religulous

Agreed.

 

To a Bible-thumper, if you don't "accept Jesus" unconditionally and believe in him absolutely, then you are damned and there's no difference between an atheist, an agnostic, or a believer in any religion other than his.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists are Bible literalists who reject the idea of hell. They believe that the "wicked" and the "unbelievers" will be killed, destroyed, obliterated, but will not be tortured. The Adventists further believe that a thousand years after the first judgement, the "wicked" etc. will be resurrected, judged again, and then killed again. I don't know what the JHs believe on this question. Apparently there are some (but I don't know who; I've only heard reference to the idea) who believe in the "doctrine of the second chance," whereby at the second judgement the "wicked" could repent and be saved.

Adventists and JHs assert that there is no evidence for hell in the Bible. They are good Bible-quoters and can hold their own in an argument with hellfire Christians.

 

True... true...

Isn't it funny how truely impossible it is for humans to achieve any real consensus on anything? All of these different sects within one branch of one world religion. Barmy, that.

 

Very true.

I probably am more agnostic than atheist to be honest. I think I stopped calling myself agnostic mostly because it gives the believers hope. Ah ha, he's not sure. All we need to do is convince him

 

Yeah, the other one I get is that people think that agnostics are hedging their bets by not completely writing off "god". Basically trying to have their cake and eat it too. I suppose there might be some plonkers out there that think that way, but many agnostics take a very different view to that.

 

Unfortunately the agnostic argument is that "anything can happen". If applied to everyday living it would be undistinguishable from religious magical thinking. It is also my favorite loose thinking pet peeve: assigning a probability to a non-event.

The only logical position is atheism because there is no evidence whatsoever that god exists.

Remember you can always change your mind as new evidence is presented.

 

But you get into a lot of perception/measurement issues and at the end of the day you choose to make the leap of faith that there is no god. Personally, I find that fairly reasonable, but I don't make that leap on principle. I will always change my mind as new evidence presents itself. My personal views have evolved quite a bit over the years. To me, that's the most important thing... to be tweaking/developing ones world view as things change.

I disagree with that. Agnostics (at least my brand of them) don't disregard what we're capable of measuring/perceiving. The physical laws that we've identified and described clearly rule out the "anything goes" view. But there are greater philosophical questions that science has thrust before us that shed some doubt on the materialistic/reductionist view, which atheists take. We haven't got it sorted yet and I'm not going to rush to a judgement. One thing I think that we're seeing is that the omnipotent/omniscient god model is most likely out of the question. There are quite a few theologians who take this view (they like the omnipresent one). It's very intriging stuff and it's exciting that science and philosophy are almost starting to merge, at least in some areas of science.

 

And there is no evidence for anything but a materialistic point of view. Anything else at its core is wishful thinking, even when it is discussed as philosophy.

Barring Deepak Chopra and intelligent design woo, there is no actual physicist or biologist that would claim there is nothing but a material universe based on observations.

Quantum physics is the last solace of the Chopras of the world. However, no real physicist would argue his work shows there is anything else but a material universe.

 

Quite the opposite. I think agnostics regard too much what we're incapable of measuring/perceiving. Even if it doesn't exist...

 

There are actually quite a few "real" physicists who do. This discussion has convinced me that I need to read The God Theory by Bernard Haisch. It would appear that he's a "real" scientist (astrophysicist), though he certainly can't be labeled "conventional". From taking a glance at it on Amazon it looks like it's both a challenge to scientific reductionism and religions dogmatism. In the main it seems to be aimed at "hardcore" atheists. I'm intrigued because for quite a while I held a strictly materialist view.

 

The most obvious rebuttal of this is the physical constraints that we've measured. The multiverse theory is just as unprovable and fantastic as anything religion has pulled out its arse. Atheists are still taking a leap of faith because materialism can't explain those constraints in a logical/falsifiable way.

 

But what if it does exist? You have faith that it doesn't. I'm simply stating that we don't know. We may be incapable of measuring it. It may not be measurable (though that would seem to open several cans of worms were it to be the case). I'm simply choosing not to rule it out given our current limitations. I'll accept a logical, consistent argument either way. I'm not going to cling to one or the other based on incomplete knowledge/evidence.

 

We'll cross that bridge if we get to it. Right now there doesn't seem to be one.

 

The problem is no one has suggested that this or any other current physical concept suggests god could exist. Again, it is like every other undiscovered object. The only difference is that god is not even an object.

