@StairC
I doubt there really is such thing as a 'non agnostic atheist'. It's foolish to suggest that God is impossible.
You're making a lot of assumptions that people think carefully and logically about their beliefs.
There ARE non-agnostic atheists. I generally refer to them as the angry atheists, because there position is more about being anti-religion than being logical.
I think DHK3654 and I are confused about around the same thing. Are you guys suggesting that only agnostic athiests think logically about theism while athiests do not? I'm not sure this is correct. If that's not what your suggesting then i'm still confused as to the difference.
I think DHK3654 are confused about around the same thing. Are you guys suggesting that only agnostic athiests think logically about theism while athiests do not? I'm not sure this is correct. If that's not what your suggesting then i'm still confused as to the difference.
No, I'm not suggesting that anyone thinks logically about their beliefs. That would be a mistake. I was just point out that non-religious beliefs can be just as illogical as any other.
So, playing devils advocate here because I honestly don't know how. In terms of this thread, how would an agnostic athiest logically argue with a hard athiest on gods existence being unknowable vs completely fabricated?
We'd simply say, "Prove that a magical rabbit DIDN'T create the entire universe last thursday (with the appearance of all previous history intact, including our memories and the dinosaur bones)".
That's easier to prove than god not existing, as it's at least a specific claim. The possibility of a vague supernatural power is even more difficult to deal with.
It's really, really, really hard to prove a most negative claims. A wise person says, "Well, I don't KNOW for SURE that a magical rabbit DIDN'T create the entire universe last thursday... But I have absolutely no reason to believe that this happened. Therefore, I don't believe it - but I don't claim to know for sure it didn't happen."
We can be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that square triangles don't exist. This is easy to prove. We can't reasonably be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that a supernatural power doesn't exist. This is the difference. A gnostic atheist towards the rabbit says, "I know for sure a magical rabbit didn't create the universe last thursday". An agnostic atheist says, "Well, I mean, you can't PROVE it didn't happen, so we can't KNOW for sure... But there's no evidence for it at all, so I don't believe. If you find evidence that it happened though, let me know."
We'd simply say, "Prove that a magical rabbit DIDN'T create the entire universe last thursday (with the appearance of all previous history intact, including our memories and the dinosaur bones)".
That's easier to prove than god not existing, as it's at least a specific claim. The possibility of a vague supernatural power is even more difficult to deal with.
It's really, really, really hard to prove a most negative claims. A wise person says, "Well, I don't KNOW for SURE that a magical rabbit DIDN'T create the entire universe last thursday... But I have absolutely no reason to believe that this happened. Therefore, I don't believe it - but I don't claim to know for sure it didn't happen."
We can be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that square triangles don't exist. This is easy to prove. We can't reasonably be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that a supernatural power doesn't exist. This is the difference. A gnostic atheist towards the rabbit says, "I know for sure a magical rabbit didn't create the universe last thursday". An agnostic atheist says, "Well, I mean, you can't PROVE it didn't happen, so we can't KNOW for sure... But there's no evidence for it at all, so I don't believe. If you find evidence that it happened though, let me know."
Interesting, thats basically what I believe anyway. I just failed at trying to poke a hole through the gnostic athiest beliefs.
Luckily it's not your job to poke a hole in the gnostic atheist beliefs. The burden of proof is on them, because they are making a positive claim that god DOES NOT EXIST. It's their job to make the logical case for it. If they can't, you win by default. No shame in winning by default. Reason doesn't play favorites.
Same boat I'm in. No belief in god here. I also think it's extremely unlikely for there to be one: because our universe operates entirely consistently with how we'd expect one without gods to operate. We'd expect one without gods to produce thousands of completely different and mutually inconsistent belief systems (true), that the only big miracles (such as the stuff that went down in Egypt) would happen in societies without reliable recorded history or a strong understanding of how to investigate supernatural claims (true), that no religion would seem to be having any prayers answered that can't be explained by normal natural processes (why does god cure cancer, which can go into remission on its own, but never heal amputees which would REQUIRE a miracle to heal?), that the universe around us would be very inhospitable to life and our own planet would likely still be full of dangers, that disease would be as rampant as biology allows for... Etc.
