bag one at a time. You notice they are all black. You cannot logically say all of the marbles in the bag are black just from continuous testing.

Not a perfect comparison, either, as a white marble in the bag isn’t something supernatural. Although it’s perfectly OK, after 4 billion black marbles, to assume that they’re all black, the idea of a white one in there doesn’t really require “a leap of faith”.

This isn’t really how logic works. Even 2+2=4 is based on deeper axioms which are accepted without proof. But aside from that:

A more apt example would be to have a bag of five billion marbles (or the large number of your choice that is too big for you to really deal with). You keep pulling marbles out of the bag one at a time. You notice they are all black. You cannot logically say all of the marbles in the bag are black just from continuous testing.

Or, for a more mathematical example, you can look at measurable sets. If one just starts coming up with sets and seeing if they are measurable, they’re pretty much going to see that all of the sets they come up with are measurable. However, the correct conclusion is not that all sets are measurable. There are non-measurable sets. They’re just really, really bizarre.

Use of formal logic does not lead one to atheism any more than it leads away from it.

horus: you’re actually saying the opposite as Alvin, that I’d have to say it’s impossible for God to exist to be an atheist. I don’t claim that. I don’t say it’s “impossible” for God to exist.

What I say is this: I am convinced that there is no god. All human religions and faiths are so obviously man-made and absurd that it hurts to see adults involved in them, but what about there actually being some god or god-like entity or “universal spirit”? It can never be proved that one doesn’t exist, and I’m not pretending to be able to. However, if there is nothing supernatural, then the universe is 100% natural. If the universe is 100% natural, then God has nothing to do. Just because we don’t know something, it does not follow that it’s logical to say “God did it” - especially because we once thought the same about thousands of things we now know to be natural.

I have a virtual infinity of reasons to believe that the universe is natural - chief among them the fact that from all appearances it is. I have no reason at all to believe in God - the argument from ignorance (”how was the universe created? What existed before it?”) has been shown to be faulty about many other previously unknown things, the “holy books” are full of contradictions, atrocities, and paint a very poor picture of their “gods”, which show all signs of having been made up by men - and I’m talking primitive desert tribes here, to whom things like “72 virgins in the afterlife” (see, I don’t speak against just Christianity :)) were surely the greatest, most wonderful thing they could imagine. Believing in something just because a great many people do so is also illogical and just plain wrong.

Don’t you see? An atheist is one who sees there are zero reasons to believe, and a lot of them not to. So he uses that to make up his mind.

An agnostic, instead, is someone who refuses to decide. He refuses to admit that one option is extremely unlikely and the other is extremely likely. “After all, who am I to know?”

An Aethist who claims to believe to be a logical scientist, and yet blindly believes there is no god of any kind is as hypocritical as a believer who follows a random faith just to save his/her soul.

To the comparisons of tooth fairies and gods — poppy-cock! The man-made-up fantasies like tooth fairies and Jesus are one thing, but the abstract idea of the possibility of a higher consiousness or power is not dis-provable. My idea is no mater what reality one creates in which you can prove god or no god could possibly be the creation of a truly omniscient power. Best to leave the possibilities to fantasy novelists, and concentrate on making our world a better place.

I vote for organized religions which claim to “know” the truth be abolished. How refreshing if a man of god would admit, “I don’t know.” Maybe he would be less likely to condemn others who don’t know either.

For example, take the phenomenon of Christmas and Santa Claus. Innocent children that have not yet questioned the greater mysteries of the universe take what they are told to be fact. They do believe in Santa Claus. In effect, so do most adults. The belief in Santa Claus and the Christmas tradition of his visit is a major driver of economies all over the world. It shows up in art, in economics, affecting behavior of children (and ultimately the rest of us as we set the examples for good little boys and girls). We pray to Santa Claus, he has repeated image. Children write him messages and mail them with the faith that he will read them (prayer). We respond to those messages, delivering meaning to the children who subscribe to the tenants of faith (effectively being priests or conduits for Santa Claus). Does the faith create and empower Santa Claus or does he (the being) create the faith through his actions. Are all of our actions in the name of promoting the faith of the believers the cumulative will of Santa? The concept that a deity exists and is empowered as a result of the number and faith of his followers is not a new one.

