Hi, agnostic here :)

[Seraphina]

Hi Erin!
Asking questions is good. As long as you keep doing that, you'll be fine.

Welcome!

-Teresa

[Minimalist]

Welcome, Erin.

[Brian37]

Hi Erin!
Asking questions is good. As long as you keep doing that, you'll be fine.

Welcome!

-Teresa

Objectively yes. But the way religion claims "questioning is good" and they try to claim it too, is about selling, like a used car. 

You don't question to fish for something to latch onto. That is the way humans end up indoctrinated at birth or "question" to see if they fit in. The idea of objective questioning isn't to find anything, but to go where the evidence leads, not where you want it to go.

Plato really fucked up human thought which infected political, religious and economic ideology. He did popularize the idea of questioning, but what he didn't have the knowledge of was our modern scientific concept of control groups, sample rates, compare and contrast and independent peer review.

Questioning means nothing if you go into it looking to find something to fit into. Objective questioning is when you are not seeking your own agenda, or falling for a utopia sales pitch, but when you can separate your own bias from independent review. 

It isn't enough just to "question". You have to put your questions through a neutral filter.

[mlmooney89]

Welcome!

As you see you will see both sides of the fence here. Stick around and there are some pretty heated debates which get into a lot of deep stuff. I'm sure a few convos in and you will pull to one side or the other. Unlike the religious ones though a lot of the atheists just hope you come to your decision through your own logic and feelings. Most of us won't care if you pick to be religious.

When faced with "That was then, this is now" I do care, politically and globally yes. But individually no. I won't disown family or my neighbor if they believe no, but if you vote and everyone does, I do pay attention. 

I have no desire to stab any believer to death, but if you ask me what I think of invisible friends, please don't ask me to lie to you. If you ask me what I think of injecting more religion into government, history shows why that it NOT a good idea and I'd say our most current examples of why that is not a good idea would be Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Dude calm down I wasn't even talking to you. If you don't associate with the 'most atheists' then so be it. You don't hafta go on a rant about it when all I meant was that we won't go ballistic on them for picking religion.

[Brian37]

When faced with "That was then, this is now" I do care, politically and globally yes. But individually no. I won't disown family or my neighbor if they believe no, but if you vote and everyone does, I do pay attention. 

I have no desire to stab any believer to death, but if you ask me what I think of invisible friends, please don't ask me to lie to you. If you ask me what I think of injecting more religion into government, history shows why that it NOT a good idea and I'd say our most current examples of why that is not a good idea would be Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Dude calm down I wasn't even talking to you. If you don't associate with the 'most atheists' then so be it. You don't hafta go on a rant about it when all I meant was that we won't go ballistic on them for picking religion.

That is what sucks about mere text. If this were a face to face conversation you would have known I was merely adding to what you said, not chastising you or anyone. I wont "go ballistic" either, I will however question and even blaspheme religion in general not to force it out of existence, but to insure it doesn't go off the rails. That is what I meant by "No, don't ask me to lie to you(the believer)." 

I was pointing out the difference between human rights, which everyone should value, and the separate issue of the ability for someone to demonstrate the credibility of what they claim, and that goes for even claims not relating to religion. If make a claim, you can, but that does not mean others should never question it nor does any religion deserve a blind pedestal. 

I don't lie to my fellow atheists either. I do not think it is a good idea for atheists to try to re invent our species morality by setting up moral lists and calling those an "ism". Our species morality isn't coming out of a label, not even the word "atheist" has any magic power for the one holding it to only make them do good things. Our species behaviors are evolutionary, both in our capability to be cruel and compassionate. 

None of what you just read was a call for anyone to be a clone of me. Nor am I foaming at the mouth while typing this as you read it. I do vent about my species yes, we are capable of great compassion and empathy, but far to often most humans falsely attach that to a club when our goodness is in our genes, not  our labels.

[mlmooney89]

But see here this is an intro page. You didn't need all that. Erin doesn't need to know all your thoughts and ideas here. If you wanna go into that kind of stuff go to the appropriate thread. Lets try and not scare anyone away just yet.

[Brian37]

But see here this is an intro page. You didn't need all that. Erin doesn't need to know all your thoughts and ideas here. If you wanna go into that kind of stuff go to the appreciate thread. Lets try and not scare anyone away just yet.

Rats, so no hockey masks or white bloody smocks? 

I gotcha.

[brewer]

But see here this is an intro page. You didn't need all that. Erin doesn't need to know all your thoughts and ideas here. If you wanna go into that kind of stuff go to the appreciate thread. Lets try and not scare anyone away just yet.

Brian does not have the ability to recognize inappropriate behavior at an inappropriate time/place.

[Erin27]

Welcome!

I want you to one good rule of doubting and it's the most important rule of it without it is useless and detrimental: "The first rule about doubting is to know when to stop doubting".

To know when start doubting without knowing when to end cannot but end in confusion.   It's good also to know when to start to doubt something, but it is useless without knowing when to stop.

Without knowing when to stop, you may start to doubt things you should not have even started to doubt!

And if you know when to stop, you will know when to start as well (ie. when conditions of knowing when to stop are not met).

I pray God guides you to himself and his chosen guides!

Thanks for your reply. But how do you know when to stop doubting?

---

I guess I'm currently agnostic, although that sounds like I've decided that we can't know whether God exists, which I haven't!
But I just have a lot of questions for both sides of the theism/atheism debate, and I'm hoping that joining forums like this one will help me find some answers.

For some background: I was raised as a Christian, but there seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies that bugged me, like the whole Trinity thing and the existence of suffering. So now I'm trying to start from the beginning and talk to people with lots of different beliefs on this topic. I also study philosophy, so naturally I'm interested in how far logic supports/undermines religious belief.

So, hi I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions with you all!

Hi, and welcome. 

If you know any history behind the word "agnostic" it was a horribly cobbled together prefix and suffix by Thomas Huxley.

"a" is the Greek prefix meaning "without" and "gnostic" meaning "knowledge" when taken as it really should neither tell you what you are "without knowledge" of. So to be used in a real pragmatic way it really should only be treated as qualifying word. 

"Agnostic theist", is basically someone who isn't sure that a god exists and would not give it a specific name or specific attributes, but lean to the "on" position.

An outright theist would be someone who calls themselves a Christian or Muslim Or Jew or Hindu.

The problem with his bad creation of that word is that he never considered time issues, in past claims, current claims and future possible discoveries. 

My current position is "off" . My "God/god/gods/diety/supernatural light switch is currently "off" on all past and current claims. I see no evidence for anything currently claimed much less anything of the past. I am only semantically or "technically" "agnostic" about the future. I am an atheist in "off" now but cant say if something in the future "might" change my mind, although I see that as fleetingly unlikely in my current lucid state.

I call myself an "agnostic atheist". 

Other than that, welcome. Be sure to barbecue kittens, record the NFL without their permission and rip the tags off of your mattress.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not really sure what to call it then... I'm just undecided I suppose. There's a conflict between what I believe I have logical support for, and what I've been raised to feel is right 

[SnowLucario]

If you can't honestly say you believe in Gods, you're an atheist. I called myself agnostic for nearly a year before I realized that it just wasn't the way it was. If you think you have an intellectually superior position, you're wrong.