(January 13, 2014 at 9:17 am)max-greece Wrote: I suppose a lot will depend on accepting the coin toss analogy. In my experience agnostics tend to approach this issue as:
God demands faith.
Faith denies evidence.
I do not know if God exists.
Often accompanied by - but I think there is "something" up there and that something has varying degrees of god-like qualities ranging from a deist position to all but the Christian God.
As for the OP I can understand the desire to avoid the label but membership of the atheist club isn't exactly onerous. If you do not believe there is a God you are somewhat in the club - whatever you want to refer to that as.
No, but it is amazing the number of people who I would describe as Atheists, yet they themselves would not*, yet they have almost identical beliefs to myself.
*They tend to describe themselves as Agnostics. Agnosticism as far as I understand it, means not knowing for certain. I can believe/disbelieve something, but not know it is true. Then you get onto at what stage can you claim to know something...
As far as the "Oh but there's something greater than ourselves", again I think it stems back to thinking if you don't believe the claim a God exists, you must believe no God exists, so you are covering yourself. Often accompanied with "I'm open-minded".
