(March 5, 2019 at 5:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(March 5, 2019 at 11:37 am)EgoDeath Wrote: Right, I'm of the opinion that if we don't know, we should just say we don't know.
With this, I agree. And that is precisely why I declare as agnostic, and do not choose to identify by the term "agnostic atheist."
You seem to be going with the more specific definition of atheism here, as opposed to the more inclusive sense of the term. If we're going with the latter sense, then you still would be an atheist just for the fact that you lack belief in a god. Even if you're not sure whether or not to call something that clearly exists as "God" or whatever, the fact you don't hold the statement "God exists" to be true makes you an atheist (in the more inclusive sense). An "I don't know" answer to that statement does not preclude you from being an atheist (in the more inclusive sense).
Quote:I can think of at least one reason to to think a non-religious God might exist, though it is logical in nature, and not much provable by material evidence.
Speculating about possible ways a god can logically exist is not the same thing as believing that god exists.
Quote:I'd say, for example, that like begets like. Material processes, it seems to me, are like to beget material processes only. Since there is mind now, it is possible or likely that there has always been mind as part of the material system we call the Universe, though maybe not that we'd recognize as such.
It's possible, but it's not clear to me if this is the solution to the hard consciousness problem (or if the problem itself really is a problem). That said, a lot of smart thinkers do have strong disagreements with the whole idea of hard emergentism of the mind, so it's something to at least consider for sure.
Quote:A universe which is completely devoid of mind, and then some organic molecules evolve on a tiny blue planet and poof! there's sentience-- this universe seems very strange and unlikely to me. In fact, the idea is so hopelessly anthropocentric that it seems to me it must be rooted in religious dogma.
I agree the whole mind spontaneously emerging because of something to do with the brain itself does come off as a "it just is" kind of thing which bugs me personally, but this could just simply be a psychological/intuitive problem on my part and not a problem with the mind emerging from complex matter.
Quote:If, right from the start, whatever allowed for the existence of material systems which were sentient, already included sentience, then I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to call the genitive philosophical property or entity "God." Maybe we shouldn't call it that-- since we wouldn't want a material panpsychism to serve as a point of reference for religious fucktards-- but it certainly seems like a reasonable possibility philosophically to me that at the Big Bang, there was the seed for both material and mind (or, if you prefer, the property of material which we call "mind").
If you believe that something existed/exists which is worthy of the term "God", then you're some form of theist. It doesn't matter what it may be. Whether we're talking something supernatural, the universe itself, aliens, or even human beings. If you consider any of them to be a god/gods, you are more a theist (but of a kind very different from religious types).
Otherwise, you would be an atheist (in the more inclusive sense of the term).
My opinion, of course.