Albion

I think it's impossible to use the scientific method to prove that one exists or doesn't exist as long as the god in question is supernatural. I'm sure that people who have had some sort of personal revelation would look at it as proof, but as long as it's personal, it isn't the sort of proof that can apply to anyone else.


Well, proof and belief are different. You can believe that God exists in the absence of the ability to prove it (in fact if you could prove it, you wouldn't need to believe). I think an agnostic would simply say that there's no way of knowing whereas an atheist would say something along the lines that even if there's no way of knowing, he doesn't believe that God exists.

I think this is where faith would come into the picture. If you have proof, or even the possibility of proof, there's no need for faith.


Sure. At least, I accept the possibility that God might exist, but I don't know, I don't think there's a way to know, and I'm not going to believe or disbelieve. I just don't know.

If you're talking about the material world, it may well. But God isn't part of the material world, and that's the whole point of the question about proof, knowledge, faith, and belief.

I'm not sure there'd be any of those. If you could prove it, there'd be nothing to stop you from doing so, and you'd know one way or the other so you wouldn't be agnostic.

Volker

Hello everyone!

Well, to use that infamous pink unicorns:
Thesis: Just because it's impossible to prove pink Unicorns exist, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Antittesis: Just because it's impossible to prove that pink Unicorns do not exist, doesn't mean they exist.

Both contradictory statements are "true" at the same time. If both "arguments" are "true", though contradictory, they both can't be valid.

Its easy to use this "argument" with everything that exists or that doesn't exist, so this "argument" ist just complete nonsense.

If arguments can be used to "prove" a thesis and an antithesis, they are a waste of time. And now for some observations on that theme that I've heardt so often. If you insert "god" into thesis and antithesis, and you have chosen to believe in god, you will think that the antithesis is not valid. If you don't think that god exists, you'll find the thesis not convincing. If you have a bias into one direction, the other seems far off! This makes discussions often so wastefull.

We have psychological tendencies to accept only arguments we think are true anyway. That is, any sort of believe will make our thinking weak and fuzzy!

That is why I think that an "absence of believe" is so essential, and this makes me a weak atheist. But this is an argument for agnosticism at the same time. So I'm an agnostic atheist.

I don't really see a big difference between agnosticism and weak atheism, its just a question of your focus. To reuse that blue ball argument, it is not essential if you believe that my claim was true, so "weak evidence" (like a witness) would be sufficient to make you think it was there on my desktop. If it is really, really important as a piece of circumstantial evidence in a murder case, you would think otherwise and demand a "strong" proof. And with god, because it seems to be such a vital thing to exist, my demand for a proof is even stronger!

If you say that you "believe that there is a blue ball on my desktop" you admit that your thoughts about that can not stand on its own merits. And if you have a proof, no believe is involved. That makes believe a very, very weak argument. In daily life we would only accept it, if that blue ball is not vital for us - it makes no difference for you if my claim was true or not. Saying that you have to believe in god either means that you don't think that the existence of god is of any importance, or that your rational thinking has been weakend (e. g. because of wishfull thinking), or both.

That is especially true if you think of god in contraditionary terms, like all-mighty, all-knowing etc., which is impossible to believe, if you think it through. So both agnosticism and atheism differ only on small margins, because most of the time you will not see much difference in arguments that come from an agnostic or atheistic view. Most agnostics live like atheists and vice versa. I know, I called myself an agnostic a few weeks ago, now I call myself an atheist, and nothing changed (except for that label).

I still think that there is enough evidence to come to the conclusion "that this special god does not exist, because it ist contradictory". If you tell me that god is "just the creator of the universe" and nothing more, I'm still an agnostic.

Beware though that most christians argue that god is the creator of the universe, the life and everything and you admit "it might be true", they will think that they have "proven" that their allmighty, allknowing, all-loving personal being might exist, which is not true. This is a trap if there are atheists and agnostics present at the same time - they will now start argueing against the other!

Only if you tell me what kind of god you're speaking about I can tell you if I'm an agnostic or an atheist. I think that is true for all of us non-theists.

I hope that in spite of my language difficulties I could make this point clear.

Ryanfire

Here's a chat I had with two Christians yesterday:

Xians: "God created everything in existence"
Me: "Why did god create existence?"
Xians: "I don't know"
Me: "Was god bored by himself?"
Me: "Was he missing something? Was he lonely?"
Me: "If love did not exist before, how did god know what love was like? or how to create it?"
Xians: "I don't know"
Me: "If god created everything, what then created god? How does god exist?"
Xian: "I don't know"
Xians: "It's not for you to understand" <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

If you lack a belief in god, that makes you an atheist. Agnostics are open to the possibility of a "god", but believe its impossible to know if there is a "god". Absolute knowledge is not essential for one to form a "belief" about something. If most of the evidence points one way, then why look the other way?

entity

n : anything having existence (living or nonliving)

Santa Claus

The personification of the spirit of Christmas, usually represented as a jolly fat old man with a white beard and a red suit, who brings gifts to good children on Christmas Eve.

Assuming this is a valid definition for you and me, Santa is an entity in our imagination.

Leprechaun

a mischievous elf in Irish folklore

folklore
n.
The traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people, transmitted orally.

Assuming these are valid definitions for you and me, Leprechauns are entities in our imagination.

You could replace these with human made gods. Especially the christian gods, they are just personifications for what is good and evil. Nothing more.

The above does not prove a creator(of existence) does or doesn't exist though.

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Ryanfire ]</p>

Devilnaut

Ryanfire:

I've never understood this. What person (atheist or otherwise) doesn't believe that it's impossible to know whether or not God exists? It is impossible because you can't prove a negative. If God existed, it would certainly be possible to know about him.

Edit to add that I should say, what rational person doesn't believe.. etc. Because I've met some people who claim to know with 100% certainty that God does or does not exist

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Ryanfire

And are these people omniscient?

Vorkosigan

[b]Ryanfire:

I've never understood this. What person (atheist or otherwise) doesn't believe that it's impossible to know whether or not God exists? It is impossible because you can't prove a negative. If God existed, it would certainly be possible to know about him.
[/QB][/QUOTE]

Ah...so square circles do exist.

djf

So far nobody has managed to successfully answer my question. The only person to come close was bd-from-kg and he has yet to respond to my last post. All the rest of you haven't been of much help.

Albion

Your question was pretty confusing and self-contradictory. That actually doesn't help much either. If you have a perception of agnostics that's as different from the reality as yours seems to be, then of course the answers aren't going to help.

hinduwoman

Ryanfire : it is all very well to say we shall never know, but how do you actually lead your life? How does the possibility of God existing affect your everyday behaviour? is it any different from that of committed atheists?

Ryanfire

Uh..

I never wrote the above quote, are you trying to make this point to me or Devilnaut?