What a douche. I am an agnostic. I am also an atheist. You're out of touch.

I'm agnostic because I concede I have no way of knowing whether something as slippery as a 'god' exists.

I'm an atheist because, in response to the question of whether I believe in them, I answer no.

You seem very foolish.

(May 20, 2015 at 8:24 pm)YGninja Wrote: Words define you, not theists. Atheists don't get to choose their definition any more than a bank robber gets to choose the definition or robbery. Christians all abide the same definition : followers of Christ. Denominations merely have a different interpretation of what it means to follow Christ. If you don't give a rats ass whether God exists, why call yourself an atheist, what are you doing here?

I don't care what label is put on my position. In fact, when I was young, I did not even know there was a label. My position came before I learned of labels. 

Here is my position:

I do not believe the claims made by theists, that a god or gods exist. My position is entirely provisional, and will change if the existence of a god is demonstrated to exist, via the proper use of demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid/sound logic to support the claim. 

This position is a byproduct of properly applied skepticism toward the claim that gods exist. My correct use of skepticism lead to my disbelief that gods exist. 

I do not take this position because I want to shirk the BOP. I take it because I am unconvinced.

What label would you use to describe my position? 

(May 20, 2015 at 8:40 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Are you really so afraid of honest discussion that you'll only engage when you can dictate your opponent's position as well as your own?

^ This ^

The discussion doesn't depend on the label for what I think. It may very well depend on what definition you have in mind for "god". Any chance you actually brought a clear definition of that word?

"What am I doing here?" Moron.

(May 20, 2015 at 8:36 pm)YGninja Wrote:

(May 20, 2015 at 8:32 pm)ignoramus Wrote: Pick your own word to describe people who aren't affected by the woo of religion!
That's us.

Providing or not providing proof is for those who care to give a shit!

Well its really simple, if you don't believe either way or don't care enough about the question to bother, you are an agnostic. If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist.

Being an unfalsifyable concept, could we possibly be anything else?
To adopt any other outlook would make anyone a believer?

We don't want to believe, we're obsessed with knowing.
Isn't that how science progresses.

(May 20, 2015 at 8:36 pm)YGninja Wrote: Well its really simple, if you don't believe either way or don't care enough about the question to bother, you are an agnostic. If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist.

Your definition of agnostic is incorrect. 

It has nothing to do with the amount of caring about the question one has. It is about having the position that the existence of a god is either unknown, or unknowable. 

It is impossible to not believe either way. Belief is a binary mental state, either one believes a premise is true, or they don't. It is not possible to be in some in between mental state. 

If one accepts the premise that a god exists, they are a theist, ANYTHING else is atheism. 

Quote:If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist.

You actually have this exactly backwards.

If you believe to any degree of certainty that at least one god exists, you are a theist. 

At this point, since I've seen you post the same crap several times, I have no hope that you will understand the difference between the following 2 statements:

1. I believe no gods exist.
2. I do not believe gods exist.

if you think you know the difference, between them, please explain. 

(May 15, 2015 at 3:53 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: But Jesus was tortured to death by way of crucifixion--a Roman form of torture and execution.  I don't think that Jesus (if He were not God in the flesh) could have known that crucifixion would be the method that the Jewish leaders would be using to kill Him.

Um, I don't see anything in Isaiah 53 about crucifixion.  Surely, if it were a real prophecy, it would be rather more specific.  And, it also says a number of things that don't really fit:

Quote:He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Jesus may have been crucified by the Romans, but he doesn't appear to have been a man a suffering generally.  Nor was he rejected in the way this verse implies.  He had disciples and attracted admiring crowds.

Quote:He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;

But he did speak extensively, and on the cross too.

Quote:Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great

But according to you Christians Jesus was always there at god's right had being god.  So how would he a allotted a portion "with the great."  Isn't he supposed to be god?

Quote:When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;

What offspring?  Jesus had none.

And then there's the problem of tense.  Isaiah 53 writes about the servant's suffering in the past tense and his exhalation in the future tense, an odd proceeding if it was really intended to be prophecy of suffering.

It does make sense however, as interpreted by the Jews.  They see Isaiah 53 as part of the four suffering servant hymns.  The servant is the Jewish nation, not the messiah.  If you read Isaiah as whole, particularly in a Jewish translation, you will see that this makes sense as the Jewish nation is often referred to as the servant of god by Isaiah.  http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The_...rvant.html  The suffering was and had happened, the exaltation was to come.

As prophecies go it's no great shakes:


1. It is hardly specific.

2. It was interpreted differently both before and after being attached to Jesus by early Christians.

3. Much of it makes no sense as a prophecy of Jesus.

(May 20, 2015 at 2:13 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(May 20, 2015 at 1:50 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I think that in biblical times, slavery was quite often the most obvious and practical alternative to something far worse.  ...  So, although I wouldn't want to put a smiley face on slavery even in those days, I can understand that in ancient times there were often no good alternatives to slavery.  

