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Originally Posted by Kenneth  Quote:
Originally Posted by Vinterland You cannot say you deny the existence of any god, Christian, deist or whatever and call yourself an agnostic unless you want to be a hypocrite (and many "agnostics" are indeed). You will have a great task at hand proving there are any religions invented by human cultures. | I knew I was a weird one, because I feel like a "strong" atheist when it comes to the gods of our human cultures, but agnostic towards that extraterrestrial entity that could be the prime mover of our universe. But I don't understand why you say I can't regard every religion and conception of god that arose here on earth as mere inventions of human cultures. For example, Christianity was the product of the Hellenistic Jewish culture in the 1st century. Islam was the product of medieval Arabic culture and specifically that of its prophet Mohammed, and so on. It's not a big deal. | Each "invention" may have Divine origins just as any Deistic or Pan- philosophies may also be correct in describing God. The point of agnosticism is to not to be certain in absence of evidence and therefore, no one can be sure there is no God and be agnostic. Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenneth Good point. So if I consider the claims of each religion on a case by case basis, and test them for contradictions (in their bibles, prophecies, and teachings), historical inaccuracies, and utter falsities, then the uncovering of a certain religion's errors and falsehoods itself constitutes evidence that that religion is as false as the gods it purports to exist?This is a reasonable proposition. And even if we encountered a religion without any recognizable errors in its holy writings, the fact that they use discredited arguments for the existence of their God like the teleological or cosmological argument, then this in itself constitutes evidence that their God is false figment of their imagination. And since there really is no human religion which doesn't use one of these flawed arguments, I'll go ahead and administer a fatal preemptive attack on all of them  |  I like your enthusiasm! I will only question one point though which I bolded;
how do you know all these gods are not tricksters? Perhaps you and many are naive in believing that these religions accurately describe the attributes of their "God"? This concept in no way implies that the Deity is false, but that there is trickery about!
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And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.” |