Now, if you look at the various stages of belief amongst the worshippers of Santa Claus, is any of them more or less important? You have the young children who believe with all their heart. They never see Santa Claus, they only see the effects of his will (the cumulative will of everyone involved). For them it is enough, they believe, completely. We all marvel at their belief and long for the innocence lost to compassionately believe. Then you have the doubters, the children who’ve discovered some reason not to believe in Santa Claus. The one’s who try to convince everyone that Santa is not real, stating with authority to adults and to smaller children that he is not real. They are sure, they’ve witnessed other people claiming to be Santa and doing deeds in his name and they are sure that because those examples of misguided souls to DEMONSTRATE Santa to reinforce the belief they want to inspire in the young children and because of this betrayal (ie, holy wars, organized religion, nameless abuses of power, etc) they stamp their feet and put their hands on their hips and say, “I know there is definitely not a Santa Claus, you’re just making it up”. Some years later, even those (almost 100%) who experience the agnostic periods and ultimately the defiante atheist stance find themselves promoting the ideals they were given as true believers into their own group of true believers (playing Santa for their kids). The imitation is not perfect, but the spirit is there. The effect is there. We all put the retailers in the black in the 4th quarter every year recreating this great myth.

At what point is the great myth recognized for not being a myth on it’s own accord. If the spirit is real, the tenants of faith are ‘faithfully’ transmitted to the new believers/converts, and if the physical world is affected by the belief of the true believers, is the myth a myth anymore? Does it really matter that noone can find Santa at the North Pole? Does that mean he doesn’t exist?

I believe this third state is a higher level of understanding. It is beyond absolute belief (fundamentalism). It’s beyond the concerns of discrepancy between western scientific thought and stories from the bible (agnosticism). It’s beyond the defiant cry of the atheist who has decided he has enough information to proclaim that “God” does not exist. I’ve been through each of these stages as they apply to modern Protestant Religion (as my personal vehicle). I even someties recycle through each stage of belief to better understand the whole cycle. I think this latest stage for myself can be called Progenitor. I have strong appreciation for the path I’ve walked along in my decades and I’m starting to raise children. I want them to have the chance to experience a similar path to enlightenment and to deny the the opportunity of true belief during innocence risks breaking the cycle for them.

I like what my cyclic of faith has done for me over the years, so now it’s my turn to buy the presents, decorate the house, sing the songs, help write and respond to the letters, document their discovery and experience, and ultimately use this vehicle of faith to bestow what bit of wisdom I’ve gleaned from this world and the moral compass I’ve found for myself unto my own progeny. When they need an atheist, there will be one to find. When they need someone agnostic, there will be one to find. When they need to receive a gift, I’ll try my best to supply. I will laugh with their joy and cry with their devlopment into experience.

In the end, I don’t fault anyone for their beliefs. If people use the belief system of others for personal gain (tyrants leading holy wars), then I agree it’s the responsibility of the rest of us to overcome and diminish their effect on the world. I’ve studied many (but nowhere near all) religions and belief systems from around the globe, and the one thing I find common to them is an enlightened way of peace. I think the things people get upset about between the various religions are simply the stories that children tell about how Santa Claus demonstrated his will for them (through their parents and environoment). It is unfortunately a war for resources based on the idea that Santa Claus intended for one person or group to get all the presents because his parents unfortunately told him he was the ‘BEST good little boy’ and that the other boys were ‘bad little boys’ and that it is his right to take what Santa has deemed *his*!

I hope I haven’t been to vague or verbose.

Basically, in summary, I don’t believe what can’t be proven. But, should God acctually exist, I wouldn’t worship him anyway.

I am an athiest, but i disagree with your reasons about agnosticism. I can see from some of the posts that these people are slighty intellectually lazy in my opinion, and that is a reason to disagree with them. However, not everyone thinks in the same matter as you, no matter how high the odds are of there being no god say it be 99.99% theres no reason why you cant say its MORE LIKLEY that there is no god. Just because the odds are against another idea doesnt mean it has to be disregarded. It is not intellectually lazy to understand that there is not (in my opinion) a very valid reason to HAVE to chose between one and the other (that being athiesm and thiesm) and thus, there not haveing have a choice made it is alright to say that you CANNOT BE CERTAIN there is no God. It is not intellectually lazy to decide that just because one option is more likley you should discredit the other.

And really, to get a point across it will always seem more valid if you dont try and insult the opposing parties intellegence by comparing God to a FGM. One has semi-logical (in my opinion) reasons to believe in and the other does not.

One thing Ive seen over and over in posts is the statement “does it really matter”. And when i think about that your arguement no longer makes sense. How does not caring make something a valid theory? Just because something is too hard, or maybe impossible to fully understand doesnt mean that taking the easy way out and relaxing at knowing youve simply made a choice is right.

An interesting thought I had one day that slighty pertains to the posts here is that why would anyone want to leave God?

He is all loving, all forgiving, always there for you, always helping you out in a time of need, he can offer you everything you ever wanted to have in eternal paradise, he can be your BEST friend that you can put more trust in than anyone else (A major reason why some people are afriad to make relationships serious)?

Then why?
The truth