Agnostic Atheism? Your opinions..

[Minimalist]

No it isn't. There is no evidence that life exists anywhere else in the universe, yet in all likelihood, it does.

And the beauty of science, Adrian, is that when such "evidence" is presented the previous conclusions can be re-written. Until then, it is your opinion that life exists elsewhere but you have no "evidence" for it. You are in much the same boat as the jesus freaks who opine endlessly that their godboy existed.

[dtango]

If you can present evidence for the non-existence of Zeus, I'm all ears. until then, you also need to admit that neither of us can know for sure and are therefore agnostic to Zeus.

May I explain why the ancient non-believers, compatriots of mine, who climbed Mount Olympus to investigate did not find Zeus there? (Please note that the same happened when ancient Sumerian non-believers visited the famous Cedar Forest, the gods’ dwelling place, up in the mountains. They found nobody there.)

Zeus was constantly raping women (and little boys too) and there came a time when his children, who were furious at him for having raped their mothers, decided to go up to his Palace on Mount Olympus and pay him a lesson.

Zeus was told of their intentions and did something terrible. Something that was to enslave humanity to the race of the gods forever: he disguised himself into a messenger (“Angel” in Greek) and when his children arrived he told them: “Sorry, you were a bit late, Zeus went off to live on the clouds”!

That is how the spiritual gods were born!

How come and we, clever modern people, do not wonder on the fact that those supposedly bright ancient Greeks and superb Sumerians all believed that their gods lived on Mountains and not up in the sky?

Theologians moved the gods from the mountains to the sky and we are now discussing the existence of a god who from the mountains moved to the clouds then to the sky No.1, to the sky No. 7 and then to the outskirts of the universe!!

Sorry Gentlemen, but that’s quite ridiculous for humans who can afford all the information which is available today.

You want to know the story of the God? Read ancient texts (Old Testament included) and then ask yourselves how is it possible that wherever on earth (Europe, Asia and the Americas) the people “imagined” gods they thought of them accompanied by their private messengers (angels).
That’s a puzzle worth solving.

[mayor of simpleton]

Funny thing about Zeus is that everytime I push my choosen rock up that damned Mt. Olympus, he's always there to zap me in the ass with a lightening bolt.

Then again, I kind of enjoy the shock therapy. Either that or building sandcastles at the beach, somehow always when it's low tide.

Meow!

GREG

[Tiberius]

No it isn't. There is no evidence that life exists anywhere else in the universe, yet in all likelihood, it does.

And the beauty of science, Adrian, is that when such "evidence" is presented the previous conclusions can be re-written. Until then, it is your opinion that life exists elsewhere but you have no "evidence" for it. You are in much the same boat as the jesus freaks who opine endlessly that their godboy existed.

...so now you agree with me? I'm confused. If you admit that evidence can one day appear, then how can you argue that something does not exist (as an absolute truth)?

[Norfolk And Chance]

He didn't argue it was an absolute truth.

He said that "absence of evidence IS evidence of absence, but not proof"

[Epimethean]

If you can present evidence for the non-existence of Zeus, I'm all ears. until then, you also need to admit that neither of us can know for sure and are therefore agnostic to Zeus.

May I explain why the ancient non-believers, compatriots of mine, who climbed Mount Olympus to investigate did not find Zeus there? (Please note that the same happened when ancient Sumerian non-believers visited the famous Cedar Forest, the gods’ dwelling place, up in the mountains. They found nobody there.)

Zeus was constantly raping women (and little boys too) and there came a time when his children, who were furious at him for having raped their mothers, decided to go up to his Palace on Mount Olympus and pay him a lesson.

Zeus was told of their intentions and did something terrible. Something that was to enslave humanity to the race of the gods forever: he disguised himself into a messenger (“Angel” in Greek) and when his children arrived he told them: “Sorry, you were a bit late, Zeus went off to live on the clouds”!

That is how the spiritual gods were born!

How come and we, clever modern people, do not wonder on the fact that those supposedly bright ancient Greeks and superb Sumerians all believed that their gods lived on Mountains and not up in the sky?

