Agnostic Atheism? Your opinions..

[Whateverist]

Many atheists are frightened to claim to "know" there is no god, even though it's absolutely obvious there is no god. They'd rather err on the side of caution so they have the upper hand in debate, and some maybe genuinely can't be sure and won't commit to sureity based on scientific principle, which is understandable.

However, the way I look at it, is if theists can know god exists then atheists can take the contrary position and know no god, and at least the atheist has a valid reason to claim to know there is no god - NO EVIDENCE = NO GOD!

That is how I feel. I dismiss completely the idea of Gods existing. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that all of the world's religions are myths and bad ones at that.

There is no god, but I do think there is a Santa or at least I am open to the idea.

I too dismiss the idea of god completely. I just choose not to fool myself into thinking I have any positive case against the existence of god when in fact I don't. I can't imagine what fear or caution have to do with it.

If you wish to emulate the theists no one can stop you. They say it is the sincerest form of flattery. From my point of view their reflexive certainty isn't anything to envy. More often it is the mark of an uneducated person, an unreflective person or someone who is actually very insecure about what they should believe. Get a grip!

[Perhaps]

God is probably a poor choice of word for the sentiment you're trying to express. "God" comes with a hefty amount of baggage. A strange choice considering the amount of words available to you in the attempt to express such wonder or beauty. What's wrong with "wonder" and "beauty"?

Perhaps, but I think the word God only comes with baggage when it is observed as a divine and mythical entity. I do not view the universe as divine, nor the natural laws as a provision of a mythical entity. I observe these wonders as being or existing. There is no reason, nor goal, nor wish that they possess. Simply a state of being.

Pantheism addresses this idea of simply existing in a way which agrees with my own opinions. To view the universe (or everything) - pan as God - theist is simply to say that I call the universe something different than you do. I believe in spirituality in the sense of self reflection and personal growth without a divine intention. I believe that there are wonders in this world that may never be explained (as hard as it is for me to rationally say that) and I believe in human ignorance and naivety (of which I have my fair share of). These come together to form my belief system from which I associate with pantheism more so than atheism or theism.

If I cannot ever objectively state either way that God (a personal creator and divine being) exists or does not exist then I have no reason to dwell on the subject. I assert that there is a unity which we all share by nature with nature and thus with all worldly things. We all are in a state of existence with one another with no defined reason or end goal - this state of existence is something I refer to as God - not meaning a person or a divine deity which I praise, simply a word for unity and oneness.

Once again, if you wish to read on pantheism further you could reference http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/

These quotes form Einstein effectively sum up my opinion on the subject:
"Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being."

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." (I would exchange himself with itself in this quote)

[The Grand Nudger]

Spirituality without spirits. Again, there are better words to describe this. You keep using them. "Self Reflection", "Personal Growth", both fine descriptions without invoking any "spirit". The trouble here is that these concepts only survive by their continued use. They needlessly complicate any position without adding any descriptive power whatsoever. If you were to say "I'm interested in spirituality" this is effectively meaningless. If you say "I'm interested in personal growth and self reflection" the message is conveyed as well as it can be.

Spinoza's god, like any god, is an unsubstantiated entity. Adding only confusion, with no ability to describe or explain anything at all. The unity you feel is one which you have invented. I feel no unity with you and would gladly throw you under the bus for myself or mine. Similarly I feel no unity with the animal I'm about to eat. These are all fuzzy words and concepts, that's the point. Whatever background you paint on the cosmos to help you deal with life is your own business obviously. Doesn't mean that any of it is actually there.

[Perhaps]

Spirituality without spirits. Again, there are better words to describe this. You keep using them. "Self Reflection", "Personal Growth", both fine descriptions without invoking any "spirit". The trouble here is that these concepts only survive by their continued use. They needlessly complicate any position without adding any descriptive power whatsoever. If you were to say "I'm interested in spirituality" this is effectively meaningless. If you say "I'm interested in personal growth and self reflection" the message is conveyed as well as it can be.

If you can realize that our perception of these words is similar if not the same then I hope you can realize that our ideas and beliefs are similar if not the same. I use one word, you use another, simple as that (in some cases of my belief).

Spinoza's god, like any god, is an unsubstantiated entity. Adding only confusion, with no ability to describe or explain anything at all. The unity you feel is one which you have invented. I feel no unity with you and would gladly throw you under the bus for myself or mine. Similarly I feel no unity with the animal I'm about to eat. These are all fuzzy words and concepts, that's the point.

Perspective is a wonderful and awe inspiring thing. To you they are all fuzzy words and concepts, to me; however, they are a unity which no one can dismiss. Perhaps I did not verbalize my thoughts clearly or perhaps you flat out disagree with me, either is besides the point of personal belief. I respect that you assert there is no God, and I would hope that you respect that I believe that there is a universe in which all things are connected by the fact that we all exist in unity.

