jayriginal:


I did with my first post. I told you clearly that what you refer to as agnosticism is atheism. You made the point that they have two different names and I countered by telling you that an elephant is an animal. Or if you like, man is a mammal.

An atheist doesn't believe in God(s). That's all there is to it. It's when people now want to go into peculiarities that you start hearing of positive, negative, weak, strong, evangelical, new etc atheists.

Okay, so in essence, Agnostics are basically Atheists who don't believe in God but leave the possibility open that God does exist?

senbonzakurakageyoshi:


Okay, so in essence, Agnostics are basically Atheists who don't believe in God but leave the possibility open that God does exist?

Gnosticism is knowledge. A-gnosticism is without knowledge.

Being agnostic on the issue of God means you don't know, or more typically, you don't think anyone can know whether God does or doesn't exist.
As you can see, such a person cannot be said to believe in God. That's what makes a person an atheist. It's not necessary to declare that there is no God.

That being said, one has to be careful when using labels because most times, people form wrong views and associations brought upon by wrong generalizations. We see it everywhere

All men are dogs
All (insert tribe) are (insert insult)
All women are . . .

Ignorance breeds dogma... This phrase "science can't explain.. " is one of the most common things an abrahamic theist would tell you for the basis of accepting dogma over anything else.

As an atheist who used to be a Christian, it was clear to me that atheists were "confused" and "lost" until I took a step and observed each stance.

What anyone that tries to observe the two objectively finds out is that most theists feel materialism is identical to atheism and since to them materialism isn't sufficient to explain the "immaterial aspects of reality" it is tossed aside without ever considering that materialism coupled with empiricism and other philosophical aspects are what shape our understanding of anything..

To anyone that doubts this fact,what is an immaterial being?

What picture or assemblance can you gather from phrases like "spiritual", "spiritual realm"..


That is why triggers like hell are described vividly in materialistic contexts so as to keep ringing whenever you want to observe beyond your faith... after all consequences have to seem real before they can be avoided... so why not a river of burning coal and sulphur?

But toss a flicker of skepticism in there and hell falls apart... How does hell not maintain thermodynamic equilibrium? How does a dead person feel pain without material nerves and what do those who are born with a nerve disability stopping them from experiencing pain feel?...

A host of answers then comes from the theist because without that hell factor that he/she set up as the basis for belief there is no motivation to believe anything the dogma offers(unless of course female virgins if you're male)

Admitting that science doesn't have the answer yet doesn't automatically make you religious or dumb or both.
Meanwhile, do we agree that science which by its definition is the study of what lies within time space does not have the means to probe pre big bang phenomena?
Note that science is what made it possible to review many historical and religious records and point out obvious contradictions. However, all those still are post big bang.

So, does anybody here have an idea of how we can probe pre big bang events? I guess that is what the topic is all about before we started deviating to definitions of agnostic vs atheist , etc

Amplitron:
Admitting that science doesn't have the answer yet doesn't automatically make you religious or dumb or both.
Meanwhile, do we agree that science which by its definition is the study of what lies within time space does not have the means to probe pre big bang phenomena?
Note that science is what made it possible to review many historical and religious records and point out obvious contradictions. However, all those still are post big bang.

So, does anybody here have an idea of how we can probe pre big bang events? I guess that is what the topic is all about before we started deviating to definitions of agnostic vs atheist , etc

String theory is hoped and expected to give answers to that... Our probing should leave the macro-world and go deep into the micriscopic quantum world.

The most fundamental blocks of all can give us insights of how it all began

String theory is still having a hard time sustaining itself talk more of explaining everything within space time. We are looking for explanation of pre space time.

senbonzakurakageyoshi:
Almost all the time I come here, I see an abundance of threads (basically arguments) between theists and atheists on the validity of their view points. After all is said and done, the validity of both is tied to the history of the sources - which is inexplicable by either party.

Quite a number of atheists believe existence as we know it today either came from the big bang or one of the other lesser known scientific explanations for reality and existence. But unfortunately Theists can nail them with the question - what caused the big bang? And what came before the big bang? That is a question that has gotten no satisfactory answer.