Theologians moved the gods from the mountains to the sky and we are now discussing the existence of a god who from the mountains moved to the clouds then to the sky No.1, to the sky No. 7 and then to the outskirts of the universe!!

Sorry Gentlemen, but that’s quite ridiculous for humans who can afford all the information which is available today.

You want to know the story of the God? Read ancient texts (Old Testament included) and then ask yourselves how is it possible that wherever on earth (Europe, Asia and the Americas) the people “imagined” gods they thought of them accompanied by their private messengers (angels).
That’s a puzzle worth solving.

Strictly speaking (on a mythological level), inaccurate. The cloud palace above Olympos of the immortals was not connected physically to the earth any more than was Tartaros. You are here throwing Hesiod into the Aristophanic centrifuge, pouring what comes out into a cup created by orthodoxy. Zeus always lived above the peaks of Olympos and only came down when he felt like fucking-or fucking with people.

[dtango]

Strictly speaking (on a mythological level), inaccurate.

You are right, but the mythological level you have in mind is the outer one, the one placed on top of many older levels which are not readily available.

An example: goddess Athena is said to have killed the giant Pallas. According to an older myth she killed and skinned her father who attempted to rape her.

In order to reach the deeper layers of Greek mythology you have to read the older near Eastern texts.

they beheld the cedar mountain, abode of the gods
The epic of Gilgamesh (V,I,6)

There is a code in mythology which was known to all ancient people. The key to this code is provided by the oldest texts of humanity the Pyramid texts:

R.O.Faulkner translating
when the sky was separated from the earth
when the gods ascended to the sky

James Allen translating
when the sky was parted from the land
and the gods went off to the sky (Utterance 519 $1208)

There is no particle “and” in the Egyptian language and thus it is Faulkner’s translation which is the literal one.

“The sky was parted from the earth” means “humans expelled gods”

Zeus lived on earth as any other archaic god.
Plato did not think of Zeus living… above the peaks of Olympos or he wouldn’t have to fight Homer and prohibit the teaching of his epic poems.

What is really funny here is that the orthodox Homer is the one who wrote:

The gods are sitting on the clouds. (π 263)
The gods are heavenly (ρ 484)
The gods live in the endless sky (ζ 243)
The gods know everything.(δ 468)

Gods knew nothing. According to Homer Zeus had no idea of what his wife was planning. The sentence “The gods are sitting on the clouds” is a piece of news. The people are informed of the new dwelling of the gods.
In spite of this. In spite of the assistance Homer offered to the philosophers, they fought him and they came out the victors.

That is why you think that Zeus palace was located above the clouds, because we were taught that the philosophers’ allegoric interpretation of the myths counts and not the actual myths.

[Anymouse]

No it isn't. There is no evidence that life exists anywhere else in the universe, yet in all likelihood, it does.

Actually, you have no evidence that life exists anywhere else. To our method of reasoning, it only seems likely. Since the only evidence we have for life is here, the extraordinary claim is on one who holds that it seems likely it is also somewhere else. As is often said about theist claims here: evidence, please.

"Seems likely" is not proof of anything. It's not even evidence of anything. It is a guess. On what basis do you conclude it is likely?

[ElDinero]

Errrr no, come on Anymouse. We know the conditions necessary for life to exist on a planet. We know there are other planets that share these conditions. We can surmise through the number of solar systems we know there to be that there are several billion planets with these conditions. The chance that of all the planets in the universe that could hold life, that we sit on the only one that does seems statistically negligible. That is evidence, but it is not proof.

[mayor of simpleton]

fyi:

Ad ignorantiam

The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. It is therefore possible, they argue, that the brain may be capable of transmitting signals at a distance.

Another example of this is Intelligant Design. Intelligent design is almost entirely based upon this fallacy. The core argument for intelligent design is that there are biological structures that have not been fully explained by evolution, therefore a powerful intelligent designer must have created them.

In order to make a positive claim, however, positive evidence for the specific claim must be presented. The absence of another explanation only means that we do not know – it doesn’t mean we get to make up a specific explanation.

I somehow fear that this "life somewhere else in the universe" runs the risk to traveling this road.

Meow!

GREG