Can Someone be Simply "An Agnostic?"
June 24, 2014 at 9:14 pm
(This post was last modified: June 24, 2014 at 10:11 pm by Rampant.A.I..)
(June 20, 2014 at 8:52 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote:(June 20, 2014 at 2:03 am)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: It's unanswerable by nature of the question.
Not necessarily. One could construct an argument that does the following:
-Takes a leaf outta of the philosophy of mind's book and lays the groundwork for what constitutes the minimum attributes required for godhood (as philosophers of mind do for the concept of personhood), which would exclude a good many supposed god concepts (many of which really just amount to a worshipped superhuman). Then you proceed with counter-apologetics regarding what is left.
Most of the rest (at least the passage in the spoiler tag) seemed too much like a New Atheist anti-religion rant.
Exactly what in "there is zero contradiction between that which is wholly imaginary and the definition of the supernatural" is anti-religion? I'm a ranting anti-religion new atheist, and have been for 25 years? Compared to who, KC or Taq?
Even if you take a wholly mystic doctrine like Enlightenment Gnosticism that says "Look, this is just a system of metaphor and allegory for reality; we're not saying any of it is literal." Which is why the church found them heretical: they contended God was a concept, not a literal entity.
You can believe whatever you like: I'm telling you I don't have any religious beliefs, and I think the disagreement between theists and most theists boils down to the vocabulary they're using to describe their experiences within the framework they've been handed to to impose order on their reality.
It's more than a little amusing to be told it's impossible to abstain from forming irrational beliefs by people who were once indoctrinated believers and went to the other end of the scale, proclaim they don't believe what they once did, and anyone who still does is an idiot -- because that line of rhetoric ignores the similarity to a theist telling an atheist they secretly know god exists and deny it because they want to sin.
It's not unlike being told atheism is a religion, because it's impossible to not hold religious beliefs. In fact, It's the Jeremy Walker approach to atheism.
"I don't believe one way or the other."
"No you don't, you're an atheist."
Thanks for clearing that up for me; anything else you want to tell me about my mindset?
