Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[Deesse23]

Dude, I'm done, go bother somebody else, you're annoying me.

He likes to hear himself talk, a lot.

[Belacqua]

At work.

It seems clear to me that people can believe contradictory things, simultaneously.


I don't understand the question, I guess.

Of course kids and adults may believe different things. Atheists and Christians believe different things. I don't see how this is on topic here....?

So..... you don't grok the difference between;

Some one believing something to be 'True' (As in their mental idea matches reality) when, in fact, they ate wrong/mistaken.

Which is different to;

Some one believing a colour is both black AND white at the same time.

(If folks can give a better example of 'A' and 'Not A', that'd be great)


Y'see the difference between the two statements Bel?

Cheers.

Still not seeing quite what you're up to.

A statement which is merely false is not the same as holding contradictory beliefs. That's clear. 

"Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science" is a false statement some people believe. 

"God is omni-benevolent and allows children to die of cancer" is a logical contradiction which some people believe.

[Deesse23]

At work.

It seems clear to me that people can believe contradictory things, simultaneously.


I don't understand the question, I guess.

Of course kids and adults may believe different things. Atheists and Christians believe different things. I don't see how this is on topic here....?

So..... you don't grok the difference between;

Some one believing something to be 'True' (As in their mental idea matches reality) when, in fact, they ate wrong/mistaken.

Which is different to;

Some one believing a colour is both black AND white at the same time.

(If folks can give a better example of 'A' and 'Not A', that'd be great)


Y'see the difference between the two statements Bel?

Cheers.

Dude, you are feeding a troll.....and you know it...deep inside
Oh, and before someone accuses me of believing Bel is a troll, i also do believe he isnt.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

So..... you don't grok the difference between;

Some one believing something to be 'True' (As in their mental idea matches reality) when, in fact, they ate wrong/mistaken.

Which is different to;

Some one believing a colour is both black AND white at the same time.

(If folks can give a better example of 'A' and 'Not A', that'd be great)


Y'see the difference between the two statements Bel?

Cheers.

Still not seeing quite what you're up to.

A statement which is merely false is not the same as holding contradictory beliefs. That's clear. 

"Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science" is a false statement some people believe. 

"God is omni-benevolent and allows children to die of cancer" is a logical contradiction which some people believe.

I dunno Bel.

I think your time in the land of the rising sun is damaging your native language skills.....

*Shrug*

[Deesse23]

Page 6

We are talking about people and people can not believe a god exists and not believe a god exists simultaneously, people do not function that way so I don't know what you are babbling about.

fast forward to page 9:

"God is omni-benevolent and allows children to die of cancer" is a logical contradiction which some people believe.

[The Grand Nudger]

Bel, you're describing things that you believe to be contradictory while asserting that this somehow shows that human thought violates identity- but it doesn't

Do they believe those contradictory things while simultaneously not believing them?

[R00tKiT]

Eighteen centuries is small potatoes.  We've been fully modern for 50k, at least.  Your god, and in fact the abrahamic god which predates your silly religion, are only a small fraction of what people have thought about gods. 

Unless you were with these people 50k years ago, that's just another baseless assertion about "what poeple thought about gods".

The religious narrative, whether you believe in it or not, does go back to the very first human being and calls him Adam, who happens to be a prophet according to Islam. The point is, I only mentioned eighteen centuries to fit your gregorian calendar.

I don't see what you find so disconcerting about the fact that other people have been looking around -not- seeing gods for longer than they've been made to believe your own? 

Your use of the word "own" is very misguided and wrong. Allah or Yahweh' or the Christian God are all names for the one central idea of the highest possible power conceivable. The latter idea is not the invention of Islam or something we have copyrights over because we label it Allah. It's something we're wired to believe in, very probably because this same power did it.

You're just playing with words as usual to push the "too many gods so which to choose" agenda. When in reality we all know, including you, that all this wordplay goes back to the same parcimonious idea of the one highest being.

[The Grand Nudger]

Unless you were with Big Mo in that cave, your religion is a baseless assertion. Sure you want to run with that one?

