Calling All Agnostics!

cristoir

I have noticed this forum deals mainly with Atheism. Are there any Agnostics like myself around? and how do you find find being an Agnostic in Ireland?

Otacon

I am an agnostic atheist. What are you?

chalkitdown

cristoir wrote: »

I have noticed this forum deals mainly with Atheism. Are there any Agnostics like myself around? and how do you find find being an Agnostic in Ireland?

No there are not. It is a position still to be discovered around here. You will have to row in with the Atheists like the rest of us.

MagicMarker

chalkitdown wrote: »

No there are not. It is a position still to be discovered around here. You will have to row in with the Atheists like the rest of us.

Actually you'll find most of the atheists who post here are agnostics.

cristoir

Otacon wrote: »

I am an agnostic atheist. What are you?

A Spiritual Agnostic.

MagicMarker

cristoir wrote: »

A Spiritual Agnostic.

A spiritual atheist agnostic or a spiritual theist agnostic?

cristoir

MagicMarker wrote: »

A spiritual atheist agnostic or a spiritual theist agnostic?

Atheist.

Pushtrak

cristoir wrote: »

A Spiritual Agnostic.

What is this "spiritual" thing to you? What does it mean?

cristoir

Pushtrak wrote: »

What is this "spiritual" thing to you? What does it mean?

Basically spiritual agnosticism is a philosophy that believes in Universal Ethics and that any question of if a God exists is a purely academic one. What matters is what we do now in this life. A more cynical version of SBNR if you will.

On a personal level I would associate spiritualism with Humanistic qualities, of course spiritualism means many different things to many different people.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

catholic agnostics or protestant agnostics?

chalkitdown

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

catholic agnostics or protestant agnostics?

L O forkin L.

Pushtrak

cristoir wrote: »

Basically spiritual agnosticism is a philosophy that believes in Universal Ethics and that any question of if a God exist is a purely academic one. What matter is what we do now in this life. A more cynical version of SBNR if you will.

On a personal level I would associate spiritualism with Humanistic qualities, of course spiritualism means many different things to many different people.

Sounds like you are referring more to secular humanism than spirituality.

Rev Hellfire

Ohh goodie another chance for the pedantics.

Zombrex

cristoir wrote: »

Basically spiritual agnosticism is a philosophy that believes in Universal Ethics and that any question of if a God exist is a purely academic one. What matter is what we do now in this life. A more cynical version of SBNR if you will.

That surely requires a rejection of at least the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam Judaism) given that the existence of their "God" would be anything but academic if he actually existed (since he is going to throw your ass into hell if he does :P).

So it seems to be more accurate to say spiritual atheism, at least in respect to the Abrahamic religions. You believe in possibility of the supernatural but not in the likelihood of the existence of the Abrahamic god.

Sky King

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Ohh goodie another chance for the pedantics.

*Pedants.

qrrgprgua

Otacon wrote: »

I am an agnostic atheist.

I would call you confused.

Pushtrak

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I would call you confused.

That would be you...

Ellis Dee

MagicMarker wrote: »

Actually you'll find most of the atheists who post here are agnostics.

I tend to agree with you. As reluctant as I am to get into hair-splitting, I'd like to remind y'all that even the brilliant Richard Dawkins ranks himself as only a 6.9 or so on the atheist scale of 0-7 (0 - absolutely convinced that there is a god or some other kind of all-controlling supernatural entity, 7 - absolutely certain the whole idea is shit.) No one (apart, of course, from religious nutters) can ever be 100% certain of anything.

Otacon

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I would call you confused.

I'm confused about a great many things, but not this. It took a lot of thought and questioning. In the end, I realised I do not know if a god exists, but I do not believe he/she/it does.

Are you confused about my position because I can try explaining it again if you like?

wylo

still undecided whether im an agnostic or atheist agnostic, it would have to depend on what people mean by God exactly tbh because I think that word has been stretched all over the place.
I can confirm now that the God I do NOT believe in is your basic catholic granny that thinks theres some 'person' or being of sorts that is beyond the Universe but in control of it.

Galvasean

wylo wrote: »

I can confirm now that the God I do NOT believe in is your basic catholic granny that thinks theres some 'person' or being of sorts that is beyond the Universe but in control of it.