Now all this COULD be consistent with a supernatural power existing. It also COULD be consistent with a magical rabbit having created the universe last thursday. But it has the appearance of how we'd expect stuff to be if there wasn't a god too. Not exactly impressive.
Also, it's not your job to poke a hole in the gnostic atheist beliefs. The burden of proof is on them, because they are making a positive claim that god DOES NOT EXIST. It's their job to make the logical case for it.
So is the challenge just silly, asking people to do something they don't have to do?
In that case I think I will happily retain the agnostic title. At least until a traditional (gnostic) athiest can proove otherwise.
Atheism is simply and only the lack of belief in a theistic god. Agnostacism doesn't deny the existence or consciousness of anything greater than us. They are similar yet quite different. Most people who subscribe to either paradigm are also firmly rooted in the other, but aren't strictly required to by definition.
Theism is -what-it-is- because it necessarily lacks evidence to substantiate. Things which are abound in demonstrable evidence are often labeled as 'facts of reality', which are always understandable and testable by science. Concepts which lack supporting evidence are called 'supernatural', i.e. fairy tales.
When a group or person says that 'X is true', they must prove 'X' for it to be true - it's not up to the other party to prove that they are wrong. Such simple concepts and use of middle school English, it's mind numbing that so many people don't get it. :/
In that case I think I will happily retain the agnostic title. At least until a traditional (gnostic) athiest can proove otherwise.
Atheism is simply and only the lack of belief in a theistic god. Agnostacism doesn't deny the existence or consciousness of anything greater than us. They are similar yet quite different. Most people who subscribe to either paradigm are also firmly rooted in the other, but aren't strictly required to by definition.
Theism is -what-it-is- because it necessarily lacks evidence to substantiate. Things which are abound in demonstrable evidence are often labeled as 'facts of reality', which are always understandable and testable by science. Concepts which lack supporting evidence are called 'supernatural', i.e. fairy tales.
When a group or person says that 'X is true', they must prove 'X' for it to be true - it's not up to the other party to prove that they are wrong. Such simple concepts and use of middle school English, it's mind numbing that so many people don't get it. :/
What messes me up is when gnostic athiests use science as evidence to prove the positive claim god doesn't exist. How do agnostics argue that scientific evidence doesn't prove Gods non-existence? Can a knowlegable agnostic please explain this to me?
How do agnostics argue that scientific evidence doesn't prove Gods non-existence? Can a knowlegable agnostic please explain this to me?
Short Answer: Ask them to meet their burden of proof. They can't. Done and done. You can demonstrate that it is unreasonable to believe a god exists, due to the appalling lack of evidence and some other factors, but you can't prove the non-existence of something like this easily. This is where the very notion of "burden of proof" comes from. Just familiarize yourself with the burden of proof.
Long Answer: Okay, you CAN show strong evidence that certain religious claims aren't true. Simple Example: The claim in the bible that believers in Jesus won't die if they drink poison. Easy to disprove. The claims that the flood happened, that the earth is 6000 years old, all the weird mormom stuff about native americans being a lost tribe of israel... Easy to disprove.
But the existence of invisible beings? Try proving there ISN'T an invisible teapot orbiting pluto. It's completely unreasonable to believe in this teapot, but it's also pretty darn hard to prove that it isn't there with current scientific tools. So you can say it's unreasonable to believe in god, but you can't say for sure "I have proof that god doesn't exist".
So is the challenge just silly, asking people to do something they don't have to do?
The challenge of the whole thread? No, it's not. It's asking people to justify why theistic ideas are anything more than improbable. True agnostics (God is similarly likely as unlikely) have to justify why God is not greatly unlikely given both the range of possibilities and the evidence support for non God models of the universe. God is more than just a little unlikely, it does not conform to our understanding of physics, our understanding of human life, our understanding of the structure of the universe and our understanding of the mind. Atheism need not mean that you truly know, in reality it is impossible to ever have absolutely certain knowledge of the world, it is sufficient to be extremely skeptical.
