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Current time: October 31, 2026, 2:37 pm
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Why Agnosticism?
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 (June 1, 2011 at 5:25 pm)diffidus Wrote: I liked the Carl Sagan story. I agree with most of it. He is saying that he does not believe the Dragon is in the garage because he cannot find a measurement which confirms it. What he is saying is that if there is no recognizable difference between an invisible, untouchable, and undetectable dragon and no dragon at all, why believe that there is one? Quote: But he has reached an Agnostic position which is that he is keeping an open mind. He is not claiming that the Dragon does not exist. And neither do we, why can't you grasp that concept? We are not saying it does not exist, we are saying we see no evindence for one so we don't believe in one.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you 
I have yet to meet one person who didnt understand the Dragon in the Garage analogy..except for you.
I am a BIG fan of Sagan. Sure, he said he was agnostic, but he NEVER gave special pleading like you are doing for the religious.  RE: Why Agnosticism?
June 1, 2011 at 6:54 pm
(This post was last modified: June 2, 2011 at 2:16 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(May 31, 2011 at 6:49 am)diffidus Wrote: When I say Agnostic, I mean someone who recognises that there is simply not sufficient knowledge to rule out, with 100% certainty, that God exists. Scientific view of the world is such that in principle, not just in practice, there will never, ever be sufficient knowledge to rule anything out with 100% certainty. Using the logic you applied above, the only logical position on anything, including whether you were born out of the sphincter of an alligator, is agnosticism. However, if you apply agnosticism to any particular god, but not to your parentage or mode of birth, then that strongly implies either: 1. You've been sold a special pleading style of world view in which you, possibly overawed by the magnitude of stupid devotion in others, treat the trivial possibility of god's existence differently from the trivial possibility of your being born out of the ass of an alligator. 2. or A fundamental lack of grasp of the very quantitative, not qualitative, nature of certainty in all knowledge, and therefore you entertain non-sesnsical objections from the stupid devotee purely because the non-zero nature of infinitesimal possibility where it applies to the particularly interested devotee's worship has been pointed out to you, where as the non-zero nature of the possibility that you were born out of the ass of an alligator has not, because you fail to see that qualitative similarity of their mathematical insignificance. 
Saying one is "agnostic" rather than "atheist", when the two mean exactly the same thing is a cop out, often to avoid the negative connotations of atheism.
The OP's first argument is full of holes, and I think they should definitely refer to a dictionary before making a statement. 
Diffidus, all I have to say in terms of what you call 'trivialising', God is just as bloody trivial to me as a fucking unicorn.
Christ on a cracker, another one of these? Oh the glory of simply saying, I can neither confirm nor deny. Atheism and theism mean the the lack of belief in, or belief in a god/s respectively. No one can completely dismiss the existence of anything, however instead of retaining an infinite amount of possible entities, on a scientific basis we have to at least categorize them by probability. Can you imagine marine biologists going out to tag hammerhead sharks, while looking for the elusive leviathan? That isn't how the world works. People can make casts of big feet all they want, but until they provide a carcass or live one, bigfoot doesnt exist. Should we hold off on passing judgement until no one believes anymore? Is there any purpose to that? 1000 years ago, everyone believed in dragons, did that make dragons more likely? Not at all. Lose the superiority complex dude, actually read definitions. I do not believe in X is not a claim of knowledge. I don't believe in a lot of ridiculous beings that humans have made up, and I am just as comfortable saying that a god is just as likely to exist as a leprechaun. Until someone proves otherwise, both are equally bunk.
"In our youth, we lacked the maturity, the decency to create gods better than ourselves so that we might have something to aspire to. Instead we are left with a host of deities who were violent, narcissistic, vengeful bullies who reflected our own values. Our gods could have been anything we could imagine, and all we were capable of manifesting were gods who shared the worst of our natures."-Me
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon  (June 1, 2011 at 11:51 pm)tavarish Wrote: Saying one is "agnostic" rather than "atheist", when the two mean exactly the same thing is a cop out, often to avoid the negative connotations of atheism. Sorry tavarish ( and others ) but the two don't mean the same thing. An agnostic says it is not known if god exists. An atheist disbelieves in god...period. The atheist position is a stronger statement as to the improbability of god's existence. I can't get the attraction for adding agnostic before atheist. How many times on this site do we explain the atheist position to the religious by stating atheism is no more than not believing in god????? Would the site logo be better for changing the wording to " agostic atheist forums "? I think not.  A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
I thought agnosticism had nothing at all to do with theistic/atheistic belief structures and related to the certainty of knowledge?
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari (June 3, 2011 at 5:21 am)tackattack Wrote: I thought agnosticism had nothing at all to do with theistic/atheistic belief structures and related to the certainty of knowledge? can I refer you back to my post 15 which may help. A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
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