That's why I don't really 'get' the more wishy-washy hard to define kind of deistic God that is commonly mooted as a kind of 'cosmic force' that holds everything together. If you're going to take away from it everything that makes it a God then why call it God at all?

postitnote

Catholic Atheist, Agnostic protestant.

If there is a god he'll be a prod, and he'll just absolutely love the new Giants Causeway visitors centre.

Zombrex

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I would call you confused.

Given how abused the term "agnostic" is in modern usage that is a fair enough position to hold, but it is important to understand that on this forum most people are aware of the proper use of the term agnostic and use it as such. The proper usage of the term is rather different to the usage it has morphed into in modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

wylo

Galvasean wrote: »

wylo wrote: »

I can confirm now that the God I do NOT believe in is your basic catholic granny that thinks theres some 'person' or being of sorts that is beyond the Universe but in control of it.

That's why I don't really 'get' the more wishy-washy hard to define kind of deistic God that is commonly mooted as a kind of 'cosmic force' that holds everything together. If you're going to take away from it everything that makes it a God then why call it God at all?

True, but your only coming from the angle of the Catholic god, thats why the other 'God would seem wishy washy.
We dont even know exactly what Jesus was referring to.

Pushtrak

wylo wrote: »

We dont even know exactly what Jesus was referring to.

It doesn't sound like you are referring to deism when you say this. And, honestly, I don't know what it is supposed to mean.

endacl

Judean Popular People's Front.

Splitters.

wylo

fair point, I just see different references of the word coming from different angles , hence the word "God" for me personally has been thrown up in the air a bit. sorry for the confusion.

Galvasean

wylo wrote: »

True, but your only coming from the angle of the Catholic god, thats why the other 'God would seem wishy washy.
We dont even know exactly what Jesus was referring to.

Well, I've heard several deists refer to God as being 'a sort of cosmic energy that holds the universe together'. That's not a God. That is a cosmic energy that holds the universe together. You might as well just call physics God if you want to go down that road.

ShooterSF

Which is why I like to always mention the poor forgotten ignostic position here. Hell even the spell checker doesn't recognise the word!

recedite

cristoir wrote: »

Basically spiritual agnosticism is a philosophy that believes in Universal Ethics and that any question of if a God exists is a purely academic one. What matters is what we do now in this life. A more cynical version of SBNR if you will.

On a personal level I would associate spiritualism with Humanistic qualities, of course spiritualism means many different things to many different people.

The SBNR thing seems to be mainly popular with youthful Americans, which could indicate a growing phenomenon, or it could indicate a temporary philosophy which someone from a religious family adopts for a while before gradually concluding that they are an agnostic atheist. IMO the latter.

"Spiritualism" can mean many different things alright. The ancient Greeks had an interesting angle on it. They differentiated between the "Spirit" and the "Soul". Soul was the contemplative characteristic. Spirit was the active one, like for example a spirited horse. IMO the Christian religion has over the years taken these separate concepts and got them confused into one.

InchicoreDude

I dont like that original diagram. My understanding of being an agnostic is that it is someone who believes it is impossible to prove a God or disprove a God. That is not an uncertain position. It is not a position where you are uncertain whether to believe in God or not. It is a position where you are certain that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.

It is a far more certain position than any of the other 3 actually.

recedite

InchicoreDude wrote: »

My understanding of being an agnostic is that it is someone who believes it is impossible to prove a God or disprove a God.

If the question is "Does God/ do gods exist" then you areuncertain if you can't prove one way or the other. You can still believe or be of the opinion that the alleged existence of the god is a false assertion though, in which case you are an agnostic atheist.

ShooterSF

InchicoreDude wrote: »

I dont like that original diagram. My understanding of being an agnostic is that it is someone who believes it is impossible to prove a God or disprove a God. That is not an uncertain position. It is not a position where you are uncertain whether to believe in God or not. It is a position where you are certain that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.

It is a far more certain position than any of the other 3 actually.

Do you believe vampiric space unicorns exist? Can you ever prove or know they don't?

The answers should probably be no (atheist equivalence) and no (agnostic equivalence). However if you were asked do you believe they exist in day to day conversation you would (hopefully) scoff and answer no, you would feel no need to qualify the statement with the fact you can't prove it. That's why most here while being agnostic and atheist describe simply as atheist.

