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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Asclepius] * 1
    #25097210 -

I like to keep this shit simple.  If your belief system or "lack of" one assists you in your happiness and quality of life then kudos.  It kind of grinds my gears that no matter what people believe they always want to convince the next person how right they are.  Or they ask questions, like  "what's worse?"  It's all a belief system, whether you believe you know there is or isn't or you believe you don't know...you're still believing whatever you want to anyways so just go ahead and keep believing.

Edited by unam sanctum (03/28/18 03:03 PM)

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Jokeshopbeard] * 3
    #25097213 -

Jokeshopbeard said:
It seems natural, through this observation, to conclude that mankind is inclined to feel that there is a higher power.

That carries real weight for me, when combined with my own personal experiences of divinity.


Mankind is inclined to mate by rape, too.  Natural doesn't mean something is correct or a good idea.

The reason humans are prone to believe in fairy tales is because we are at a point of evolution where we are cursed with the awareness of our own mortality and unable to process that without fear.  That leads us to have to believe that there is something after we die.  The logical conclusion to that is that there is something unseen within us that is the "real us", whatever that means.  Once we have that belief in a soul or spirit, it's a small leap to believe that there are tons of other spirits out there in some mythical spirit world where spirit overlords can exist without us being able to perceive them.

Humans are fucked up, dude.  Rise above that primitive place and into the real world.  The world is so much more beautiful when you lose the delusions.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097231 -

It really like the way you put that Enlil, extremely well said.

However I cannot deny what I have experienced. IMHO, there is very much something more at work to all this than meets the eye. A force or intelligence of unimaginable magnitude.

Perhaps I am just fooling myself cause, yanno, DA 'n stuff. I'm totally willing to accept that.

But I feel otherwise.


--------------------
Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not.
--Jac O'keeffe

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Jokeshopbeard] * 2
    #25097244 -

You and billions others, bro.  Not many of us are going to overcome our natural irrationalities.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097277 -

Quote:
As a result, we're left with the null hypothesis that God, Santa, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and honest politicians do not exist.

There exists a semantic space- a signified- that falls out the the human belief in cause-effect relationships: "What is the first cause?" You can use whatever words you want in crafting your hypotheses to this question. Most English speakers who believe that the first cause was a conscious/willful entity use the word God. You may use the words Flying Spaghetti Monster if you wish, that does not change the nature of the semantic space being occupied by the signfied; it only changes the signifier. While the signifier "Santa Claus" shares the quality of being a highly unevidenced and unknowable proposition, it does not point to the same signified. The other difference is that "Santa Clause" does not attempt to answer a question to which we do not already have a better answer. Everyone knows how presents get under the tree. We do not, however, have an answer to the question, "What is the first cause" upon which there is virtually unanimous agreement. The signifiers we use to discuss hypothetical answers to it, therefore, are fundamentally different from signifiers like "Santa Clause".

For me, being an agnostic simply amounts to admitting that there is not, in fact, a consensus on the answer to that question.

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: morrowasted] * 1
    #25097286 -

The fact that we don't have an answer to the question doesn't mean that we presume an answer.  The answer might be that there isn't a first cause.  Maybe the universe has just always been. 

In any case, presuming god as a first cause is no more or less valid than presuming santa as a first cause.  Both are myths created by humans.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil] * 2
    #25097291 -

Santa would be the first claus.

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Crazy_Horse] * 1
    #25097298 -

I find your lack of faith disturbing.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097306 -

Enlil said:
In any case, presuming god as a first cause is no more or less valid than presuming santa as a first cause.  Both are myths created by humans.


You still don't seem to understand. The idea being connoted by the signifier is that of the first cause. Therefore it is irrelevant whether you use the signifier God or Santa Claus, except that if you use the word Santa Claus you will be interpolating two signifieds (unless you make up a different word to signify what is presently signified by the words Santa Claus).

Hypothesizing answers to question is the foundation of Philosophy, including Natural Philosophy, which today is colloquially denoted with the word Science. Hypotheses that denote verifiably false signifieds have been created within and without Science.

