(August 10, 2013 at 5:03 am)Maelstrom Wrote:(August 10, 2013 at 4:59 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Don't be an idiot maelstrom. "I don't know" is the most intellectually honest and reasonable stance of all.
If everyone simply stated I don't know, there would never be any progress in anything. Rather than seek answers, people would shrug and state the truly ridiculous and ignorant I don't know.
Being agnostic is just as dumb as being a theist. Whereas theists fill in the gaps of knowledge with something that cannot be proven to exist, the agnostic makes the claim I don't know if there is knowledge for anything.
I think you misunderstood what agnostic is. I don't object that there is an agnostic that irrational, but not all agnostics are like that.
A rational agnostic also seeks answers. They seek evidence for both God existence and God non-existence and come to the conclusion that, at least for now, there is no evidence either way.
(August 10, 2013 at 5:06 am)FallentoReason Wrote:The Zacharias Wrote:Let me start with a simple thing. Although I wasn't born a theist, I was born in a theistic environment. The people in my environment can tolerate difference in theism (e.g. difference in belief in God as long as it does not disturb other people) but cannot tolerate atheism. Yes, I agree that this is a wrong view. But this is the reality in my environment. If I don't believe in God publicly, it will most likely bring an overall negative effect to me and to my family. If I secretly don't believe in God, I will have to lie in many circumstances. So, at least for me, believing in God brings an overall positive effect to me. I don't know whether God exists or not because there is no evidence either way as far as I know. So why not choose a side that brings an overall positive effect to me?
Right.. well this is fairly troubling. I can sort of imagine under what circumstances you must be in, but for the purposes of our discussion this is no where near an explanation for why you think God exists. It's simply external matters that are non-evidentially/philosophically related that have pushed you to be a theist. Therefore, for you to say that you don't see any reason for God to not exist is pure nonsense if you didn't rationally come to a belief in God.
Why should we be expected to argue against a position you didn't reason yourself into?
I never said I'm being pushed to be a theist. In fact I said that being a theist brings an overall positive effect to me. It means that I'm happy being a theist and that give me a reason to (stay to) be a theist.
I also have mentioned before that to change my position to atheist will most likely bring a negative effect to me under my circumstance. That's a reason *for me* not to change my position to atheist.
(August 10, 2013 at 5:12 am)Maelstrom Wrote:(August 10, 2013 at 4:57 am)Theo Zacharias Wrote: There is no evidence of intelligent being other than human.
What is your view about this? Do you believe that there is non-human intelligent being?
Until intelligent life other than humanity can be positively and verifiably proven, then I will not believe that other intelligent life is possible. I am an atheist. An agnostic may state it is possible, but I would rather follow the current evidence until I am proven wrong.
Ok, so you don't believe that non-human intelligent exists.
I wonder, what do you think of some people who work on various SETI projects who believes that non-human intelligent exists despite no evidence of it so far? Do you think they are all irrational because they believe something without evidence?
Or maybe you think that there is no single person work on the projects (that search for extraterrestrial intelligence) that believes that non-human intelligent exists?
