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I agree with Huxley's position that the problem of whether a God exists or not insoluble. But agnosticism means more than that to me. I believe that we human beings are not capable of understanding what God is, if there is such a thing as God. Our brains aren't big enough. It would be like asking a dog to learn calculus. It's beyond a dog's capacity to even conceptualize what math is, let alone calculus. But that doesn't mean that math doesn't exist, only that a dog can't understand it.
A creator with the power to fashion the universe and all things within it would be so incredibly complex that we couldn't begin to conceptualize what it is. (And I say "it" because it would be nonsensical to assume that such a supernatural force possessed a penis or vagina like we do. I think it's equally nonsensical to claim to know how God feels or what God thinks. I also think it's vain of we humans to visualize such a force as possessing human-like anatomy or emotions.)
Those who say that they know what God wants or that God has guided them are basing their beliefs on what they have been trained to believe by whatever religious system they have been exposed to. You are never going to hear a Southern Baptist say that God told her that drinking, dancing, smoking, premarital sex and playing cards are OK. You are never going to hear a Muslim say that Allah has instructed him to treat women as equals. No Orthodox Jew is going to receive a revelation from God that pork and seafood are perfectly good to eat. Believers may feel that they are being guided toward a certain course of action by God, but whatever guidance they receive is something that was already programmed within their brains.
The human brain is an amazingly powerful instrument, more powerful than the most sophisticated computer. It can give us dreams, hallucinations, visions and insights, and it can take us on spiritual journeys if we tap into its power. I think what a lot of people call "God" is really just the power of the human brain to create those experiences for us and conceive of the idea that something can be greater than ourselves. This ability to imagine is what separates us from the animals.
Sometimes, i think people fail to realize that Agnosticism, usually means arheism to their god. Like Albert Einstein said. An agnostic does not have to view flying teapots as perfectly respectable ideas. An Agnostic merely recognizes, confesses, and enphasises one's epistimological limitations as a thinking thing... a thinking thing could always be wrong, so it is good that a thinking thing can doubt. A lot of lay people use the word agnostc as a scape-goat for their own secularity... but agnosticism is not just about not being convinced or being convinced by someone elses argument. Sometimes Agnosticism is the realization of a characteristic of minds like ours.
So it's not just a middle ground, and it was never meant to... It is a philosophical realization far ahead of its time.
I think it basically means that you don't have enough information to either believe or disbelieve which seems like a reasonable point of view. I thought of myself as being agnostic when I was much younger but at some point I became completely convinced that God does not exist and I've considered myself to be an atheist ever since. An agnostic doesn't rule out the possibility that God exists.
Doesn't rule out any possibility of any conjecture of what happens after death. We don't know, we can't know.its all conjecture..anything is possible including things we can't even imagine.. Or talking about it in any other way than - I wonder if anything happens and if so what, with no conclusions since there can be none. That's what my personal definition of agnostic. I spend most of my time wondering why everyone "KNOWS!" so hard, talks about it so much. To me atheism is sort of a religion that way.
It add to the above, one question that does have any answers from the big bang theory, if one had to concede to the idea as the birth of mankind, then where does the spirit originate from?
It add to the above, one question that does have any answers from the big bang theory, if one had to concede to the idea as the birth of mankind, then where does the spirit originate from?
I agree with Huxley's position that the problem of whether a God exists or not insoluble. But agnosticism means more than that to me. I believe that we human beings are not capable of understanding what God is, if there is such a thing as God. Our brains aren't big enough. It would be like asking a dog to learn calculus. It's beyond a dog's capacity to even conceptualize what math is, let alone calculus. But that doesn't mean that math doesn't exist, only that a dog can't understand it.
A creator with the power to fashion the universe and all things within it would be so incredibly complex that we couldn't begin to conceptualize what it is. (And I say "it" because it would be nonsensical to assume that such a supernatural force possessed a penis or vagina like we do. I think it's equally nonsensical to claim to know how God feels or what God thinks. I also think it's vain of we humans to visualize such a force as possessing human-like anatomy or emotions.)
