Robert G. Ingersoll

Amergin, I have no disagreement with you, since I am an agnostic atheist, i.e. I claim no knowledge regarding the existence/non-existence of any god, and I do not believe in the existence of god - based on my experience of life to date.

Xianseeker, I can't agree with your final point because I see ontology involved only with belief, not claims of knowledge.

Regarding ontology, I think one is either an idealist or a materialist. I don't know of a third choice.

An idealist is one who believes that mind, consciousness, ideation (or spirit or soul, to use the religious terms) is primary, giving rise to the material. E.g., mind (spirit) was first and produced or created matter (some extreme idealism go so fare as to even deny the existence of matter, e.g., christian science).

A materialist believes mind and consciousness - and all mental functions like imagination, memory, conception, intention, the emotions, etc., and life are secondary processes and matter, enery and time (space-time, I guess) are primary. E.g., mind exist as a function of a brain only, and has no independent existence.

My materialism is an assumption or belief based on my best reasoning. I make no (absolute) knowledge claims. If idealism is correct - outside of my present understanding - then good for it. Until I am aware of one good reason to believe in it, I will continue to assume idealism is false. If this pisses god off, he can sue me.

Jobar

Seems I've heard this argued before...

mal and I had a long discussion about it years ago, on the old freethinkersforum board. And the point I tried then to convince him of, Amergin has already made very well-

So I am a Judaeo-Christian Atheist, while being a generic Agnostic. In this way, I feel that I am being honest.

Volker

We don't know whether god exists or does not exist. We have to have faith in god, that is, we have to believe god exists. Most theists will agree to this.

(A1) So we can define: A theist is someone who believes that god exists.

(A2) An a-theist ist just the opposite. By definition: An a-theist is someone who does not believe god exists.

If you ask a theist if he knows that god exists, than he will, if he is honest, answer that he does not know in any sense that this word is used in english language. He believes in the existence of god. That makes him an agnostic, someone, wo does not know if god exists or does not exist.

I'm an atheist. If you ask me the same question, I will give you exactly the same answer: I do not know if god exists or does not exist. By definition, it is impossible to have knowledge about the existence of god(s). But I will tell you that I do not believe in god, an the theist will say the opposite.

I don't think that someone will answer "I do not know whether I believe in god or not" (we would consider this a funny answer). So either you believe in god or you don't, I do not see that there is a third alternative. On this ground, agnosticism does not distinguish between a theist and an atheist. When it comes to knowledge, theists and atheists are agnostic, when it comes to believe, both have different opinions.

That is a theistic fallacy, that the theist believes in god and that an atheist irrationally assumes god does not exist (which puts the atheist in a weaker position). Agnosticism is Ok, but ask yourself "Do I believe in god, or do I hold no belief in god? Do I have faith in god?".

If we define it in this terms:

(B1) Theist: someone who assumes that god exists,
(B2) A-theist: someone who assume that god does not exists,

than agnosticism is a viable choice. You can't decide if you can assume that there ist a god or not, because you don't have the evidence.

Now the trick that some theist play ist that they mix definitions (A1) with (B2), which does not make any sense. We assume that god does not exist, but they magically have some sort of knowledge (called 'belief') about god. That ist, we atheists have mere assumptions about the existence of god, but they are sure god exists.

I do not hold a belief that god exists. I don't think that you can gain knowledge by believing in something. So I'm an atheist. But if you ask me if we could know whether god exists or not, I'm an agnostic, because believing in god does not make sense to me (it is, from the standpoint of epistemology, nonsense), and we can't by definition know whether god exists or not (and the same is true for theists).

If you think about god and his properties, agnosticism ist the only choice that you have, even as a theist (or atheist). Most theists are agnostic, because they either can't define what god is or don't know what god should be like. So agnosticism doesn't beat anything, it goes well with theism and atheism.

ex-xian

Quote:

Xianseeker, I can't agree with your final point because I see ontology involved only with belief, not claims of knowledge.