Anywho, it's all shorthand labelling at the end of the day, our claims to knowledge are actually what you describe as the most certain position whatever the label.

SeanW

I'm an Agnostic, and I describe my religious position absolutely and exclusively via this term. I get a lot of flak from Atheists for this, such people tend to be more certain of the negative than I am. Much more so.

I call myself agnostic because I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, is out there beyond the physical realm. I have no evidence for any, and as such I accept no supernatural claims, but I consider Gnostic Atheism to be as bizarre and ridiculous as any unfounded religious claim because of the sheer odds involved. Hence, no matter how much I consider the issue, I'm back to Square 1: No clue.

I can take comfort however, in the fact that I am in the company of such luminaries as Albert Einsten, Alexander Graham Bell and Sir David Attenborough.

Pushtrak

SeanW wrote: »

I'm an Agnostic, and I describe my religious position absolutely and exclusively via this term. I get a lot of flak from Atheists for this, such people tend to be more certain of the negative than I am. Much more so.

Atheism isn't a positive claim of "there is no god" it is just not accepting the theistic claim. See some of the earlier stuff in this thread. Don't call yourself atheist if you don't want, but when you express the reasoning for abstaining from the atheist label as the above, you ought to be corrected.

mrac

Gnostic Atheism is a bizarre stance indeed although all atheist I know, myself included are agnostic atheists.

Are there any gnostic atheists out there on boards?

TheChizler

SeanW wrote: »

I'm an Agnostic, and I describe my religious position absolutely and exclusively via this term. I get a lot of flak from Atheists for this, such people tend to be more certain of the negative than I am. Much more so.

I call myself agnostic because I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, is out there beyond the physical realm. I have no evidence for any, and as such I accept no supernatural claims, but I consider Gnostic Atheism to be as bizarre and ridiculous as any unfounded religious claim because of the sheer odds involved. Hence, no matter how much I consider the issue, I'm back to Square 1: No clue.

I can take comfort however, in the fact that I am in the company of such luminaries as Albert Einsten, Alexander Graham Bell and Sir David Attenborough.

Can I ask what you think/believe regardless of whether you think it is provable/possible or not? Or do you simply not know what you think? If so I'm sorry I couldn't be sure of that from your last post.

Pushtrak

mrac wrote: »

Gnostic Atheism is a bizarre stance indeed although all atheist I know, myself included are agnostic atheists.

Are there any gnostic atheists out there on boards?

I'd be a strong atheist, particularly where interventionist deities are concerned. Definitely wouldn't be a Gnostic Atheist though. I saw this posted somewhere, and figured I'd get quite a high score, but only actually got a 76.

Edit: It was some time back I got the 76. On retaking it I got 82.
Edit 2: Course, this quiz confuses agnostic and atheism so didn't really do much to back up the point of my earlier post :pac:

mrac

I got a score of 80, it seems I'm a strong atheist so :P

wylo

I got 61, crap survey, the answers were a small bit too extreme and seemed to support the view of either more hardline atheism or hardline believer, although to be fair the result put me in the category Id agree with.

mrac

Yeah it was very much all or nothing questions. Given a broader spectrum of possible answers things would be very different.

SeanW

Pushtrak wrote: »

Atheism isn't a positive claim of "there is no god" it is just not accepting the theistic claim. See some of the earlier stuff in this thread. Don't call yourself atheist if you don't want, but when you express the reasoning for abstaining from the atheist label as the above, you ought to be corrected.

TheChizler wrote: »

Can I ask what you think/believe regardless of whether you think it is provable/possible or not? Or do you simply not know what you think? If so I'm sorry I couldn't be sure of that from your last post.

Ok, I'll try to explain why my stance on religious matter is agnosticism, and not atheism.

I'll start by questioning that graph that was shown earlier, for two reasons:

1. To get the right answers, you first have to ask the right questions. The real question everyone wants to know, is "where do you go when you die?" I contend that nothing else matters, the question of gods is secondary.
2. Some bizarre interpretations of that graph make it impossible for a person to be just one thing. I once had this argument with Atheists who said something to the effect of "You can't be just agnostic, you can only be Agnostic-Atheist or Agnostic-Theist. See? It's on this graph ..." Needless to say, my view is that if your religious stance is guided by one particular idea, it is possible to be just a Muslim or a Buddhist or agnostic or whatever.