We know what people have thought about gods...because they've written it down, you nutter. For as long as people have been writing about gods, people have been writing about not believing in them. People have been writing about gods for far longer than they've been writing about yours. Before they were writing it down, they were producing religious paraphernalia..or, in some cases, not doing so. All of this suggest that people were both believing and not believing, before they wrote about believing and not believing, which already dwarfs your infants god's place in history.

There was no adam and eve. Full stop.

You don't worship the same god that jews and christians do, you simply refer to some of their magic books as a borrowed ladder while claiming they got it wrong. Christians also do this. It would probably surprise you..but no one else reading, that the jews also did this. No matter, in the end, since the majority of people who have ever believed in god did not believe in the abrahamic god in the first place...and no matter how many people have ever believed in any god, there have always been people who did not.

Personally, I don't have a dog in the "too many gods" fight, so have that argument with someone else who does. I don't care how many gods there are, I have as much use for any of them as I do for yours. Precisely none. Further, you have a factually innacurrate view of what gods have been to the majority of people who have ever believed them. They are not, in fact, the "highest being". That's just one flavor of theistic belief. Believe whatever you like, tell people about those beliefs, sure...but don't expect your beliefs to take priority over simple facts of history that shouldn't and don't have to call them into question. That's just you saddling your own silly god with your own even sillier and patently ignorant mythical revisions to human history and origins.

-and none of it has anything do with agnosticism whatsoever. There are people in the world who don't claim to know that there is a god, and by brute force of demographics - the majority of them are your brethren believers. Some of them, sure, are not believers...but the only thing these people are telling you - between the lot of them, is that they don't personally know whether or not a god exists. Do you understand?

[Mister Agenda]

However, there being only two options does not mean you have to select one as your position.

In the case of the existence of God. You do select an option. If you live as though God doesn't exist, that is, you're not following any religion or spirituality, then you practically did go for the second option [God doesn't exist]. I mean by God here the deity with the three-omni properties of course, and the just kind of deity.

My main point is that, if you sincerely exhausted all possible avenues looking for a just deity, then this deity surely doesn't exist. But then again it all comes down to exhausting all possible avenues.

It's entirely possible that a just deity could exist without me finding it. Now a tri-omni God is ridiculous and does not exist, it falls apart under its own definition, attributes, and premises.

The problem of evil applies to a tri-omni God: if it's all-powerful and all-benevolent; it wouldn't create a universe with creatures capable of suffering. The existence of suffering is evidence against that version of God being real.

A tri-omni God knows all of it's future actions and because its knowledge is perfect, it can't do otherwise; but an omnipotent being could choose to do otherwise that it foresees...but if it does, it wasn't truly omniscient, it was wrong about what it was going to do.

Not to mention all the things I can do that a tri-omni God cannot: grow, learn, make mistakes, repent, be surprised, fail, doubt, and regret; a tri-omni being is the most alien creature imaginable. But it doesn't exist. It attributes are incompatible with each other. It's clearly the result of generations of religious people claiming their god is greater than anyone else's until they hit 'it knows everything and can do anything and loves everything more than anyone'.

But the god of deism might be real, or an intervening god that doesn't always know what the long-term effects of its actions will be. The God of the Bible and Koran is said to be all-powerful and all-knowing; but it acts a lot like a human capable of being surprised (or at least being angry about somebody doing something that supposedly it knew they were going to do for eternity) and doing things it later regrets. The deity you're claiming that logically would be above all that isn't real.

---

don't believe the 'no god' option is true either; but I personally assign it a high probability because I think it's more likely to be true. 

Then you're not an agnostic. I am also curious to know how you reached this high probability of non existence.

I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't know there's no God, I just think it's unlikely. The tri-omni God falls apart on close examination; the other versions of a creator God and the other gods are indistinguishable from campfire stories. For any god to be real, the supernatural also has to be real, and no supernatural claims have ever stood up to close scrutiny. The tri-omni God is impossible and the others have no evidence. The God of deism is the most coherent and it still lacks any evidence at all in support of its existence.

[R00tKiT]

For as long as people have been writing about gods, people have been writing about not believing in them. 

Okay, name a genuine nonbeliever in any god, one, in Muhammad's era. I'll wait.

All of this suggest that people were both believing and not believing, before they wrote about believing and not believing, which already dwarfs your infants god's place in history.