So is the challenge just silly, asking people to do something they don't have to do?
The challenge of the whole thread? No, it's not. It's asking people to justify why theistic ideas are anything more than improbable. True agnostics (God is similarly likely as unlikely) have to justify why God is not greatly unlikely given both the range of possibilities and the evidence support for non God models of the universe. God is more than just a little unlikely, it does not conform to our understanding of physics, our understanding of human life, our understanding of the structure of the universe and our understanding of the mind. Atheism need not mean that you truly know, in reality it is impossible to ever have absolutely certain knowledge of the world, it is sufficient to be extremely skeptical.
I dont think you understand what agnostic means. It doesn't mean we think God is just as likely as unlikely. It means we don't know if God exists nor doesn't exist (as Stairc mentioned above gnostic means to know). As discussed above It is up the athiest to explain why they know God doesn't exist.
@FearDReaper
If agnostic is used only to mean a lack of certainty, it's not a very useful term. Everyone should be agnostic about God, and you can easily argue that everyone should be agnostic about everything except pure logic because of incompleteness. Absolute belief should almost always be avoided, you never really know when you might be wrong. All the atheists I know are technically agnostic, but that's not a useful description generally. Look at Dawkins, Krauss, Hitchens, Dillahunty, Nye, Russell, Dennet- they don't say that God must be wrong, they say God is a deeply unconvincing idea.
@FearDReaper
If agnostic is used only to mean a lack of certainty, it's not a very useful term. Everyone should be agnostic about God, and you can easily argue that everyone should be agnostic about everything except pure logic because of incompleteness. Absolute belief should almost always be avoided, you never really know when you might be wrong. All the atheists I know are technically agnostic, but that's not a useful description generally. Look at Dawkins, Krauss, Hitchens, Dillahunty, Nye, Russell, Dennet- they don't say that God must be wrong, they say God is an deeply unconvincing idea.
When your challenge included agnostics, I didn't realize you were under the wrong impression of agnosticism. Which is why I asked many questions which didn't make sense to you at the time. I was trying to poke holes into the theory of a hard athiest telling me he knew God didn't exist based off of science. I was trying to prove why I know I don't know (which I now realize I don't have to do thanks to Stairc) and I clearly had no idea how to approach this properly lol.
It is still a useful term. Perhaps everyone should be an agnostic but they aren't. As others mentioned above, you seem to be under the impression that all human beings are rational. Gnostic athiests exist. They say they dont believe in God "just because they feel it" (or don't feel it) and are just as irrational about athiesm as conservative right wing Christians are about theism. If evidence were to ever be shown to them of Gods existence they would deny it, just like how creationists deny evidence of evolution. If you dont belong in the gnostic athiest category, you're eithor a theist or an agnostic. You can call your self an Agnostic Athiest if you want meaning you BELIEVE there is no god but concede that there is no proof.
I think you guys are confusing each other by failing to make a distinction between proof and evidence. Proof is a very special thing. Proof means that you can be absolutely, 100% certain of the conclusion. This requires deductive reasoning, and it only happens in logic and mathematics. We have proof that there is no highest prime number, that pi is irrational, and that the square of the hypotenuse is the sum of the squares of the other two sides. We do not have proof that the earth is round, or that water is H2O, or that organisms inherit genes from their parents. What we have for these theories is, rather, evidence: the accumulation of observations and the use of inductive reasoning.
And let them stand as examples for how far evidence can take us. I can say without any hesitation that I know the earth is round, water is H2O, and organisms inherit genes from their parents, even though I'm not absolutely, 100% certain, and I could in principle be wrong. Because just as proof is different than evidence, certainty is different than knowledge. Knowledge does not require that your belief be backed up with proof -- if it did, we would not know anything at all other than the aforementioned esoteric truths of logic and mathematics. Knowledge only requires that your belief be rationally justified, and true. You can know something and not be certain of it. You can know something and not even know you know.