Whatever background you paint on the cosmos to help you deal with life is your own business obviously. Doesn't mean that any of it is actually there.

Correct. Thus it is my belief.

[The Grand Nudger]

All that matters is that you are comfortable with the language you use. I wouldn't worry too much about what I respect or what I don't. You believe this or that, that's fine. There's nothing in your beliefs (however modified) that are undeniable, un-dismissable, or immune to criticism, none of which have anything to do with respect. Here you are at AF. Claim that any sort of god whatsoever exists and someone will crop up to remind you that you have no evidence. That the language you choose is potentially misleading, or that the concept itself is absolutely bankrupt of explanatory power, adding a name to things which have already been named. The pantheists god is no god at all. It's an argument or position assumed to maintain a good fuzzy feeling of warmth which stands directly in the face of anything observed, relying only on what remains unobserved. A clever redefinition of "natural" that adds nothing to our understanding of nature or "god", only a tool for the purposes I just described. Just my two cents.

[houseofcantor]

You're correct, I hadn't put this as my religion yesterday. I've stumbled across a site which made me aware of the aspects of pantheism and I thought they suited my thoughts quite well, thus I changed my 'religion' stance. I am a pantheist in the sense of awe and wonder that the universe provides to us - mere creatures. I appreciate beauty and I use the word God as a synonym for the worldly beauty that I see. I'm not a fundamentalist, nor do I abide by any religious doctrines or any religious textbooks. If you want to know more about pantheism I would reference: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/

And what is wrong with doing the 'if/then thing'? Is that not a form of reasoning? If I say that on the blue carpet there is a dog and you reply by saying that on the green carpet there is no dog therefore on the blue carpet there is no dog, I can simply reply that you must use my original premise and observe the blue carpet to be able to objectively say that there is or is no dog there. As for the article, I'm sorry it's not free, but there's not much I can do about that. I'm sure if you search for cognitive science of religion or philosophy of science on google you can come up with some basic information related to the topic in question.

You're ability to state that you have absolute knowledge of God's non-existence is not probability 1 for the reasons that I posted in my comment prior. Absolute knowledge is not possible to possess, your ability to reasonably state that you assume God does not exist may have a probability of 1, but that's all you have - an assumption based on the best reason you can come up with.

I apologize for my attitude. My naive philosophy has found effective dualities: dual-state identity/zero-state morality. Because this duality balances my dual-state identity, I can achieve parity.

What does this mean? Everything, I'm thinking. Here, I got something for you: Panentheism

It's way better than what your working with. What I'm working with, is simulation. You know, when you read these words; your mind simulates my mind, yeah? By writing and reading these words; by reading the words I have written, the words you have replied, these simulations form.

These simulations stimulate a moral response; a deviation from zero. I know when I do "evil" or "good," "positive" or "negative;" and I am slowly building patterns of response, of my self; of others. I expect to move to a new location soon; where things shall move a little more quickly.

You know tao te ching, yeah? You know YHWH? You know America? Convergence of the emergence. Your signature speaks the wisdom of the tao. My silence has been eleven years. And the inertia of the uncertainty building with the collapse of the American empire shall carry my love to the girl I never met.

And the mind of Gaia shall emerge.

Matriarchy returns, no? The spinning of the globe, the whorl of the heavens, the patterns of sunbeam glimmered through the leaves; and always, always, empty canvas.

The age of the universe is 5.13 x 10 ^61 units of Planck time. Probability predicts a future of infinite possibility based upon mathematical chicanery; the previous number is the limit. And ever since we began, we've been doing it wrong.

When I just "did you wrong" (using the assumption of undercover Christians) I wrote this equivalence: Iam4 = YHWH = i0. That might just be the equation to destabilize the patriarchy; and end the madness. Because of our technology, it may even be possible that there may never again be such madness.

What do I know? The root. 4. 2. 1. Cesium atoms flashing 9 million or billion times a second... YHWH and the endless cycle of 0/1/2/3... that is why it always comes back. We are creatures of 1 (I am) and the 0 (the infinite) terrifies with its unknowablity. We build identity (1/2/3), these words, these diversions, these complaints; because we are programmed from birth to hunt and gather and we never consider - why?

I know why. You are what I must protect myself from. That is logic. That what I consume; is that which I deny you. And when probabilities are used? And when I am is counted in what I got? The unbalance becomes exponential; the end of time is felt, the tipping point is reached, the cascade. The burning of the world in the flame of emergence.

Because I love you, what will I deny you? Because I am zero, what infinity need I fear? If I give you what you need and so too you to I, then why die? You know they say Hitch passed away, today? But Hitch is in my heart and mind, where he always was; his locality simply went non-local.