Those who say that they know what God wants or that God has guided them are basing their beliefs on what they have been trained to believe by whatever religious system they have been exposed to. You are never going to hear a Southern Baptist say that God told her that drinking, dancing, smoking, premarital sex and playing cards are OK. You are never going to hear a Muslim say that Allah has instructed him to treat women as equals. No Orthodox Jew is going to receive a revelation from God that pork and seafood are perfectly good to eat. Believers may feel that they are being guided toward a certain course of action by God, but whatever guidance they receive is something that was already programmed within their brains.
The human brain is an amazingly powerful instrument, more powerful than the most sophisticated computer. It can give us dreams, hallucinations, visions and insights, and it can take us on spiritual journeys if we tap into its power. I think what a lot of people call "God" is really just the power of the human brain to create those experiences for us and conceive of the idea that something can be greater than ourselves. This ability to imagine is what separates us from the animals.
That's a very good post. It is of course, speculative, or perhaps 'academic' is the right term. These are interesting and perhaps even useful ideas, but the point is that we are in the realm of hypothetical extrapolation of some questions we have about the nature of human intelligence, and what mysteries are out there. Not to mention what 'God' is like or what there might be that we could call 'God'. (hint: I do not call reality 'God' simply because it exists and produced us).
We Do Not Know is the name of the game here and that is what agnosticism is. Rather like evolution, the terms can be misapplied to not knowing about all sorts of mysterious and Woo things, but strictly, it applies to the idea of God and a rather specific idea, too.
It only remains to say that not knowing about God -including whether it is exists or not - mandates the belief position of reserving belief until persuasive evidence is forthcoming. This is called 'atheism'.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-21-2014 at 06:10 AM..
I agree with Huxley's position that the problem of whether a God exists or not insoluble. But agnosticism means more than that to me. I believe that we human beings are not capable of understanding what God is, if there is such a thing as God. Our brains aren't big enough. It would be like asking a dog to learn calculus. It's beyond a dog's capacity to even conceptualize what math is, let alone calculus. But that doesn't mean that math doesn't exist, only that a dog can't understand it.
A creator with the power to fashion the universe and all things within it would be so incredibly complex that we couldn't begin to conceptualize what it is. (And I say "it" because it would be nonsensical to assume that such a supernatural force possessed a penis or vagina like we do. I think it's equally nonsensical to claim to know how God feels or what God thinks. I also think it's vain of we humans to visualize such a force as possessing human-like anatomy or emotions.)
Those who say that they know what God wants or that God has guided them are basing their beliefs on what they have been trained to believe by whatever religious system they have been exposed to. You are never going to hear a Southern Baptist say that God told her that drinking, dancing, smoking, premarital sex and playing cards are OK. You are never going to hear a Muslim say that Allah has instructed him to treat women as equals. No Orthodox Jew is going to receive a revelation from God that pork and seafood are perfectly good to eat. Believers may feel that they are being guided toward a certain course of action by God, but whatever guidance they receive is something that was already programmed within their brains.
The human brain is an amazingly powerful instrument, more powerful than the most sophisticated computer. It can give us dreams, hallucinations, visions and insights, and it can take us on spiritual journeys if we tap into its power. I think what a lot of people call "God" is really just the power of the human brain to create those experiences for us and conceive of the idea that something can be greater than ourselves. This ability to imagine is what separates us from the animals.
This resurrected post is a concise explanation of the problem of God that Arq has such difficulty accepting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
I do not call reality 'God' simply because it exists and produced us.
QED!
Quote:
We Do Not Know is the name of the game here and that is what agnosticism is. Rather like evolution, the terms can be misapplied to not knowing about all sorts of mysterious and Woo things, but strictly, it applies to the idea of God and a rather specific idea, too.
Yes . . . it is a special case unlike your favorite foils . . . unicorns, leprechauns, Santa, or the FSM. It is not a case of special pleading . . . it is a case of BEING a special case.
Quote:
It only remains to say that not knowing about God -including whether it is exists or not - mandates the belief position of reserving belief until persuasive evidence is forthcoming. This is called 'atheism'.
And yet . . . the fundamentalist in you rears its little head, Arq.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuminousTruth
Agnosticism is the realization of a characteristic of minds like ours.
So it's not just a middle ground, and it was never meant to... It is a philosophical realization far ahead of its time.
This is also a good summary of Bayarea's post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Giesela
I spend most of my time wondering why everyone "KNOWS!" so hard, talks about it so much. To me atheism is sort of a religion that way.
