Why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

[QED]

In the topic titled Why would God be interested in free lunches?
Harvey asks us:

What else is left once we've looked at every known possibility and we see this deep prejudice against a God solution? Folks, it's not as if everyone on earth is saying you must believe God exists. Rather, the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

This is easy for me to answer; I see too much Irony and Pathos in the world for it to be under the direction of the entity worshipped by the faithful. Their very faith is testimony to the unequivocal existence of such a being who's existence is thoroughly ambiguous when all attempts to reason his existence are carefully considered. Now I agree that this much might indeed lead us to agnosticism but then there is plenty to tip this extremely fine balance in my view.

Principally I understand evolution by natural selection to be the force for the apparent design of all known life. Within this mechanism there is no latitude for divine whim or fancy, the "products" will be restricted to what is practical in the widest possible context taking into account a near infinite number of contingent events spanning billions of years. While some might suggest that God enjoys a challenge, it strikes me as absurd to imagine that everything could be rigged so as to eventually result in a nice race of people who perfectly reflect God's image. The methods and imperatives for reaching this exalted state are just too bloody for the ends to be justified by the means in my opinion.

This is why I mention Irony and Pathos because the ungodly ordeals faced by all living things including man are often too awful to permit the kind of God commonly posited. After all, if I were looking for somewhere peaceful to go on holiday shouldn't I be safe going to the "Holy Lands"? If we look at the predictions of a universe under God's direction versus those of a universe which is self-extracting then I can see a clear indication that it is of the latter in nature.

= Atheism.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Galphanore,

As I said, you refuse to accept that I believe what I have said numerous times and insist on using the explicit definition. Goodbye.

As if there is any definition other than the explicit one?

Why don't you tell me, once and for all, exactly what you believe, and we can work from there?

Atheism is the lack of belief in god, so it is not actually something you can base your life around

That sounds a lot like Agnosticism to me.

Atheism= the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Atheism is a DOCTRINE- certainly something you can base your life around, and certainly something of which evidence is required in order to be considered more than blind faith.

McCulloch,

Did he say that he does not believe in God or that he believes there is no God?

There is quite a difference.

Please explain.

SkepticFromTX,

But on the other hand:
The Spanish Inquisition, The Children's Crusade, The Salem Witch Trials, 9/11, last years tsunami, and the story I saw earlier this year on the late news about an infant who was covered with cigarette burns and beaten to death by it's mothers boyfriend, all contribute to my reckoning that God does not exist.

That might work as evidence against a loving god, but certainly not against a god taken at face value (a supreme being).

[Galphanore]

Galphanore,

As I said, you refuse to accept that I believe what I have said numerous times and insist on using the explicit definition. Goodbye.

As if there is any definition other than the explicit one?

Why don't you tell me, once and for all, exactly what you believe, and we can work from there?

Atheism is the lack of belief in god, so it is not actually something you can base your life around

That sounds a lot like Agnosticism to me.

Atheism= the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Atheism is a DOCTRINE- certainly something you can base your life around.

As I said, what I call Atheism you call Agnosticism. I think, based on reading what the person who coined the term said about it, that Agnosticism is a doctrine that there are certain things that cannot be known. You, and many others, have come to call implicit atheism agnosticism, and that works for you. Fine, but I will continue to call it Atheism.

[Goat]

Galphanore,

As I said, you refuse to accept that I believe what I have said numerous times and insist on using the explicit definition. Goodbye.

As if there is any definition other than the explicit one?

Why don't you tell me, once and for all, exactly what you believe, and we can work from there?

Atheism is the lack of belief in god, so it is not actually something you can base your life around

That sounds a lot like Agnosticism to me.

No.. Agnosticism says that we can not KNOW if God exists or not. That is different than a lack of belief in God. There are agnostic athiests, there are agnostic theists.
Then there are the confused agnostics.

The atheists that do not have a belief in a god are what are known as 'weak atheists'. Their lack of god belief is more passive. Then there are the strong atheists that make the statement that God does not exist... with shades of grey
between those two positions. I also have seen the statement, 'Based on the lack of objective evidence to the positive, I conclude there is no God'.

[Furrowed Brow]

Galphanore,

As I said, you refuse to accept that I believe what I have said numerous times and insist on using the explicit definition. Goodbye.

As if there is any definition other than the explicit one?

Why don't you tell me, once and for all, exactly what you believe, and we can work from there?

Atheism is the lack of belief in god, so it is not actually something you can base your life around

That sounds a lot like Agnosticism to me.