My fundamental view on matters of supernatural/spirituality is that "Unknwon is the answer" and that we really shouldn't worry too much about it either way, given that we know very little and have control over even less.

I reject religion, especially Abrahamic religion, which Pat Condell once called "a crock of dangerous, evil, dehumanising superstitious garbage" and frankly I think he was being kind.

On the main question of "where do we go," you can try to answer the question by using common sense and logic but you won't get far. For there are only two possible answers:

1. We have souls or spirits, and as such we go somewhere, possibly outside of the physical realm.
2. We are unremarkable bags of chemicals and 80% water, so when we die, that's it. We simply cease to exist.

There is some evidence for #2 since we know considerably more about the brain and its impact on personality. Since we also know mankind evolved rather than being created in a fashion directly attributable to a supernatural entity, that there would likely have to have been one defining generation of primate ancestors that suddenly gained a conciousness and spirit. That doesn't seem likely.

But accepting this raises as many questions as it does answers. That is to say that while we can indeed explain through natural means, everything that happened from the time of the Big Bang, through to the formation and evolution of life on Earth, the odds against a planet anywhere in the universe giving birth to an intelligent lifeform are truly mind boggling. Indeed I once saw part of a series of documentaries on Channel 4 called "Catastrophe," chronicalling the evolution of life on Earth as a series of mega disasters that happened to this planet in a very particular sequence over a long period of time, (on a planet that just happened to be nowhere near dead starts, black holes etc). Each mega-catastrophe should have destroyed Earth, or at least made it permanently uninhabitable, but instead seemed to have a particular evolutionary effect on the life within, in specific concert with other mega-catastrophes that had happened over time.

That's when it comes down to your personal outlook/philosophy. Either you accept that mankind was just very, very, very lucky, e.g. on part with buying a lottery ticket from every lottery scheme on Earth and winning each one, and then doing it again, many times over. Or, if you're religious and accept evolution, then you take the view that your parrticular god guided all of this. Or, like me, it raises a new question. Why are we here?

And that's why I'm agnostic. Though I consider the Abrahamic God story, especially the one told in mosques and churces, to be utterly insane and totally beyond belief, I find the "we just got here by accident" to be similarly unlikely given the sheer odds against it. It's not that each theory is equally valid, so much that each theory is equally ridiculous.

Hence, I'm back to where I started "Unknown is the answer."

Pushtrak

SeanW wrote: »

1. To get the right answers, you first have to ask the right questions. The real question everyone wants to know, is "where do you go when you die?" I contend that nothing else matters, the question of gods is secondary.
2. Some bizarre interpretations of that graph make it impossible for a person to be just one thing. I once had this argument with Atheists who said something to the effect of "You can't be just agnostic, you can only be Agnostic-Atheist or Agnostic-Theist. See? It's on this graph ..." Needless to say, my view is that if your religious stance is guided by one particular idea, it is possible to be just a Muslim or a Buddhist or agnostic or whatever.

1) Thing is, theism is about god belief. It isn't about afterlife. One could not believe in an afterlife while believing in a god, or could believe in an afterlife in the absence of a god. I've come across people with both positions.

2) A/gnostic deals in knowledge, not belief. A/theism deals in belief. You have what you know and you have what you believe. These are different commodities. If I was to ask you what time it was to the minute (without checking..), or to the second of the minute, you should have no problem with the hour, you would know that much undoubtedly. Beyond that you would be going in to belief, perhaps.

(Apologies if the hypothetical sucks, but didn't want to be staring at the screen trying to come up with a better one.)

mrac

I would agree with you in that "unknown is the answer" however your post seems to imply that atheists propose some other answer. All atheist means is a lack of belief in god(s), not "there is no god(s)" nor does it attempt to answer where we came from or where we'll go when we die.

From reading back over the thread most people posting seems to agree that the answer to the questions:
Where did we come from?
Where do we go when we die?
Is there a god?
Is simple we dont know.