Think for a moment on this, that in the lives of the world; the hearts and the minds; in one day Hitch is more than 43 years of Johnny Cantor.

Because Life is Identity. In the Void, discreteness does not occur. Seeing - has been deceiving - and we have been feeding the evolutionary fear of our animal with the simulation of the death of Identity... that never occurs.

Extinction as I am, or emergence as We will. That is why, no god need apply. Read the link. Be well.

[Perhaps]

All that matters is that you are comfortable with the language you use. I wouldn't worry too much about what I respect or what I don't. You believe this or that, that's fine. There's nothing in your beliefs (however modified) that are undeniable, un-dismissable, or immune to criticism, none of which have anything to do with respect. Here you are at AF.

Agreed.

Claim that any sort of god whatsoever exists and someone will crop up to remind you that you have no evidence.

If I believe that God is synonymous with the universe (or everything) then I do have ample evidence to state that everything exists. Once again, all we must realize is that we use different words to get to the same point.

That the language you choose is potentially misleading, or that the concept itself is absolutely bankrupt of explanatory power, adding a name to things which have already been named.

It is my belief that it explains the unity of existence that we all share. It provides wonder, awe, beauty, etc.. Without everything, how could there be beauty? Without everything, how could there be wonder? Without everything, how could there be anything?

The pantheists god is no god at all. It's an argument or position assumed to maintain a good fuzzy feeling of warmth which stands directly in the face of anything observed, relying only on what remains unobserved. A clever redefinition of "natural" that adds nothing to our understanding of nature or "god", only a tool for the purposes I just described. Just my two cents.

The fuzzy feeling of warmth which I receive from holding my belief is one that you go without. It is something that comforts me, something that expands my emotions, something that deepens my thoughts. It does not stand in the face of anything observed, it is everything observed.

---

I apologize for my attitude. My naive philosophy has found effective dualities: dual-state identity/zero-state morality. Because this duality balances my dual-state identity, I can achieve parity.

What does this mean? Everything, I'm thinking. Here, I got something for you: Panentheism

It's way better than what your working with. What I'm working with, is simulation. You know, when you read these words; your mind simulates my mind, yeah? By writing and reading these words; by reading the words I have written, the words you have replied, these simulations form.

These simulations stimulate a moral response; a deviation from zero. I know when I do "evil" or "good," "positive" or "negative;" and I am slowly building patterns of response, of my self; of others. I expect to move to a new location soon; where things shall move a little more quickly.

You know tao te ching, yeah? You know YHWH? You know America? Convergence of the emergence. Your signature speaks the wisdom of the tao. My silence has been eleven years. And the inertia of the uncertainty building with the collapse of the American empire shall carry my love to the girl I never met.

And the mind of Gaia shall emerge.

Matriarchy returns, no? The spinning of the globe, the whorl of the heavens, the patterns of sunbeam glimmered through the leaves; and always, always, empty canvas.

The age of the universe is 5.13 x 10 ^61 units of Planck time. Probability predicts a future of infinite possibility based upon mathematical chicanery; the previous number is the limit. And ever since we began, we've been doing it wrong.

When I just "did you wrong" (using the assumption of undercover Christians) I wrote this equivalence: Iam4 = YHWH = i0. That might just be the equation to destabilize the patriarchy; and end the madness. Because of our technology, it may even be possible that there may never again be such madness.

What do I know? The root. 4. 2. 1. Cesium atoms flashing 9 million or billion times a second... YHWH and the endless cycle of 0/1/2/3... that is why it always comes back. We are creatures of 1 (I am) and the 0 (the infinite) terrifies with its unknowablity. We build identity (1/2/3), these words, these diversions, these complaints; because we are programmed from birth to hunt and gather and we never consider - why?

I know why. You are what I must protect myself from. That is logic. That what I consume; is that which I deny you. And when probabilities are used? And when I am is counted in what I got? The unbalance becomes exponential; the end of time is felt, the tipping point is reached, the cascade. The burning of the world in the flame of emergence.

Because I love you, what will I deny you? Because I am zero, what infinity need I fear? If I give you what you need and so too you to I, then why die? You know they say Hitch passed away, today? But Hitch is in my heart and mind, where he always was; his locality simply went non-local.

Think for a moment on this, that in the lives of the world; the hearts and the minds; in one day Hitch is more than 43 years of Johnny Cantor.

Because Life is Identity. In the Void, discreteness does not occur. Seeing - has been deceiving - and we have been feeding the evolutionary fear of our animal with the simulation of the death of Identity... that never occurs.

Extinction as I am, or emergence as We will. That is why, no god need apply. Read the link. Be well.