However, this does not mean the Theists have held the atheists to a checkmate, because the atheist have a counter-question of their own; if God created everything, then who created God? For us to have been designed, then our designer must have been pre-designed, in which case, who is God's designer? How can God be said to have created reality if he/she/it exists within the same reality? On this front too, no satisfactory answers have been provided, the usual answer being that we'll find out when we get to heaven or that it's God's will that we don't know his source, or that God's existence is beyond human comprehension.

In other words, a stalemate.

So is there really any need to keep arguing about who is right and who is wrong?

Personally I sometimes feel the almost unhealthy need to argue when people misinterpret my views, and insult my beliefs based on their very own foolishness in misinterpretation.

Like someone on this thread comparing the eternity of God to God popping out of nothing, and then going on to ask why he shouldn't believe the big bang popped out of nothing too. It is statements like those that draw me into sometimes(?) vain arguments with close-minded foolish people.


And for clarification, God did not pop out of nothing, there has never been nothing, because nothing cannot create something.(nice to see you after a long while davien).

Because something exists, something must have always existed. Something is causeless. This is a very basic logical inference for the entity of God based on the nature of our universe. This is not me trying to fill in any ediot gaps. Its me logically acknowledging the presence of a transcendent being based on consistent logical thinking. Simple.


Foolish men misinterpret this basic logic in various ways and go on to proffer meaninglessness and answerlessness in return. They evangelize their freedom of meaningless vehemently and yet take offense when I evangelize my answers.

This is unfortunately what I became in recent times, an angry apologist. I reacted to the ediotic insults and attacks on my beliefs in many threads here angrily. But I will refer to my original state of mind, and mostly ignore the insults while going on to defend and preach truth to those who are capable of listening.

johnydon22:


String theory is hoped and expected to give answers to that... Our probing should leave the macro-world and go deep into the micriscopic quantum world.

The most fundamental blocks of all can give us insights of how it all began

String theory is imaginative lore. Very imaginative and creative

Joshthefirst:
Personally I sometimes feel the almost unhealthy need to argue when people misinterpret my views, and insult my beliefs based on their very own foolishness in misinterpretation.

Like someone on this thread comparing the eternity of God to God popping out of nothing, and then going on to ask why he shouldn't believe the big bang popped out of nothing too. It is statements like those that draw me into sometimes(?) vain arguments with close-minded foolish people.


And for clarification, God did not pop out of nothing, there has never been nothing, because nothing cannot create something.(nice to see you after a long while davien).

Because something exists, something must have always existed. Something is causeless. This is a very basic logical inference for the entity of God based on the nature of our universe. This is not me trying to fill in any ediot gaps. Its me logically acknowledging the presence of a transcendent being based on consistent logical thinking. Simple.


Foolish men misinterpret this basic logic in various ways and go on to proffer meaninglessness and answerlessness in return. They evangelize their freedom of meaningless vehemently and yet take offense when I evangelize my answers.

This is unfortunately what I became in recent times, an angry apologist. I reacted to the ediotic insults and attacks on my beliefs in many threads here angrily. But I will refer to my original state of mind, and mostly ignore the insults while going on to defend and preach truth to those who are capable of listening.

Nice to see you too Josh, but can I ask what logic in causality permits things like beginningless transcendent beings?

Joshthefirst:
Because something exists, something must have always existed. Something is causeless. This is a very basic logical inference for the entity of God based on the nature of our universe. This is not me trying to fill in any ediot gaps. Its me logically acknowledging the presence of a transcendent being based on consistent logical thinking. Simple..

I dont quite follow how in your consistent logical thinking "something" in the first sentence suddenly became God "a transcendent being". There's a leap in there that sounds more like faith rather than logic. Unless, god is being used strictly in the pantheist sense.

Redlyn:


I dont quite follow how in your consistent logical thinking "something" in the first sentence suddenly became God "a transcendent being". There's a leap in there that sounds more like faith rather than logic. Unless, god is being used strictly in the pantheist sense.

The leap is only in the sentence. The statement remains logically coherent.


And I don't define faith the same way you do.