(June 26, 2017 at 10:03 pm)Astonished Wrote:(June 26, 2017 at 9:49 pm)Whateverist Wrote: Sorry, not really something I thought through. But my being agnostic has more to do with not pretending to know enough about the alleged 'god' thingy to say anything intelligent about it - including that it does not exist. But no, I don't believe gods as the kind of MegaMarvelSuperBeings you hear about are out there. So thoroughly devoid of god belief, of course.
What interests me is what about our species enables god belief. The 'gods' that interest me are the phenomenon experience by believers. Whatever that is is all that there is, nothing else deserves to be called "god".
I may have lied, I did have a preconception that, at least to some degree, parts of the agnostic ideas in regards to this were 'not thought through'.
So here's the problem I have with that limited info. If you never heard of a god concept, there would be no occasion to contemplate it. It's only because it was artificially introduced by superstitious lunatics and runs amok like a virus in brains not inoculated against it. Like any fictional being with any sort of extraordinary characteristics ascribed to it, it merits no thought or credibility. To do otherwise is to say "Well, they could be right by accident, at least in some respects, about this ill-defined thing that not a single pair of people on this earth can possibly come up with a complete consensus on." This is almost as nonsensical as any genuinely theistic statement. Further, how would anyone go about proving that any god concept is even possible, let alone probable? You can't actually concede that 'anything' is possible let alone something with so many definitions that are contrary.
See, the god concepts of modern religions are all overly intellectualized constructions and you might as well shit can those right now. Yeah, those are bunko. But the original gods weren't deduced or synthesized; they were encountered by shaman in their original form. Whatever it is they encountered via medicinal plants, pain, sleep deprivation or mental abnormality is what gave rise to the 'concepts'. Screw the concepts, whatever gods may be they ain't that.
(June 26, 2017 at 10:03 pm)Astonished Wrote: If you spend any more time contemplating the god concept than you do any and all other fictional characters, you are being dishonest because they are all subject to the same problems, namely being ill-defined, lacking in evidence in the same capacity, and just as implausible. Giving that any special privilege betrays a certain...I'm not sure what word would work here, but you would be behaving just as illogically as any theist because you have no basis for giving more consideration to one of these claims than any other if you are truly lacking in definitions or information or proof or whatever it is you need.
Zero points. No, not everything ill defined is ill defined for the same reason. Is satori a thing? Just because you can't unambiguously fit it into a dictionary doesn't mean it isn't a thing. Some definitions you have to earn. If it remains undefined because I can't qualify, that's on me. If I can't ride some peyote into such an encounter, that doesn't mean no one else can.
So I'm still interested in the way our minds encounter gods under certain conditions. I'm not looking for that experience myself. I don't think it is needed for a good life. But I do find it interesting, in a way that Ironman, the Hulk and the other creations are not.
(June 26, 2017 at 10:03 pm)Astonished Wrote: Ultimately I don't think it's a good label any more than atheist, but for different reasons. I think it sends the wrong message to theists, obviously. Like they might actually have some credibility that doesn't completely write off their bullshit since they perceive it as you not completely going to the 'dark side' and maybe there's hope for bringing you back the flock (so you're also inviting them to patronize you by taking you as an easier mark than someone fully on the other side of the fence). So I can say that I don't respect you, for a number of reasons such as not coming up with a better label or making an actual decision (although according to Aron Ra, if you're agnostic, you're an atheist whether you like it or not). What's the agnostic equivalent of Rational Skeptic, or is there one? I don't think those two are compatible so you can't just adopt it without there being a conflict...But if I had a friendly suggestion I would say put the word 'atheist' before agnostic if you want to label yourself as an agnostic atheist, and if you're an agnostic theist...which I'm not sure is a thing...well, I can't help ya.
Why shouldn't they receive some credibility? Show me an agnostic theist and I'll deliver the props right now. Likewise even mundane, church grown believers earn some cred for living a good life while thinking straight empirically, and cherry picking something beautiful from the morass of their holy book.