So what would you call someone who believed that knowledge about true reality, that is, not the reality of experiences, is unknowable?

eh

That's irrelevant. "I am incapable of knowing" does not change the fact that God exists or does not.

Amos

Here is a simple argument from definiton:

A gnostic knows and an agnostic does not know. This makes the gnostic equal to God and since we are created in the image of God we only need to obtain the mind of God to realize that we are God. The agnostic does not realize this.

In between we have the believer who does not "know" but may or may have "correct opinion." Believers are subdivided from the enriched believer called "mystic" to the impoverished believer called "atheist." Beyond this the fact remains that everybody can become God, or at least the continuity of God after whom they were created, and realization-- or realization by any other name-- is required to achieve this.

ex-xian

Quote:

That's irrelevant. "I am incapable of knowing" does not change the fact that God exists or does not.

It's not irrelevent to the meaning of agnosticism. It is also relevent that it makes the question of God's existence irrelevent.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Well, it'll take a minute to answer your question.

imagine that there is a whole set of possible universes, in one of them it is 100% probable that agnosticism beats atheism and theism, in another it is 0% probable. in the rest of universes,which are infinite in number, there is every value within 1 & 0 of probability. it is infinitely more probable that we live in one of these universes than in any one of the formers. thus, not knowing whther agnosticism beats atheism and theism is infinitely more probable than knowing if it does, so just saying "I don't know" is the most accurate answer to this question.

Boy, with this line of logic, I can answer any question in the world with the most accurate answer!

-B

eh

Perhaps if the question of God's existence cannot be answered, you might say the question is irrelevent. But it does not change reality.

Saying agnosticism is more probable than theism or atheism is nonsense, since it has nothing to do with the actual reality or nonreality of God. Even though we can never know if God exists, that doesn't change the fact that the concept is either true or false.

malpensante

bumble bee tuna: brilliant!!! :notworthy
yet i do find (or create) a flaw: the probabilities i talk about are more credible than the ones you talk about, because knowing the status of a potential hidden god is more difficult than knowing the status of a real conspicuous stance on god. in other words, for your universes to exist, there would be far more people who actually don't know what they think about than credible. even when you think something stupid you know what it is that you think, don't you?

jobar & amergin: i almost agree with you, i consider myself an agnostic polytheist. (jobar, you haven't answered my comments on the multiverse god, at the thread on god's simultaneous omniscience and free will).

flyboy:
yes, i assume there are infinite universes, but i will not defend that assumption here, i am already defending it in a thread posted by me at the philosophy section, called "arguments for the multiverse view", maybe you'd like to check it. i don't say that god exists in one universe and not in another, only that people can be certain of its existence in one and of its inexistence in another. why do you think universal laws would either necessitate or abhor a god. isn't a "semigod" possible?

violent messiah:
a blank vote can be a statement that i don't trust either puppet, not the one in the left, nor the one in the right, and if i really do not trust either, it is hypocritical to vote for any one, for any reason.

ingersoll:
you contradict yourself in your first post. which is it? agnosticism is an option, or isn't it?

xianseeker:
agnosticism is "i don't know", it isn't "i can't know". just as atheism is "i know it doesn't", not "i can know it doesn't". just as theism is "i know it does", not "i can know it does".

volker:
since it is possible for a person to believe in a god which the same person assumes doesn't exist, and it is also possible for a person to disbelieve in a god which the same person assumes does exist (not that these persons make much sense), your words, though weird, are worth paying attention to.

i'd rephrase them thus: atheists and theists differ in that the first disbelieve and the second believe in god, but they are both agnostics because they have in common that they assume nothing about god's existence.

but actually, your words (in my phrasing) fail to take into account people who do assume positively or negatively about god's existence, in their own words, when interviewed directly on the subject, and believe me, i've met many. are they mistaken? you and i would agree that they are! that's why i think agnosticism beats them, because it's less mistaken.