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: morrowasted]
    #25097311 -

We aren't really talking about hypothesizing, though.  We're talking about belief.  We can make unlimited hypotheses.  None of them rise beyond that level without evidence, however.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil] * 1
    #25097330 -

Enlil said:
We aren't really talking about hypothesizing, though.  We're talking about belief.  We can make unlimited hypotheses.  None of them rise beyond that level without evidence, however.


Beliefs are determined by one's confidence in the verifiability of a given hypothesis. You can make unlimited signifiers, but there is only one signified occupied by the semantic space that hypothesizes a willful and conscious First Cause. Theism amounts to a high level of confidence in that hypothesis; Atheism amounts to a high level of confidence in the negation of the Theistic hypothesis, and agosticism amounts to a low level of confidence in either of those hypotheses.

Edited by morrowasted (03/28/18 03:59 PM)

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097336 -

Do you think the world would be better off without religion?

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: morrowasted] * 1
    #25097337 -

I have to disagree completely.  Agnosticism is not inconsistent with atheism or theism.  One can be agnostic Christian or agnostic atheist.  The belief that it's impossible to know doesn't preclude one from having faith or acknowledging that there is no evidence of god.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: MagicMush123]
    #25097340 -

MagicMush123 said:
Do you think the world would be better off without religion?


Yes. But there's a huuuuuuugge difference between simply having faith in a higher power and organised religion.

It's literally night and day.


--------------------
Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not.
--Jac O'keeffe

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: MagicMush123]
    #25097341 -

MagicMush123 said:
Do you think the world would be better off without religion?


Without religion ever having been invented?  Or with the sudden loss of religion?


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097343 -

Enlil said:
MagicMush123 said:
Do you think the world would be better off without religion?


Without religion ever having been invented?  Or with the sudden loss of religion?


Can you give a hypothesis on both ?

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Jokeshopbeard]
    #25097347 -

Jokeshopbeard said:
MagicMush123 said:
Do you think the world would be better off without religion?


Yes. But there's a huuuuuuugge difference between simply having faith in a higher power and organised religion.

It's literally night and day.


Good point.

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: MagicMush123] * 2
    #25097351 -

Without religion being invented, I'd say the world would be much better off.  Humans probably would have learned to rely on reason more than they do now, and we'd probably be further along.

Sudden loss of religion would be horrible.  Imagine 3 billion people suddenly losing the crutch they've been leaning on their whole lives.  Mass chaos.


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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097368 -

Enlil said:
Without religion being invented, I'd say the world would be much better off.  Humans probably would have learned to rely on reason more than they do now, and we'd probably be further along.

Sudden loss of religion would be horrible.  Imagine 3 billion people suddenly losing the crutch they've been leaning on their whole lives.  Mass chaos.


Excellent. We would be farther ahead scientifically as well, if religion didn't hinder science and thinking for centuries.

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Re: Is it worse being Agnostic than decisively religious or Atheist? [Re: Enlil]
    #25097373 -

Enlil said:
I have to disagree completely.  Agnosticism is not inconsistent with atheism or theism.  One can be agnostic Christian or agnostic atheist.  The belief that it's impossible to know doesn't preclude one from having faith or acknowledging that there is no evidence of god.


It depends on what a given use of the word agosticism denotes. In the colloquial it denotes a specific attitude towards to the Theistic hypothesis. In the academic it denotes a specific attitude towards the knowability of propositions. I will grant that there are Christians who are more confident in their Theism than others, but if we want to be consistent with our words, then I would contend that, if we are using the colloquial agnosticism, it is inconsistent with either Theism or Atheism. If we are using the academic agnosticism, then it isn't. I would also point out that acknowledging that there is no evidence of a god does not preclude you from being agnostic in the colloquial sense. If by evidence you mean falsifiable propositions, then there is no evidence. To many people- myself included- the very fact that an enormous portion of the population believes in a conscious and willful first cause amounts to enough evidence for having low confidence that the hypothesis is false. I have much higher confidence in the proposition that if I stain a mixed bacterial culture with hexamethyl pararosaniline chloride followed by an ethanol/acetate solution followed by safranin, that the bacterial cells containing a thick layer of peptidoglycan in their cell walls will appear to be purple, and those containing a thin layer will appear to be pinkish-red. But if a critical mass of the relevant population started to describe a different hypothesis for the observable color differentiation, my level of confidence in the peptidoglycan hypothesis would diminish.

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