Both sides of this particular unknown can be quite stubborn . . . but for very different reasons. I know because of personal experiences and plausible hypotheses Arq knows because of a preference for the Friar's so-called principle . . . making the non-answer "Nature" more appealing.
Mystic again it is the Blind theist rearing its litrle head. You talk of being a special case because you assume on Faith that it is. You have never been able to make any but an inverted logic and science denial case for that. Ergo, you have no case. I do.
I am afraid that you utterly discredit yourself by endorsing this "Agnosticism is the realization of a characteristic of minds like ours."
Agnosticism is NOT knowing about a God or anything like it. It is NOT the knowledge of it in any way.
If you are simply going to reinvent what agnosticism means, your whole case is based on hornswogglement.
I don't see how agnosticism is a middle ground between atheism and theism. You can be agnostic while being either of these things. In fact, you have to still be one of these other things. You either believe in a deity or you don't.
Agnosticism only deals with what you claim to know. But you can have faith or lack it, regardless of whether you are agnostic (aka sane ).
I don't see how agnosticism is a middle ground between atheism and theism. You can be agnostic while being either of these things. In fact, you have to still be one of these other things. You either believe in a deity or you don't.
Agnosticism only deals with what you claim to know. But you can have faith or lack it, regardless of whether you are agnostic (aka sane ).
I used to think that was what agnosticism was and, while I now know that it is a knowledge position, specifically relating to the God claim - and it means not knowing whether there is a god or not (or anything about it - which amounts to the same thing) I can understand that a LOT of people think that it means not being sure that that there is a god (read God, and particularly Biblegod) but not at all sure there isn'r.
The middle ground. And it SEEMS to be the 'Reasonable' alternative to atheism IF you have the Idea that Atheism is a Denial of God, and Positive Claim that God does NOT exist and a lot more Capital Letters than you know what to do with.
We say of course that we do not deny God or know that there isn't one. In fact we come pretty close to it, for the reasons we have often explained.
We are as confident that the specific god of the Bible is no more real than Leprechauns or Santa. Which is why we use the Santa argument so much. When you look at all the 'evidence' it is little more than Myth.
The possible Cosmic Mind is another matter. As atheists we do not bother much about it, though apologists revert to First cause as son as appeal to Bible as reliable fact falls flat. It is an irrelevant argument as we cannot and do not deny the case for first cause. But since we know nothing about it (agnosticism in action ) we cannot be as sure as God -believers are that some other origin of the Cosmos is impossible.
It's exactly like Abiogenesis. Sure we do not know how Life started and a god might be possible in starting it off, but to claim that a start to life without a god doing it (when we have a feasible mechanism -which we don't have with Cosmic origins) is impossible is unreasonable and denialist.
In a way, the theist is abandoning the agnostic position and saying that they KNOW that a god had to start the Cosmos and Life and of course they do not know and the case based on rather simple - minded parochial mantras about 'Nothing can come from nothing' and 'Life cannot come from non -life' are no more than limited human views pressed into service as 'evidence'. Which it is not.
This is not even to address the very relevant 'Which God' Q. because a god starting off the Cosmos and Life is still just a god - not God.
The fallacy of the First cause argument is that it makes a leap of faith from a cosmic mind to a specific God - the possibility that it might be one of the others being dismissed out of hand
'There is only One God'.
Yep, well, when you -all agree which one it is, get back to me.
Thus it is clear that the atheist position is based on agnosticism but the theist position is not; they believe they Know that a god HAD to have done all this and that it might NOT have done it is denied.
That out of the way, we can consider a more legitimate 'middle of the road' position.
Agnosticism - not being convinced that there really is a god (read Biblegod) but finding the evidence for it quite persuasive.
I know this isn't strictly correct, but I understand this and I can relate to it. To those who are not at all sure there is a (Bible) God, but who find the arguments from Order, Bible and answered prayer rather persuasive (and I can mention that nobody has put up a better case for God with a scientific explanation than Mystic here) I reckon the ongoing and repeated debates about Bible, Evilooshun and NEDs may help to clarify whether or not the evidence for God's reality is sound.
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).
) we cannot be as sure as God -believers are that some other origin of the Cosmos is impossible.
