Amos

Well I know for sure that if an agnostic can exists a gnostic must exist because agnostic cannot be conceived to have any meaning without the gnostic postition.

If the gnostic is all knowing who needs God?

Philosoft

It's just a label. It's not an actual, objective representation of what the person does or does not know.

<strong> Who needs God anyway?

Amos

Good point and it does not help to be in need of God because we can either be God (gnostic) or not be God (agnostic).

I like the way we just label things that have no meaning to make more words.

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

lcb

not one atheist has been able to prove to me that the restoration prophecies were self fulfilling. so i am doing better than you philo. and its "Pascal's wager "plus"-and its that "plus" that has them worried.....as we watch those war clouds over the middle east and the nuclear weapons programs of iraq/iran/syria/pakistan/india/etc.....and there is a real place called armageddon....(steady as she goes)

tronvillain

It would simply be competely innacurate for me to describe myself as agnostic. I believe that God does not exist on the basis of the evidence available to me, though I do not rule out the existence of God entirely except when logical contradictions arise. I am not more agnostic about God than I am agnostic about Santa Clause, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny.

Theli

This is a re-occuring assumption by many agnostics. They seem to think that to make a claim you must be 100% certain of it's truth. And the only way to do that is to rule the possibility of it being wrong.
There's a word that I think Phil TK should learn, it's simply called "probability".
But as he seems abit bigoted, and will probably not reply to this thread (or even read it) then he won't learn that word, after all.


Tronvillain...

I agree. If you rule out (with logic) the possibility of god's existence, then you claim that "god cannot exist". But that claim is not required of you to call yourself a strong atheist.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll take that as a self criticism.

Jayhawker Soule

At the risk of posturising, I "know for sure" that methodological naturalism has been exceptionally effective, while neither you nor any one else has suggested a single piece of verifiable evidence for the supernatural.

Phil TK

Well, I will reply to this thread but am aghast that the 'probability' of someone patronising me seems to be shamefully high. I'm a newish member and there is no evidence I'd automatically bomb out because I'm a 'bigot'as you kindly pontificated Theli. What on earth gave you reason to believe I wouldn't reply? Now who's a bigot?
Anyway, let me comment on 'probability' -consider this illustration if you will. If I was an unequivical, observing space alien who's been around for a trillion years and knew pretty much tons more about the universe than humans do. What do you think my 'probable' answer would be if I was asked this question?.
Q 'These humans here have at least 3000 years accumulated knowledge of theology and scientific principles - now then, do they understand enough about the universe to figure out if there is a diety or not? -I think his 'probable' reply (after a knowing chuckle) would be a resounding 'Nope', -
Ok, he might say 'yes' but if he did, he could only be 'God'. In other words, if a man believes in a mindset as finite as Theism or Atheism -he must know something that I as an agnostic do not, something a buddhist would call total enlightenement. Reasoning alone is not enough -we don't know enough. (which is why we have the Secular Web)
But in reality, Thiests and atheists today don't know anything more about the universe than I do -not by merit of comparison to my own personal knowledge but because all our perceptions are very limited at this time -we are 'newbies' in our universe. On such limited experience our reasoning has simply produced belifs that are bottomless pits.
In reply to being agnostic about self-contradictory Gods etc. Well I think most agnostics have the view that religions in this world are 'probably' fatally corrupted by texts that have been penned by man yet masquerade as the 'Word of God' Perhaps there is a god after all, but we just have out of date and corrupted manuals down here (Bibles, Koran etc.)

Eudaimonist

I was agnostic once, but now I'm not sure.

Just kidding, folks. I'd say that I'm a strong atheist with respect to certain god concepts that I regard as contradictory or incoherent, and I'm a weak atheist for the rest, especially the millions of imaginable god concepts that I haven't bothered to investigate or dream up.

As far as my day to day decision-making goes, god concepts are irrelevant.