I'm pretty confident that I know there is no God. I'm not certain, and I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, and my belief is rationally justified by the evidence. By a strict interpretation of the Greek nomenclature, that would make me a gnostic atheist -- gnosis means 'knowledge'. But that's pretty clearly not what you're talking about when you use the term.
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So is the challenge just silly, asking people to do something they don't have to do?
The challenge of the whole thread? No, it's not. It's asking people to justify why theistic ideas are anything more than improbable. True agnostics (God is similarly likely as unlikely) have to justify why God is not greatly unlikely given both the range of possibilities and the evidence support for non God models of the universe. God is more than just a little unlikely, it does not conform to our understanding of physics, our understanding of human life, our understanding of the structure of the universe and our understanding of the mind. Atheism need not mean that you truly know, in reality it is impossible to ever have absolutely certain knowledge of the world, it is sufficient to be extremely skeptical.
I dont think you understand what agnostic means. It doesn't mean we think God is just as likely as unlikely. It means we don't know if God exists nor doesn't exist (as Stairc mentioned above gnostic means to know). As discussed above It is up the athiest to explain why they know God doesn't exist.
If someone were to assert that no god(s) exist, then that person might be best described as adeist, not atheist. Theism is a very specific ideology that professes a personal god, especially a named deity that concerns him(her? it)-self cares about the actions of humans. Those of us who are atheists, my self more staunchly and unapologetic than many others, don't deny the existence of anything beyond us, if for not other reason than we (as a species) are largely ignorant of the Universe and its workings - we have neither the experience nor wisdom to make such a grandiose claim.
Agnosticism comes in many flavours, and while all who are agnostic aren't sure what there is or isn't, they typically aren't thinking 'is the Christian god the real god, or is it no god'. Atheism is indeed an extreme expression of agnosticism which still maintains that we don't really know what's going on out there, but all of these theistic gods are clearly made in the image of man; not the other way around. =)
@FearDReaper
If agnostic is used only to mean a lack of certainty, it's not a very useful term. Everyone should be agnostic about God, and you can easily argue that everyone should be agnostic about everything except pure logic because of incompleteness. Absolute belief should almost always be avoided, you never really know when you might be wrong. All the atheists I know are technically agnostic, but that's not a useful description generally. Look at Dawkins, Krauss, Hitchens, Dillahunty, Nye, Russell, Dennet- they don't say that God must be wrong, they say God is an deeply unconvincing idea.
When your challenge included agnostics, I didn't realize you were under the wrong impression of agnosticism. Which is why I asked many questions which didn't make sense to you at the time. I was trying to poke holes into the theory of a hard athiest telling me he knew God didn't exist based off of science. I was trying to prove why I know I don't know (which I now realize I don't have to do thanks to Stairc) and I clearly had no idea how to approach this properly lol.
It is still a useful term. Perhaps everyone should be an agnostic but they aren't. As others mentioned above, you seem to be under the impression that all human beings are rational. Gnostic athiests exist. They say they dont believe in God "just because they feel it" (or don't feel it) and are just as irrational about athiesm as conservative right wing Christians are about theism. If evidence were to ever be shown to them of Gods existence they would deny it, just like how creationists deny evidence of evolution. If you dont belong in the gnostic athiest category, you're eithor a theist or an agnostic. You can call your self an Agnostic Athiest if you want meaning you BELIEVE there is no god but concede that there is no proof.
Science doesn't strictly disprove 'God', but it does disprove many of the facets which have been ascribed to deities and scriptures which have been held as sacred truths. The further that science (our knowledge of the laws of reality) expands, the less things a god has to do - or rather, isn't required to do as a natural process can be understood as the 'why' or cause. Gods exist in gaps of human knowledge, and the greater our knowledge the less god is required. The longer that the concept of a god resides there, the sooner that god becomes irrelevant, impotent, and useless. If an aspect of a god can be put into words, there's a good chance (at least in theory) it can be testable. If it's untestable, i.e. unfalsifiable, it's a weak and unsupported argument to begin with as the burden of proof to back such a claim must also necessarily not exist. When we make a claim which cannot be substantiated with evidence to qualify it, it's quite often called a 'lie' in the English vernacular; food for thought.