 

True. But you'll notice they are speaking ex cathedra. Just like Francis Collins. I remember reading "The emperors new clothes" by Penrose, an associate of Feynman. It was a very enjoyable book that reviewed history of physics and cosmology. Then quite abruptly Penrose proposes that we will develop a theory of consciousness once we unify quantum and gravity theory. Totally bunkers and a clear misunderstanding of how the brain works.

Anyway. You would have to wait until they write it on a paper rather than on their books..

 

Haisch would counter by saying that god is every object. Of course, it's not a provable theory but neither is the materialistic one. Materialism would seem to fall apart because it can't explain in a satisfactory way why the universe appears to behave the way it does. The God Theory isn't really provable either so we're stuck at the moment. There are dangers with buying into either one because to do so will have a tremendous impact on the kinds of questions you ask. When a scientific question gets "settled" if often leads to stagnation and until someone starts asking questions again bad science can go unnoticed. That's why I remain on the fence. I've filled in the "not enough information" bubble. It will be interesting to see where things lead in the coming decades.

But that doesn't mean you can dismiss it out of hand either. That's just another way of declaring (with no real proof) what god is (or isn't in your case).

 

Alric: I think you overstate what an agnostic is. I am an atheist because I hold the opinion that there is no god. But I can respect someone who says he holds no opinion on the matter.

It's a trap on both sides to assume that "god" means an all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present creator who loves us more than other creatures. The Christian god is not the only hypothesis, and even though there is no evidence for any kind of non-material being, a person who looks at all the religious mythologies and decides to take no position is being rational in a way, because he'd choosing not to expend mental effort on a pointless topic.

I have a friend who is a very devout Christian and spends hours praying every day. She doesn't pray for "stuff." She just prays in praise of god. When confronted with the contradiction of a god who loves us allowing children to suffer, her reply is, "I'd rather believe in a god who is not all-powerful, than in a god who is not all love." There is no logical reason why a creator must be all-powerful. The fundies themselves like to use the watchmaker analogy. Flawed as it is, it opens the obvious retort: A watchmaker is not all-powerful, and in fact watches never keep perfect time. It's far easier to believe in a creator who is not all-powerful. What if the universe we can see was built by some guy (Zlaty Bartfast?) from another planet? Should we call him god? What if you were born in a dungeon and never allowed out of it your entire life: would the builder of the castle be your god?

The Christian god is a preposterous concept on the face of it. But I'd say there are two rational views:

1. There is no god. (Atheist)

2. I don't care to waste my time contemplating something that has no bearing on my life. (Agnostic)

Of course belief in a god of any sort is irrational. And many Christians happily agree. I have a lot of very progressive Christian friends who admit their belief is utterly irrational. It pleases them to hold that belief. I have other friends (agnostics) who just say, "From this spot on this speck of rock around this insignificant star in one galaxy out of uncountable billions, what can I know? I have more important things to think about.

 

Atheism is not rational because it is faith based, so in that respect it is no different to other religions. The second one is neither rational nor irrational because it simply dodges the question.

My take is that IF there is a god, it is neither all-knowing or all-powerful simply because the universe doesn't seem to work that way. Why would you want to be that anyway. Talk about boring... sitting there for eternity knowing everything that's going to happen. I'd be boring out of my fookin' mind. Much better to just come up with some laws and then let the thing (universe) sort itself out (evolution). In many ways it's more satisfying than atheism, but sadly it's just as unprovable.

 

I beg to differ: Atheism is not a faith because it refuses to believe in a god or gods. Atheism says "I see no evidence, therefore I do not believe the hypothesis." Agnosticism says, "I do not care to waste my time considering the proposition." Only theism is irrational, because it says, "I believe in things for which there is absolutely no rational reason to believe." The more rational of the theists take pride in the irrationality of their belief, openly declaring that they believe in something for which there is no evidence.

As for this nonexistent god getting bored sitting around through eternity, Christians would say that god exists outside of time. That's even more irrational than omnipotence, but at least it gets around the boredom problem.

 

Tripp. Using your logic would imply that people that do bit believe in werewolves are irrational.

Daniel put it best. There is no evidence for the existence of god (or werewolves) therefore there is no need to posit their existence.

I'd love for someone to argue that the question of the existence of werewolves is different from the question of the existence of god.