Similarly the answer to the question:
Do you believe in any of the gods put forward by the various religions out there?
Seems to be a no.

If one wants to label this stance as "atheist" or "agnostic" it doesnt really matter they are just labels at the end of the day. However it would be nice in general if there were single accepted definitions for the two terms. (I'm not just referring to this threat as definitions of the above two labels vary wildly across different groups all over the world)

SeanW

Pushtrak wrote: »

1) Thing is, theism is about god belief. It isn't about afterlife. One could not believe in an afterlife while believing in a god, or could believe in an afterlife in the absence of a god. I've come across people with both positions.

Fair enough. But my view is that whether there's a god or not, simply doesn't matter. Fundamentally I don't think anyone cares.

2) A/gnostic deals in knowledge, not belief. A/theism deals in belief. You have what you know and you have what you believe. These are different commodities. If I was to ask you what time it was to the minute (without checking..), or to the second of the minute, you should have no problem with the hour, you would know that much undoubtedly. Beyond that you would be going in to belief, perhaps.

Again, fair enough, but for me, belief and knowledge are one in the same. My beliefs are guided by my knowledge, which I consider inadequate to make a conclusion. Ergo, I am just Agnostic.

Likewise for a person guided by their faith, I contend it is possible for someone to be just a Jew or a Protestant or Hindu, whatever. If their faith is strong enough then that idea defines their stance, and nothing else is relevant to them. Hence the single label is appropriate.

SeanW

mrac wrote: »

I would agree with you in that "unknown is the answer" however your post seems to imply that atheists propose some other answer. All atheist means is a lack of belief in god(s), not "there is no god(s)" nor does it attempt to answer where we came from or where we'll go when we die.

These guys seem fairly certain of the negative ... for the perticipants of that thread, the fundamaterialist explanation appears to be a given!

Pushtrak

SeanW wrote: »

These guys seem fairly certain of the negative ... for the perticipants of that thread, the fundamaterialist explanation appears to be a given!

Well, given we are atheists, it is either nothing or eternal hellfire for us... So, maybe you should consider that in your analysis.

SeanW

Pushtrak wrote: »

Well, given we are atheists, it is either nothing or eternal hellfire for us... So, maybe you should consider that in your analysis.

Again, another flaw in your thinking - you're making what I consider to be the bizarre, but not uncommon, assumption that it's either Christianity with its macarbe threats of eternal pain and suffering under the Devil, or Athiesm, both equally likely with no other possibilities.

Again, I disagree, and if you read my posts you'll note that I hold the Abrahamic faiths (Islam and Christianity in particular) in particular contempt.

mrac

SeanW wrote: »

These guys seem fairly certain of the negative ... for the perticipants of that thread, the fundamaterialist explanation appears to be a given!

I was referring to this thread but I see you point I stand corrected. However the term atheist itself has nothing to say about afterlives etc. it merely answers the question "do you believe in god(s)". People of course may have beliefs outside of this but they are of a different subject to the one atheism addresses. Atheism as I see it is simply a response to one specific question.

Pushtrak

SeanW wrote: »

Again, another flaw in your thinking - you're making what I consider to be the bizarre, but not uncommon, assumption that it's either Christianity with its macarbe threats of eternal pain and suffering under the Devil, or Athiesm, both equally likely with no other possibilities.

Again, I disagree, and if you read my posts you'll note that I hold the Abrahamic faiths in particular contempt.

Christianity isn't the only Abrahamic religion. Nor are Abrahamic religions the only ones with a hell concept. So, there's that.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka
Buddhism, Hinduism and Janism have a hell concept. Perhaps you had some other religious idea in mind? Would it be one that doesn't have a holy book? Is that the kind of thing you mean?

SeanW

mrac wrote: »

Atheism as I see it is simply a response to one specific question.

Perhaps, but if so it's a question I consider secondary and thusly don't care about.

@Pushtrak, I think any religion that promises eternal torture for non-believers can be dismissed out of hand as a work of fiction, designed to scare people into believing their particular version of the god story. And yes, I think Islam and Christianity are particularly egregious in this regard.

In any case, why limit your view to the claims of other man-made, organised religions? Would it not make more sense to conclude that whatever might be out there, might not necessarily fit in with previous human pre-conceptions?