I think you guys are confusing each other by failing to make a distinction between proof and evidence. Proof is a very special thing. Proof means that you can be absolutely, 100% certain of the conclusion. This requires deductive reasoning, and it only happens in logic and mathematics. We have proof that there is no highest prime number, that pi is irrational, and that the square of the hypotenuse is the sum of the squares of the other two sides. We do not have proof that the earth is round, or that water is H2O, or that organisms inherit genes from their parents. What we have for these theories is, rather, evidence: the accumulation of observations and the use of inductive reasoning.
And let them stand as examples for how far evidence can take us. I can say without any hesitation that I know the earth is round, water is H2O, and organisms inherit genes from their parents, even though I'm not absolutely, 100% certain, and I could in principle be wrong. Because just as proof is different than evidence, certainty is different than knowledge. Knowledge does not require that your belief be backed up with proof -- if it did, we would not know anything at all other than the aforementioned esoteric truths of logic and mathematics. Knowledge only requires that your belief be rationally justified, and true. You can know something and not be certain of it. You can know something and not even know you know.
I'm pretty confident that I know there is no God. I'm not certain, and I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, and my belief is rationally justified by the evidence. By a strict interpretation of the Greek nomenclature, that would make me a gnostic atheist -- gnosis means 'knowledge'. But that's pretty clearly not what you're talking about when you use the term.
Could you please tell me what evidence you have for your knowlege that God doesn't exist? I'm not even asking for proof, just what your deductive reasoning is based on. If its based on what humans are able to percieve and study (science) then what if God is somehow outside of a human being's limitations or even the instruments created by humanity. Isn't it impossible to have evidence of something you can't study? You believe god doesn't exist because humanity hasn't found evidence of God (yet). That doesn't mean you have evidence or knowlege he doesn't exist. At least I don't think it does.
I apologise if this sounds snarky, I'm just trying to express my views in the most direct way I can think of. I still have a lot to learn about this stuff and am trying to keep an open mind. I am confused about how you can claim to know god doesn't exist. Even with your above explanation it doesn't make sense to me.
[quote from="FearDReaper »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/debate/religion/625220-a-challenge-for-the-religious-or-agnostic?comment=127"] Gods exist in gaps of human knowledge, and the greater our knowledge the less god is required.
What evidence do you have for this statement. I'm not trying to be a dick here, just trying to make a point.
You guys seem to be under the misunderstanding that I disagree with aspects of science. My issue with athiesm has nothing to do with science. It has to do with a lack of evidence. I'm having a very hard time trying to explain why the lack of evidence in gods existence doesn't equal evidence he doesn't exist. I need to think of a good analagy or something.
There ARE non-agnostic atheists. I generally refer to them as the angry atheists, because there position is more about being anti-religion than being logical.
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Theists believe in a god or gods.
Agnostic Theists believe that gods exist, but that they're existence is unknowable and so they don't subscribe to a particular belief system.
Agnostics believe that the existence of divine beings is unknowable.
Agnostic Atheists don't believe that gods exist, but admit that they're existence would be unknowable anyway so they might exist.
Atheists don't believe that gods exist.
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That's easier to prove than god not existing, as it's at least a specific claim. The possibility of a vague supernatural power is even more difficult to deal with.
It's really, really, really hard to prove a most negative claims. A wise person says, "Well, I don't KNOW for SURE that a magical rabbit DIDN'T create the entire universe last thursday... But I have absolutely no reason to believe that this happened. Therefore, I don't believe it - but I don't claim to know for sure it didn't happen."
We can be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that square triangles don't exist. This is easy to prove. We can't reasonably be gnostic (claiming to truly know) that a supernatural power doesn't exist. This is the difference. A gnostic atheist towards the rabbit says, "I know for sure a magical rabbit didn't create the universe last thursday". An agnostic atheist says, "Well, I mean, you can't PROVE it didn't happen, so we can't KNOW for sure... But there's no evidence for it at all, so I don't believe. If you find evidence that it happened though, let me know."