I honestly wish I was able to accurately follow what you're trying to say in this comment. It's however too complex for my own understanding. One note though, your link is not to what I believe. The sub-link within that link titled pantheism is what I believe.

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, you choose to call something god which already has a name. God explains god? Everything explains everything? This sort of word game adds nothing but confusion. God explains a unity, everything explains unity? God/everything explains wonder? I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount of money that you wont be able to elaborate upon that in the slightest. It's a platitude. What unity? The feeling you get? There's probably a better set of words to describe that, like "my feeling of unity". The italicized bit is the relevant bit. Deciding to call everything god is a hell of a stretch. Language is malleable but not so much that any word can be taken to mean anything at all. Otherwise there's no point in attempting to communicate anything. You may be able to demonstrate the existence of a worm, that doesn't mean that the worm is god, or that the worm testifies to the existence of a god by any definition of the word which isn't constructed specifically to suit your claim.

I get fuzzy feelings all the time, all without the help of your not-god. With no assumptions of unity. I'm not going without anything, your belief isn't giving you a leg up on me in that arena. Why would you assume that it was?

[Perhaps]

Again, you choose to call something god which already has a name. God explains god? Everything explains everything? This sort of word game adds nothing but confusion. God explains a unity, everything explains unity? God/everything explains wonder? I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount of money that you wont be able to elaborate upon that in the slightest. It's a platitude. What unity? The feeling you get? There's probably a better set of words to describe that, like "my feeling of unity". The italicized bit is the relevant bit. Deciding to call everything god is a hell of a stretch. Language is malleable but not so much that any word can be taken to mean anything at all. Otherwise there's no point in attempting to communicate anything.

I'll provide a quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which states my position clearly:
"For the pantheist, however Unity is interpreted, the world is not simply an all-inclusive Unity in the sense that the world, understood to be everything, is the “unity” composed of everything. This would be to interpret it as asserting that everything that exists simply is everything that exists; or to put it another way, everything is (of course) all-inclusively everything. This is true but vacuous, and it trivialises pantheism at the outset.

Attributing Unity simply on the basis of all-inclusiveness is irrelevant to pantheism. Formal unity can always be attributed to the world on this basis alone. To understand the world as “everything” is to attribute a sense of unity to the world, but there is no reason to suppose this sense of all-inclusiveness is the pantheistically relevant Unity. Similarly, unity as mere numerical, class or categorical unity is irrelevant, since just about anything (and everything) can be “one” or a “unity” in these senses. Suppose “formal unity” to be “the sense in which things are one in virtue of the fact that they are members of one and the same class … the same universal” (Demos 1945–6: 538). Then clearly formal unity is not pantheistic Unity. Furthermore, formal unity neither entails or is entailed by types of unity (e.g. substantial unity) sometimes taken to be Unity. Hegel's Geist, Lao Tzu's Tao, Plotinus' “One,” and arguably Spinoza's “substance,” are independent of this kind of formal unity.

Unity is explained in various ways that are often interrelated. These connections range from mutual entailment, to different types of causal and contingent relations. Roughly, Unity is interpreted 1) ontologically; 2) naturalistically — in terms of ordering principle(s), force(s) or plans; 3) substantively — where this is distinguished from “ontologically”; and 4) genealogically — in terms of origin. Christopher Rowe (1980: 57) calls 4 a “genealogical model of explanation” of unity. “Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, the Milesian monists appear to have claimed that what unifies the world is that it sprang from a single undifferentiated substance."

You may be able to demonstrate the existence of a worm, that doesn't mean that the worm is god, or that the worm testifies to the existence of a god by any definition of the word which isn't constructed specifically to suit your claim.

Words are simply definitions - which change quite often as time progresses and knowledge grows. In your scenario, the worm is a part of everything in existence. That same worm testifies to the fact that things exist, and as we know, multiple things comprise everything. If I choose to associate the remarkableness of existence with the term God and I apply that term to be a synonym of everything, then I effectively choose to state that God is everything, and everything is God. More simply stated: If I choose to define God, in my own terms, then God becomes what I wish. It provides me with the warm fuzzy feelings, it provides me with thought provoking ideas, it provides me with comfort.

I get fuzzy feelings all the time, all without the help of your not-god. With no assumptions of unity. I'm not going without anything, your belief isn't giving you a leg up on me in that arena. Why would you assume that it was?

I'm glad that we both get fuzzy feelings all the time. Perhaps we even get them for the same reasons. I simply associate mine with a different word. Mine carries with it a sense of humility and personal naivety which allows me to appreciate the natural beauty that I encounter - something that I never hope to lose. I can't state what your's carries, perhaps the same, perhaps different, but either way we each have our own.

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, god as a word game. Nothing wrong with that, god always is a word game. This one is just more transparent than the others. Platitudes irritate the shit out of me, it's nothing personal.