First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn’t to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions. Maybe I’m wrong, I’d like to hear from you if I am. I’m just expressing here my perception of the movement and not actually what I consider to be facts.
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth. I do agree that the concept of a God is hard to believe logically, specially with all the incoherent arguments that religions have had in the past. But saying that there’s no god with certainty is something I’m just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress. We’re constantly learning things we didn’t know about, confirming theories that seemed insane in their time. I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.
In general, atheism feels too close minded, too attached to the current facts, which will probably be obsolete in a few centuries. I do agree with logical and rational thinking, but part of that is accepting how little we really know about reality, how what we considered truth in the past was wrong or more complex than we expected
I usually don’t believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.
technically most athiests are agnostic but they think the probability of god, gods, supernatural, or whatever is so low as to be zero. Probabilities on the order of a specific photon from a flashlight hitting a specific atom in the air. something that makes a multiple lightning strikes or multiple jackpot lottery winnings or an extinction meteor hitting next thursday because we missed apparently did not notice it ti be everyday ordinary comment events. Its really hard to discuss how low the probability a particular athiest views it but in most cases someone who identifies as an athiest will have levels that you need douglas adams to truly express how low it is. For myself I used to identify as an agnostice because my agnosticism was such I thought of it as a coin flip. Part of my reasoning had to do with my faith in the logic and reasoning of man on a large scale. Anyway we have had the millenium and all its entailed humanity logic and reasoning wise and I now identify as athiest. I view the probability likely higher than most athiests but definitely well below any number a reasonable person would consider a non zero number in percent but maybe on the level of hitting multiple jackpot lotteries in short order.
This isn’t really true.
Agnostics believe it’s unknown (or indeed, unknowable,) whether god exists or not.
This is distinct from belief or lack of belief in god, an agnostic could also be a theist.
I never said theists could not be theists. I have another comment where I point out athiest or theiest everyone is pretty much agnostic. Some will claim 100% but anyone with even a smidge of intellectual honesty will admit to some chance that god does/does not exist.
And I’m saying that admitting a chance one might be wrong doesn’t change whether or not you believe one could know.
Saying “well actually you’re agnostic” is patently offensive. It’s like those Christian’s who insist you believe and just don’t know it yet.
It doesn’t matter if I’m cognizant that there’s a possibility I’m wrong. Being agnostic isn’t about maybe being wrong.
It’s about whether or not one believe’s god’s existence is knowable. And if god exists, then its existence is knowable.
fair enough although I called myself agnostic and did not feel it was 100% unknowable. In the situation a god appeared before me and adequately showed me proof then I would see it as being knowable. Im not sure what term I should have used being a person who felt it could or could not be.
It’s just two different questions. Do you feel we can know of god exists?
There are degrees, though. Hard agnostic beliefs are that it’s inherently unknowable, but there are softer “we don’t know yet” degrees.
Where you fall on that spectrum is up to whatever you believe.
I personally feel it’s improper to say we can’t know for sure. We can disprove the alternative thesis- that a god or gods exist. And if we do that enough, it’s reasonable to accept that there aren’t any.
Here’s Neil DeGrass Tyson on evidence of absence it’s part of a longer video, but this sums it up nicely.
ok because the way you had your last reply it sounded like the only definition was “It’s about whether or not one believe’s god’s existence is knowable.” and its insulting to claim people are agnotic if they are not sure. I mean certainly I get it. I was the unknowable type really which is how come I would say its like a 50/50 coin flip. there is no basis for knowledge so the best guess is random chance. I stopped identifying once I saw evidence of people making up whole cloth and then a following gathering around it. Which just strengthens things we are aware of in the most recent religions. Which makes it the likely origin of all religions but the ones early enough in history don’t have evidence of the illegitimacy like recent things do.
Yeah, that’s my problem. Whatever probability they assign to it would a belief. They don’t really know. As you said, everyone assigns a different probability to it, so who is right?
Isn’t just easier to accept ignorance instead of believing something that we can’t even begin to understand?
its the same for believers. crises of faith. sermons about doubt. All recognition the faith is not 100%. Its like telling theists you mainly agree with them but they should have a bit more doubt and accept more that there could be no god.
Yes, I’d tell them that if their faith wasn’t blind, which most of them agree with, so there’s nothing to argue there. The difference is that the belief of an atheist is rooted in reason. My point is that human reason is not advanced enough to actually grasp these matter, so having a rational opinion about something we can’t rationally understand is pretty strange.