So that's it for the election.

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Agnosticism is the belief that the existence or non-existence of a god is unknowable.

Atheism is a term that has come to mean a lot of different things. Negative atheists are simply non-theist agnostics -- there is no tangible difference. Positive atheists are dogmatic and irrational, and they are not agnostic. For the purposes of discussion, most people -- Carl Sagan, for example -- are referring to positive atheists when they refer to atheists. Denying the rationality of any belief in god is an example of positive atheism.

And no, I'm not getting anything confused. Rationality and reasonableness are interchangable. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rationality

No your modifiers are describing your word. Atheism is without modifier of course Positive and Negative make the word change.

Denying the belief of god as rational is not positive atheism, saying that god absolutely does exist without evidence would be positive atheism.



Atheism is scientific because to be an atheist you gather information and make a decision based on that information or lack thereof. This information can be tested and evaluated by your peers, and you draw a conclusion. Atheism is simply saying there is no logical reason to belief in a god or creator with the information available. Science has not been able to 100% disprove god yet so until then it is not logical to say i am positive there is no god.

The above method is an example of the scientific method in use. Which is why atheism is scientific. Anyone who says they are atheist without going through this method isn't a real atheist. They fit into one of those modified categories.




Try Logic instead of reason then.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No your modifiers are describing your word. Atheism is without modifier of course Positive and Negative make the word change.

Denying the belief of god as rational is not positive atheism, saying that god absolutely does exist without evidence would be positive atheism.

Atheism is scientific because to be an atheist you gather information and make a decision based on that information or lack thereof. This information can be tested and evaluated by your peers, and you draw a conclusion. Atheism is simply saying there is no logical reason to belief in a god or creator with the information available. Science has not been able to 100% disprove god yet so until then it is not logical to say i am positive there is no god.

The above method is an example of the scientific method in use. Which is why atheism is scientific. Anyone who says they are atheist without going through this method isn't a real atheist. They fit into one of those modified categories.

Try Logic instead of reason then.

No application of the scientific method would produce reasoning such as: "If there is no proof that A exists, then A does not exist"

Science simply isn't interested in things for which there is no evidence, since it is impossible to perform any kind of experiments to validate any hypotheses.

And agnostics don't believe that man is somehow incapable of ever proving or disproving the extensive of God. Simply that in our current state of knowledge and understanding about the universe, that we have insufficient evidence to make that kind of determination. Sounds a lot more like science than atheism.

Atheists have far more in common with other people of faith than they'd like to admit.

[Orruar]

extensive -> existence

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No application of the scientific method would produce reasoning such as: "If there is no proof that A exists, then A does not exist"

Science simply isn't interested in things for which there is no evidence, since it is impossible to perform any kind of experiments to validate any hypotheses.

And agnostics don't believe that man is somehow incapable of ever proving or disproving the extensive of God. Simply that in our current state of knowledge and understanding about the universe, that we have insufficient evidence to make that kind of determination. Sounds a lot more like science than atheism.

Atheists have far more in common with other people of faith than they'd like to admit.

Science ventures out into the unknown everyday. Hence the term scientific discovery. Science would try to solve a question, a question like.... how was the universe created. The god option would be a path to test.

Sorry you failed so hard there. Agnostics believe that the divine is unknowable.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Science ventures out into the unknown everyday. Hence the term scientific discovery. Science would try to solve a question, a question like.... how was the universe created. The god option would be a path to test.

Sorry you failed so hard there. Agnostics believe that the divine is unknowable.

Science ventures into the unknown, but it does not make negative propositions based upon lack of evidence. It makes propositions and tests those propositions. But it does not state that if a proposition is untestable, then it must be false. It makes no claims under such conditions.

And agnostics believe the divine is unknowable based upon current knowledge. We still have billions of years of evolution/discovery ahead of us. There may be a few, but not many, agnostics who believe that the divine will be forever unknowable. Most simply believe that we don't understand the divine based upon our current knowledge, but that this knowledge is not unattainable ever.

Of course, the definition of divine is not a constant. If we found that a certain entity had created this universe for his own purposes, and had complete control over this universe, we would consider him divine. But perhaps in his realm, his reality, he is subject to certain physical laws and is limited in power. Could it not be possible that he was created by some other entity?