Do you really think this case was in the majority, rather than a minority of cases?  What makes you come to the conclusion that the creation of slaves through spoils of war was "quite often" other than the desire to explain away the undesirability of slavery?  Did the Romans not make slaves of both male foreigners in their conquests, even where they weren't attempting to acquire land, but merely to acquire the spoils of the land, food and precious items, in addition to slaves.  It seems clear that in ancient times, slaves were 'goods' sought for their own value, not simply the leftovers from war.  What makes you think the majority of them were leftovers rather than the goods to be sought in and of themselves?

I'm not a historian and I really don't have any opinions on these matters.  I was only suggesting one possible scenario as an example in which slavery might have provided a way of avoiding something far worse than slavery.  I'm certainly not convinced that the scenario I mentioned was more common than the existence of slavery for its own sake.

(May 15, 2015 at 5:04 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: Due to the large number of posts here, I will be constrained by my limited amount of time to answer most questions only very briefly.  In Isa. 53, no one seems to doubt (as far as I can tell) that this passage is describing the trial, suffering, and death of Jesus.  For me, this is sufficient.  

I doubt very strongly and so do many others.  See above.

(May 20, 2015 at 8:40 pm)Esquilax Wrote: So the idea that words might have multiple, context-dependent meanings just kinda blows your mind, does it?     ---1---





You're making the mistake of thinking that your god is the only possible god, so therefore mocking your specific conception of god is denial of all gods. ---2--- But the christian god is not the only god concept in existence, in fact there are as many god concepts as there are shades of differentiation within each characteristic of god. Mocking a specific conception of god only entails that we find that specific collection of characteristics to be worthy of mockery; you can, for example, mock a particularly poorly designed model of car without denying the existence of all cars everywhere. Joking that a thing would be as useful as a square wheeled car does not mean I think that square wheeled cars would be impossible to make, just that I find them useless. Similarly, I can find the collection of characteristics and historical claims regarding any specific god to be impossible, without outright denying the existence of all gods; finding one impossible does not extrapolate out to finding all of the set that one belongs to impossible. By arguing this way you're just showing off the extreme theistic myopia with which you're viewing the atheist position; your god ain't the only one in discussion, dude.

Not to mention the extreme arrogance of dictating our position to us, but I've come to expect that from theists.   ---3---





Yeah, because if anyone is qualified to tell atheists what they believe, it's theists!

Are you really so afraid of honest discussion that you'll only engage when you can dictate your opponent's position as well as your own? ---3---





It's actually the other way around: theism and atheism refer to belief, gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge, hence the root word "gnossis," which means knowledge. Agnostic is a modifier that can be applied to both atheists and theists, depending on the degree of certainty that they place on their beliefs, which are dictated by the first label. An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. A gnostic theist believes in a god and claims to know that one exists, and vice versa. ---4---

Do you really want to play sophistic little word games instead of discussing the actual positions?

1: You'll have to elaborate.
2: I've not mentioned my God, or whether i even have one. I spoke about atheists ridiculing the "the concept of God", which is pretty well understood unless you are determined to be facetious: An all powerful prime-mover of all things.
3: I'm not dictating my opponents position, (and why is he necessarily an opponent?) i am objecting against the miss-classification of his position.
4: Agnosticism, since its first use and always since unless used in a non-standard, metaphorical kind of sense, has always pertained to belief of Gods existence. Lack of knowledge being the reason for having no belief, as no belief is only possible when there is a lack of knowledge. "An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. A gnostic theist believes in a god and claims to know that one exists". You cannot believe in no Gods without a claim to knowledge, you cannot believe in anything without first assuming to be in possession of relevant truths. Those "relevant truths", might not be enough to ground a certainty, but they constitute knowledge and hence become the grounds for the belief. This is why agnostic atheism is fundamentally incoherent, and the agnostic prefix is only ever used by atheists  (you never hear about agnostic theists) who want to wear the atheist label because of the perceived intellectual 'go faster' stripes, without actually inheriting any burden of proof requiring them to have a clue what they're talking about. 

If i believe in God only on the grounds of a pretty rainbow, i have to assume knowledge in order to relate that rainbow back to the idea of God. If an atheist believes there are no Gods because it rains on him one too many times, he must assume knowledge to be able to relate the rain back to the question of God, namely, the assumed truth that "if there was a God, he wouldn't let it rain on me so often". Even the weakest belief necessitates knowledge, hence is not compatible with agnosticism. That you aren't certain of Gods existence or not is irrelevant, and not grounds for claiming agnosticism.


Sorry for my formatting i've been away for a few months and the entire thing changed. Don't have time to fiddle about tonight.

(May 19, 2015 at 3:12 am)robvalue Wrote: Evolution is good to go. The more you learn about it, the more it makes perfect sense.

Sadly many theists simply refuse to learn about it, instead "refuting" their utterly flawed idea of what evolution is. It's about as sad and ridiculous as me drawing God on a bit of cardboard, ripping up the cardboard then declaring God is dead and all religion must end.

Learn about evolution. It's absolutely fascinating. No one should be scared of the truth, wherever it may lie. I've yet to hear one single person who demonstrates they have a decent understanding of evolution but rejects it.

I'm curious to know whether evolution helps you maintain your belief in a godless universe and if so, how does evolution help you in your belief that no gods exist?