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Interesting, thats basically what I believe anyway. I just failed at trying to poke a hole through the gnostic athiest beliefs.
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So is the challenge just silly, asking people to do something they don't have to do?
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In that case I think I will happily retain the agnostic title. At least until a traditional (gnostic) athiest can proove otherwise.
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Atheism is simply and only the lack of belief in a theistic god. Agnostacism doesn't deny the existence or consciousness of anything greater than us. They are similar yet quite different. Most people who subscribe to either paradigm are also firmly rooted in the other, but aren't strictly required to by definition.
Theism is -what-it-is- because it necessarily lacks evidence to substantiate. Things which are abound in demonstrable evidence are often labeled as 'facts of reality', which are always understandable and testable by science. Concepts which lack supporting evidence are called 'supernatural', i.e. fairy tales.
When a group or person says that 'X is true', they must prove 'X' for it to be true - it's not up to the other party to prove that they are wrong. Such simple concepts and use of middle school English, it's mind numbing that so many people don't get it. :/
What messes me up is when gnostic athiests use science as evidence to prove the positive claim god doesn't exist. How do agnostics argue that scientific evidence doesn't prove Gods non-existence? Can a knowlegable agnostic please explain this to me?
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Short Answer: Ask them to meet their burden of proof. They can't. Done and done. You can demonstrate that it is unreasonable to believe a god exists, due to the appalling lack of evidence and some other factors, but you can't prove the non-existence of something like this easily. This is where the very notion of "burden of proof" comes from. Just familiarize yourself with the burden of proof.
Long Answer: Okay, you CAN show strong evidence that certain religious claims aren't true. Simple Example: The claim in the bible that believers in Jesus won't die if they drink poison. Easy to disprove. The claims that the flood happened, that the earth is 6000 years old, all the weird mormom stuff about native americans being a lost tribe of israel... Easy to disprove.
But the existence of invisible beings? Try proving there ISN'T an invisible teapot orbiting pluto. It's completely unreasonable to believe in this teapot, but it's also pretty darn hard to prove that it isn't there with current scientific tools. So you can say it's unreasonable to believe in god, but you can't say for sure "I have proof that god doesn't exist".
If they have proof, forward it to me.
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The challenge of the whole thread? No, it's not. It's asking people to justify why theistic ideas are anything more than improbable. True agnostics (God is similarly likely as unlikely) have to justify why God is not greatly unlikely given both the range of possibilities and the evidence support for non God models of the universe. God is more than just a little unlikely, it does not conform to our understanding of physics, our understanding of human life, our understanding of the structure of the universe and our understanding of the mind. Atheism need not mean that you truly know, in reality it is impossible to ever have absolutely certain knowledge of the world, it is sufficient to be extremely skeptical.
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I dont think you understand what agnostic means. It doesn't mean we think God is just as likely as unlikely. It means we don't know if God exists nor doesn't exist (as Stairc mentioned above gnostic means to know). As discussed above It is up the athiest to explain why they know God doesn't exist.
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BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
If agnostic is used only to mean a lack of certainty, it's not a very useful term. Everyone should be agnostic about God, and you can easily argue that everyone should be agnostic about everything except pure logic because of incompleteness. Absolute belief should almost always be avoided, you never really know when you might be wrong. All the atheists I know are technically agnostic, but that's not a useful description generally. Look at Dawkins, Krauss, Hitchens, Dillahunty, Nye, Russell, Dennet- they don't say that God must be wrong, they say God is a deeply unconvincing idea.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
When your challenge included agnostics, I didn't realize you were under the wrong impression of agnosticism. Which is why I asked many questions which didn't make sense to you at the time. I was trying to poke holes into the theory of a hard athiest telling me he knew God didn't exist based off of science. I was trying to prove why I know I don't know (which I now realize I don't have to do thanks to Stairc) and I clearly had no idea how to approach this properly lol.