[Ravager]

The real challenge is the fact that any idea of God is so amorphous that no matter what an atheist says to challenge it, there's always a rebuttal that says "well couldn't it be possible that this god is really just a genie in a lamp on Mars?". Possible, but just as possible that Norrath exists on a planet somewhere in the universe or parallel dimension and we're all possessing the bodies of its inhabitants. Prove me wrong. Also, there's only one kind of atheist and we're about as religious about their atheism as a toaster is Catholic.

[Ryba]

Gods and their religions were created so that people could feel as though death was meted out thoughtfully by a universal Daddy who prefers their group. Religious traditions are a peaceful framework around which to structure a life...when they are not compelling slaughter or indoctrination of the "other." The era of deep and nuanced understanding of religious thought is over and the trend now is to codify, interpret and dictate religious literature as though ascertaining an "original meaning" were possible and would lead to truth.

Religious faith is indefensible. Of course it is not scientifically false: it is built to be unfalsifiable. To borrow a phrase from Pauli, it is "not even wrong." It is utterly boring, like hearing about other people's dreams. There is no substance to discuss: only layers of interpretation piled onto a first person singular account of a mental occurrence. Snore.

Lose your religion: be less boring. If you figure out a way back to your god, I bet he will forgive you. Militant atheists are insufferable, but at least they found their way to square one.

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Science ventures into the unknown, but it does not make negative propositions based upon lack of evidence. It makes propositions and tests those propositions. But it does not state that if a proposition is untestable, then it must be false. It makes no claims under such conditions.

And agnostics believe the divine is unknowable based upon current knowledge. We still have billions of years of evolution/discovery ahead of us. There may be a few, but not many, agnostics who believe that the divine will be forever unknowable. Most simply believe that we don't understand the divine based upon our current knowledge, but that this knowledge is not unattainable ever.

Of course, the definition of divine is not a constant. If we found that a certain entity had created this universe for his own purposes, and had complete control over this universe, we would consider him divine. But perhaps in his realm, his reality, he is subject to certain physical laws and is limited in power. Could it not be possible that he was created by some other entity?

Can you not read? I never said science said god doesn't exist, I said there is no evidence of god therefore no reason to believe that god does exist.

[Splorf22]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Science ventures out into the unknown everyday. Hence the term scientific discovery. Science would try to solve a question, a question like.... how was the universe created. The god option would be a path to test.

Sorry you failed so hard there. Agnostics believe that the divine is unknowable.

Alarti, if I were you I would stop arguing with Orruar, because you haven't won too many rounds so far [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] He's exactly right here. There are basically 3 kinds of empirical statements:

* Statements which can be proven wrong (i.e. the sun is blue)
* Statements which have not yet been proven wrong but can be (most of what we consider science)
* Statements which cannot be proven wrong (i.e. God)

There is no experiment you can design that will disprove the existence of God. It's purely a matter of faith or not. Or, to requote Pauli, it's not even right or wrong, just unproveable. And religions are usually designed to make it so.

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Alarti, if I were you I would stop arguing with Orruar, because you haven't won too many rounds so far [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] He's exactly right here. There are basically 3 kinds of empirical statements:

* Statements which can be proven wrong (i.e. the sun is blue)
* Statements which have not yet been proven wrong but can be (most of what we consider science)
* Statements which cannot be proven wrong (i.e. God)

There is no experiment you can design that will disprove the existence of God. It's purely a matter of faith or not. Or, to requote Pauli, it's not even right or wrong, just unproveable. And religions are usually designed to make it so.

I've designed an experiment that will prove it. It's called the stand in front of a bullet train while eating rat poison experiment. Do this, and you will see first hand that there is no god, except the catch 22 is that you won't know it, because you'll be dead. I'll save you all the big mystery of death, it's nothing. It's unconsciousness. It's nothing to fear, because when it happens, you won't know it and there's no knowing you don't know it. It's exactly what it was for you before you were born, only it's after you die. If you've ever been put under for surgery, that's exactly what death is like, except you don't wake up from it.