No.. Agnosticism says that we can not KNOW if God exists or not. That is different than a lack of belief in God. There are agnostic atheists, there are agnostic theists.
Then there are the confused agnostics.

The atheists that do not have a belief in a god are what are known as 'weak atheists'. Their lack of god belief is more passive. Then there are the strong atheists that make the statement that God does not exist... with shades of grey
between those two positions. I also have seen the statement, 'Based on the lack of objective evidence to the positive, I conclude there is no God'.

Galphanore,

As I said, you refuse to accept that I believe what I have said numerous times and insist on using the explicit definition. Goodbye.

As if there is any definition other than the explicit one?

Why don't you tell me, once and for all, exactly what you believe, and we can work from there?

Atheism is the lack of belief in god, so it is not actually something you can base your life around

That sounds a lot like Agnosticism to me.

No.. Agnosticism says that we can not KNOW if God exists or not. That is different than a lack of belief in God. There are agnostic atheists, there are agnostic theists.
Then there are the confused agnostics.

The atheists that do not have a belief in a god are what are known as 'weak atheists'. Their lack of god belief is more passive. Then there are the strong atheists that make the statement that God does not exist... with shades of grey
between those two positions. I also have seen the statement, 'Based on the lack of objective evidence to the positive, I conclude there is no God'.

Hi All

I'd approach it from a different direction. I'm an atheist for sure. I'd also say - despite my growing number of posts giving evidence to the contrary - that God is a non subject. There is no evidence or argument on that side of the fence. It amounts to no more than blabber.

That might sound a tad harsh. But I have some deep seated misgivings about metaphysics making sense at all for reasons of logic and language. Admittedly religious statements are grammatically correct, and that kind of discourse takes place within a context to that discourse, which gives it a superficial appearance of making sense. But it don't.

To give you an inkling of what I mean. The poem the Jabberwocky and the lines

"All mimsy were the borgogroves, and the momes raths outgrabe"

Ok. There are no mimsies or momes rath. But this is not a question of how do we know? That would be a conceptual mistake. I think some of the point defended agnosticism are epistemologically motivated, as to what we might and might not know. But when talking about God or metaphysics I'd say we are not doing epistemology. Its a problem of language been used wrong.

In some ways the line from the Jobberwocky looks right. It seems to follow a grammar, and though the words are nonsense, they seem to fit together like a proper sentence.

Now if we look at this line:"The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame" - ah so Jabberwockies have eyes! So where talk of mimsies was complete nonsense this sentence introduces a description that begins to make sense - at least superficially.

My point against religion is that when talking in terms of or describing God and his works, we are getting sentences of this second type. They are grammatically correct. They contain some concepts that would make sense in another type of sentence. But the bits that are supposed to count as being meaningful, words like God, or heaven, or divine etc have no meaning, and no sense other than the discourse within which they are sued. The word God operates just like the word Jabberwock. It is a nonsense passing itself off as referring to something that could make sense.

So I am an atheist, partly because I think religious langauge is as meaningful and makes as much sense as the jabberwock. Unfair someone might retort. But then deify the Jabberwock, leave it a couple of thousand years, and see just what a firm grip over the imagination the Jabberwock holds over certain kinds of thinkers.

After a couple of thousand years you'd get forums debating how manxome a Jabberwocky would have to be before it could not be killed, or should we beware of uffish thinking, or how sharp is a vorpal blade and so on.

[otseng]

I'd also say - despite my growing number of posts giving evidence to the contrary - that God is a non subject. There is no evidence or argument on that side of the fence.

I'd agree there is no evidence or argument for the non-existence of a god. However, I would disagree that there are no evidence or arguments for the existence of a creator.

Just from my recent threads in Science and Religion, I've given several arguments and evidence for a deity.

In Is the universe bounded or unbounded?, I've presented evidence and arguments that the earth is at the center of the universe. And so far, nobody has been able to refute me.

In Scablands and a catastrophic flood, I've presented evidence and arguments for the Biblical flood. And so far, nobody has falsified my claim.

In Rare Earth, evidence suggests that we are the only (complex) lifeforms in the entire universe. And there is no evidence to the contrary.

These are just three threads of many that I've presented evidence for a god. So, the claim that there are no evidence is not correct.

[Furrowed Brow]

I'd also say - despite my growing number of posts giving evidence to the contrary - that God is a non subject. There is no evidence or argument on that side of the fence.

I'd agree there is no evidence or argument for the non-existence of a god. However, I would disagree that there are no evidence or arguments for the existence of a creator.

Just from my recent threads in Science and Religion, I've given several arguments and evidence for a deity.

