Atheism or agnosticism?Follow

I put my faith in the Sun.

Meh. It really matters little. What it has come down to for me is, do you believe in possibility of something bigger than yourself, or do you think there is absolutely no possible way that something besides this tangible world that you see exists?

I don't believe in God, but I'm not atheist or agnostic. When you pigeonhole it to primarily refer to Christianity, I think the words come a bit clouded in their meaning.

Anyway, I think you're agnostic. You shouldn't doubt your unbeliefs based on what a comedian says in passing in a mediocre article. I lost interest when he couldn't decide whether he wanted to refer to "God" or "a god" in his rant.

Well, it's a bit wishy-washy with the definitions, so it's tough to give it a clear answer. People have gotten very liberal with their application of the terms over the years, so there's some overlap.

Atheism has a couple accepted definitions, and the lack of specificity causes some problems. It can mean both "Belief that God does not exist", and "A lack of belief in God." Similar sounding, but there's a key difference, one is a belief system and the other is not.

You could be an atheist of either variety (I'd say it sounds more like the latter). The latter allows for the possibility for god to exist, and is more-or-less the same thing as agnosticism. In my personal experience, the first definition is usually the one assumed, though.

Agnosticism is a tiny bit more clear about it's definitions. It is, by definition, not a belief system. One doesn't believe that God exists, nor that God doesn't exist; you simply don't know. I choose to say that I'm agnostic, because that typically avoids giving the impression that I claim the knowledge that God doesn't exist. I find it helps to think of it like the scientific method: It's impossible to make a conclusion about God's existence (due to lack of data), so a conclusion should not be made. A lack of evidence does not scientifically disprove something, it merely makes it appear less likely.

Something like that, I guess.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2011 11:44am by Eske

There was no option for wine in your poll.

Wasn't there someone who claimed that the banana was evidence of God? Don't have time to google it right now.

Kirk Cameron

Probably because it fits so nicely into his ****.

Banana wine?? Yuck.

you sound agnostic. A bunch of my friends have a secular group going on down here to discuss issues that crop up as a parent raising kids in a secular home surrounded by a religious area. A few of them are hardcore atheists and to them there is, without a shadow of a doubt, no possibility for any chance of there being a God. They believe so strongly in their disbelief that it has become, in essence, the very description of a belief system, if that makes sense.

And then there are the agnostics, who dont feel they have THE ANSWER one way or another, and frankly, dont care.

I dont label myself personally. I tend to just say Spritiuality is divine while religion is man made. My concept on what is God is so vastly different from the norm.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2011 1:29pm by DSD

Atheism is kind of weird in the sense atheist say they don't believe in anything, yet in the same breath believe that nothing exists beyond because science hasn't said it does. (note they have also never said it doesn't just that they haven't found anything).

Personally I am a mixed bag. I don't specifically believe there is an invisible dude living in the clouds, but I also don't specifically deny the possibility. Considering that we as a people haven't even explored our own oceans in depth yet, have barely begun looking into space, there is so much that we couldn't hope to understand. But we do have historical evidence of evolutionary theory that strongly supports that and hurts the creationist theory. However that doesn't mean perhaps we haven't been "encouraged" to develop this way by some unknown entity.


One thing I do know for sure is that I do not believe in religious organization, be it Christianity(catholicism), Judaism, Muslim, Hindu, w/e the hell you want to call yourself. Ive read the bible, a translated version of the Qur'an, and they are essentially the same book with many of the same characters, with a couple extra chapters added on the later (kind of like the Bible "New Testament" is additional Chapters following Jesus, and the Jewish Old Testemant.

I think their is a possibility that something coerced the life on this planet at some point in time, but I also feel that it could possibly be natural. In the end who really knows. But I will tell you one thing, I really enjoy the drama that crops up now and then when religious organizations spew their rhetoric, be it against non-believers, or other religions themselves, which all more or less worship the same god, and follow the same doctrine.

They don't.

varus' charisma.

"Jophiel believes that leprechauns do not exist" would be the equivalent of gnostic atheism: you're positively asserting that something doesn't exist.



Edited, Apr 22nd 2011 2:50pm by bsphil