Sure they were. In any point in history, there were smokers and non-smokers. But the predominent theme and the righteous idea , that even non-smokers acknowledge, was that smoking is bad. That is my point, the idea was always there for both sides to think about, before deciding to accept or reject it. The highest being idea was always there and people writing about not believing in it is also evidence for that.
Of course there will be always people who reject even the most straightforward facts about reality. Sophists did exist after all, and defended their thoughts heavily in writing. Their thoughts are nevertheless universally regarded as BS.

No matter, in the end, since the majority of people who have ever believed in god did not believe in the abrahamic god in the first place

Back to wordplay again. I find it hard to distinguish between the notion of an Abrahamic God, and the notion of a supreme force people used to believe in when contemplating some aspect of beauty/majesty in their everyday life. There is absolutely no difference, it's just more attempts to overcomplicate the God concept.

Abraham reportedly confronted idols and when he saw no response, he destroyed them and then sought the new deity in the Moon, then the Sun, then simply accepted the highest imaginable being as his God. This is the Abrahamic God by definition. And good luck making a case for large crowds of people rejecting Abarahm's line of thought - basically every believer's reason for believing ever - and writing about their wooden idols as supreme symbols of beauty.

It's entirely possible that a just deity could exist without me finding it.

If you mean by not finding it that there was no possible way for you to do so, then I beg to differ. A just deity, by definition, is just to its creatures, justness entails not leaving them lost in the most fundamental questions of life. What I see around me appears to imply design and care from a higher being, I am basically wired for belief. New understanding of natural processes through science doesn't change the fact that we tend to believe. This very fact should at least suggest to seriously looking for answers in revelation.
It will be dishonest for anyone to say he doesn't feel there are aspects of being taken care of in his life in some way.

Now a tri-omni God is ridiculous and does not exist, it falls apart under its own definition, attributes, and premises.

The problem of evil applies to a tri-omni God: if it's all-powerful and all-benevolent; it wouldn't create a universe with creatures capable of suffering. The existence of suffering is evidence against that version of God being real.

A tri-omni God knows all of it's future actions and because its knowledge is perfect, it can't do otherwise; but an omnipotent being could choose to do otherwise that it foresees...but if it does, it wasn't truly omniscient, it was wrong about what it was going to do.

Not to mention all the things I can do that a tri-omni God cannot: grow, learn, make mistakes, repent, be surprised, fail, doubt, and regret; a tri-omni being is the most alien creature imaginable. But it doesn't exist. It attributes are incompatible with each other. It's clearly the result of generations of religious people claiming their god is greater than anyone else's until they hit 'it knows everything and can do anything and loves everything more than anyone'.

I think we already discussed this point when talking about free will.
If you mean by all-benevolent all-loving, then no, this is not one of the attributes all major religions agree on. The three-omni properties generally refer to  : eternal, omnipotent and omniscient. Once stuff about love kicks in, which is essentially an attempt to anthropomorphise God, we can come up with all kinds of contradicitions, as is the case with the all-loving Christian God throwing Muslims to hell for eternal damnation. God in Islam is not all-loving, and this is explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an.
Three-omni God cannot grow? Sure. Growth already entails being incomplete, we grow to approach something, some limit, some higher state of existence. But for God there is nothing to grow for by definition. Not being able to grow is not a logical problem, it's wordplay again on the definition of God.
The same can be said about being surprised, failing, doubting, regreting ... These are all doings of human beings dealing with unknowable stuff - like the future, other people's thoughts, etc. For God there is again nothing unknowable, and God not being able to be surprised [lol] is again not a problem, it's simply you playing with the adjective "able" hoping to rule out his existence.

I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't know there's no God, I just think it's unlikely. The tri-omni God falls apart on close examination; the other versions of a creator God and the other gods are indistinguishable from campfire stories. For any god to be real, the supernatural also has to be real, and no supernatural claims have ever stood up to close scrutiny. The tri-omni God is impossible and the others have no evidence. The God of deism is the most coherent and it still lacks any evidence at all in support of its existence.

If you think the three-omni God concept falls apart - I just explained that this is not the case - , then you are an atheist of the hard kind toward the God of all major religions. You are simply confirming the point of my post : we actually do take sides regarding the three omni god, since its attributes are so extreme he either is obviously there or obviously non-existent.