It is still a useful term. Perhaps everyone should be an agnostic but they aren't. As others mentioned above, you seem to be under the impression that all human beings are rational. Gnostic athiests exist. They say they dont believe in God "just because they feel it" (or don't feel it) and are just as irrational about athiesm as conservative right wing Christians are about theism. If evidence were to ever be shown to them of Gods existence they would deny it, just like how creationists deny evidence of evolution. If you dont belong in the gnostic athiest category, you're eithor a theist or an agnostic. You can call your self an Agnostic Athiest if you want meaning you BELIEVE there is no god but concede that there is no proof.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
And let them stand as examples for how far evidence can take us. I can say without any hesitation that I know the earth is round, water is H2O, and organisms inherit genes from their parents, even though I'm not absolutely, 100% certain, and I could in principle be wrong. Because just as proof is different than evidence, certainty is different than knowledge. Knowledge does not require that your belief be backed up with proof -- if it did, we would not know anything at all other than the aforementioned esoteric truths of logic and mathematics. Knowledge only requires that your belief be rationally justified, and true. You can know something and not be certain of it. You can know something and not even know you know.
I'm pretty confident that I know there is no God. I'm not certain, and I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, and my belief is rationally justified by the evidence. By a strict interpretation of the Greek nomenclature, that would make me a gnostic atheist -- gnosis means 'knowledge'. But that's pretty clearly not what you're talking about when you use the term.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If someone were to assert that no god(s) exist, then that person might be best described as adeist, not atheist. Theism is a very specific ideology that professes a personal god, especially a named deity that concerns him(her? it)-self cares about the actions of humans. Those of us who are atheists, my self more staunchly and unapologetic than many others, don't deny the existence of anything beyond us, if for not other reason than we (as a species) are largely ignorant of the Universe and its workings - we have neither the experience nor wisdom to make such a grandiose claim.
Agnosticism comes in many flavours, and while all who are agnostic aren't sure what there is or isn't, they typically aren't thinking 'is the Christian god the real god, or is it no god'. Atheism is indeed an extreme expression of agnosticism which still maintains that we don't really know what's going on out there, but all of these theistic gods are clearly made in the image of man; not the other way around. =)
Science doesn't strictly disprove 'God', but it does disprove many of the facets which have been ascribed to deities and scriptures which have been held as sacred truths. The further that science (our knowledge of the laws of reality) expands, the less things a god has to do - or rather, isn't required to do as a natural process can be understood as the 'why' or cause. Gods exist in gaps of human knowledge, and the greater our knowledge the less god is required. The longer that the concept of a god resides there, the sooner that god becomes irrelevant, impotent, and useless. If an aspect of a god can be put into words, there's a good chance (at least in theory) it can be testable. If it's untestable, i.e. unfalsifiable, it's a weak and unsupported argument to begin with as the burden of proof to back such a claim must also necessarily not exist. When we make a claim which cannot be substantiated with evidence to qualify it, it's quite often called a 'lie' in the English vernacular; food for thought.
Could you please tell me what evidence you have for your knowlege that God doesn't exist? I'm not even asking for proof, just what your deductive reasoning is based on. If its based on what humans are able to percieve and study (science) then what if God is somehow outside of a human being's limitations or even the instruments created by humanity. Isn't it impossible to have evidence of something you can't study? You believe god doesn't exist because humanity hasn't found evidence of God (yet). That doesn't mean you have evidence or knowlege he doesn't exist. At least I don't think it does.
I apologise if this sounds snarky, I'm just trying to express my views in the most direct way I can think of. I still have a lot to learn about this stuff and am trying to keep an open mind. I am confused about how you can claim to know god doesn't exist. Even with your above explanation it doesn't make sense to me.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
You guys seem to be under the misunderstanding that I disagree with aspects of science. My issue with athiesm has nothing to do with science. It has to do with a lack of evidence. I'm having a very hard time trying to explain why the lack of evidence in gods existence doesn't equal evidence he doesn't exist. I need to think of a good analagy or something.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)