In Is the universe bounded or unbounded?, I've presented evidence and arguments that the earth is at the center of the universe. And so far, nobody has been able to refute me.

In Scablands and a catastrophic flood, I've presented evidence and arguments for the Biblical flood. And so far, nobody has falsified my claim.

In Rare Earth, evidence suggests that we are the only (complex) lifeforms in the entire universe. And there is no evidence to the contrary.

These are just three threads of many that I've presented evidence for a god. So, the claim that there are no evidence is not correct.

Hi Otseng,

Ok the rare earth debate I've been involved in. And maybe I'll go take a peak at the others you mention.

My point here is slightly different however. Lets take the rare Earth as one case. Ok we can debate that as we have. So it looks like there is a real epistemological question at hand that needs to be answered.

But before the epistemological question of what might be the case, there are facets of God talk, that I think are like the Jabberwocky. It is not the case we need to go find a Tumtum tree to find evidence, something has already gone wrong before we ever go looking for one.

Ok in the rare Earth we were talking about proof or disproof of evolution. Which is slightly different to a proof or disproof of God. So when talking about evolution we are doing epistemology. And again floods are open to proof and disproof.

But for me a sentence like "God caused a flood" is of a similar kind to "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

Now I take this stance not because I don't believe there is a God therefore the sentence has to be nonsense, but due to some philosophy I've assimilated that leaves it pretty clear in my mind that any and all metaphysical entities and objects are nonsense due to a misuse of language in a way that I can best illuminate by way of the Jabberwock.

Put it another way. Even if I believed in "God". I'd still believe that word is an empty space that can't be filled, due to the logical limitations of what can be said.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

As I said, what I call Atheism you call Agnosticism. I think, based on reading what the person who coined the term said about it, that Agnosticism is a doctrine that there are certain things that cannot be known. You, and many others, have come to call implicit atheism agnosticism, and that works for you. Fine, but I will continue to call it Atheism.

I am not seeing the distinction between these different types of atheism.

In order to be a dictionary atheist, you must be prepared to make the statement "I do not believe in God".

The doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Simply lacking belief does not fall under the definition. You must explicitly believe that there is no God. Do you?

The atheists that do not have a belief in a god are what are known as 'weak atheists'. Their lack of god belief is more passive.

But I have no belief in God, and I am not a "weak" atheist.

[Galphanore]

As I said, what I call Atheism you call Agnosticism. I think, based on reading what the person who coined the term said about it, that Agnosticism is a doctrine that there are certain things that cannot be known. You, and many others, have come to call implicit atheism agnosticism, and that works for you. Fine, but I will continue to call it Atheism.

I am not seeing the distinction between these different types of atheism.

In order to be a dictionary atheist, you must be prepared to make the statement "I do not believe in God".

The doctrine or belief that there is no God.

I do not believe in god. That is the same thing as a saying I lack belief in god, that I have no belief in god or saying I have an absence of belief in god. I will not, however, make the statement that god cannot exist.

Simply lacking belief does not fall under the definition. You must explicitly believe that there is no God. Do you?

I do not believe in god, but I do not believe it is provable that there is not one. This is the distinction between an implicit atheist and an explicit one. One is a having no belief in god, the other is a belief that there cannot be a god.

The atheists that do not have a belief in a god are what are known as 'weak atheists'. Their lack of god belief is more passive.

But I have no belief in God, and I am not a "weak" atheist.

Why do you think there is a difference between saying I do not believe in god and saying I have no belief in god? Technically, you are a weak atheist, as am I, though I use the more descriptive term 'implicit atheist'. If we both describe what we believe they are very similar, from what you have described you believe and what I know I believe. The only difference is what we call it. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.

[skepticFromTX]

Persnickety Platypus: "That (pack of unpleasantries) might work as evidence against a loving god, but certainly not against a god taken at face value (a supreme being)."

You have a point. I was just assuming that the God under discussion was the one whose press releases describe as All Knowing, All Loving, All Wise... All Et Cetera & So Forth.

Come to think of it, maybe assuming an All Borderline Diety would explain the current State Of Affairs.

[Galphanore]

Persnickety Platypus: "That (pack of unpleasantries) might work as evidence against a loving god, but certainly not against a god taken at face value (a supreme being)."

You have a point. I was just assuming that the God under discussion was the one whose press releases describe as All Knowing, All Loving, All Wise... All Et Cetera & So Forth.

Come to think of it, maybe assuming an All Borderline Diety would explain the current State Of Affairs.

Anyone remember who said "The best that can be said about god is that he's basically an underachiever."?