pseudonous

OK, Gettin' In Tune I think I see the source of the confusion. It is not a central tenant of agnosticism that it is impossible to know whether or not god exists. Therefore, the burden of proof is not on us. Aside from strong agnostics whom might claim otherwise, the lack of proof or disproof for the existance of a god in general is only an observation about the world. Nobody seems to know.

What is a central claim of agnosticism is that you should reason no further than your reason will take you. Agnosticism is not a belief system; it is a method. Our only burden of proof is that it is better not to have beliefs than to have them.

lauraclay

I don't understand. 'do you arrive at the fence at' doesn't even make grammatical sense. Are you asking what God we hold you can or can not prove the existence of? In that case: all gods.

__________________

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish,
and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.

The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.
When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.

The purpose of words is to convey ideas.
When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?
He is the one I would like to talk to.

Gettin' In Tune

Thank you pseudo,

I think you are catching on to the confusion. I apologize everyone for the confusion, but perhaps my inquisitive nature got the best of me.

I grew up non-religious and have been bombarded with conceptions of god throughout my whole, from God to a vague conception of a Higher Power.

I have been grappling with the question, “If I was born without being bombarded with a conception of god would I create god if god did not already exist in our minds?” I think I would, but only through another sentient connection and it would be limited to an abstract, metaphysical concept.

God is not objective and it not currently described nor known.

I do question your statement pseudo, because it seems atheist to me. If there is no proof of god, then why even be agnostic?

Where is the proof that makes agnostics…well agnostics and not atheists?

Perhaps, I am not understanding agnosticism correctly, but a weak agnostic does not entirely abandoned the "god" concept. Why even subsribe to one ounce of "god" if there is no proof.

I guess my point is to say that if you are agnostic, then why aren't you atheist.

__________________
"But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact."--C.Sagan

pseudonous

I could say a lot about this but I'm going to keep my answer as short as possible to avoid further confusion. The use of the words agnostic and atheist brings up a lot of semantical issues. I'm just going to address this and it may explain exactly what you want to know.

The word atheist is used by two groups of people - theists and atheists. Originally the word was used by Christians to denote anyone that did not have a belief in god. It is really just a bigoted word that looks at agnostics, anti theist and Buddhists as the same. It comes from people that thought either your orthodox, a heretic, a pagan or an atheist. That is, you either worship the one true god properly (orthodox), improperly (heretic) or you worship false gods (pagan) or worse yet you don't believe in god (atheist).
The other group of people that use the word are the anti-theists. They also state that atheism is just a lack of belief in god but themselves maintain that god does not exist.

The result of this is that there are really two definitions of atheism. First, the lack of belief in a god and second the belief that there is no god. So an agnostic does not call himself an atheist because he bares no relation to a Buddhist or anti-theists.

There is no proof of god. You only have three choices, one is to believe in god (which is to claim you know their is a god), another is to believe there is no god (which is to claim you know their is no god) and the last is to lack belief all together (which is to claim you do not know). Agnosticism is all about a reasoning system, you might even call us epistemologists.

harleylove

Speaking for myself, I consider myself a pantheist. I could very easily be labeled as an atheist since I do not believe in God or Gods since it's not logical for me to do so. I really consider myself agnostic though because I recognize that just because I believe something that does not make it true. So, pantheist, agnostic, atheist whatever, labels don't mean that much to me since my beliefs are my own if that makes any sense.

__________________
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--that is your success. All nature is your congratulation.
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

Skepticologist

[quote=Gettin' In Tune;15380]I think you're asking that question because you still don't see the distinction between agnostics and atheists.

As has been quoted more than once in this string, atheists believe that there is no god. Some claim to disbelieve in god because they have discovered what they see as empirical evidence of his/her/its non-existence. Others, lacking such empirical evidence, believe that if there were evidence of god's existence, they or scientists or philosophers would have uncovered it by now.

Agnostics have discovered no evidence either proving or disproving god's existence, but the absence of such evidence doesn't lead them to believe there is no god. It simply leads them to the point of not knowing.

So the difference between atheists and agnostics is that the former affirmatively state that there is no god, while the latter claim simply not to know one way or the other.

I'm not sure how I can explain the distinction more succintly without a real life example, which I've been noodling on but have yet to find.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

Jayhawker Soule

[quote=Dfagala;15415]And neither do you. The former addresses what is known or deemed knowable while the latter addresses what is believed or deemed believable. It is the distinction between epistemology and ontology, and there is zero reason why one could not envision a coherent agnostic atheism or a coherent agnostic theism.

pseudonous

I would just like to point out that I did not originally post this.

pseudonous

I'm surprised you would make this error. This distinction between belief and knowledge is just an attempt of theists to avoid the fallacy of their own epistemology. Theists do not really distinguish between something they believe and something they know. Just like you would except the conclusion of a strong inductive argument as the truth without knowing for certain a theist is willing to accept a belief as the truth. You can not side step this issue. Agnostic theists are not agnostic. What would even be the point of the term agnostic theist, it is an awfully fancy way of saying you are not a gnostic.

Jayhawker Soule

No, it is not.