Gettin' In Tune

Fideism is faith without reason, evidence, and empirics.

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"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

SirArthur

Gnosis (From the Greek gnosis, to know): attribute of those who claim to know the truth about God and Divinity.

Agnosticism (-a, contrary of Gnosis): those who claim there's no way to proof or disproof or to understand deities.

The most simple description however to describe an Agnostic is "anti-Dogmatic" or skeptical.

Back on definitions:

Dogma: To accept a thing, without any solid evidence, as an incontestable truth.

Agnostics differs then to religious people because those ones believes and accepts as a Dogma the claimed miracles/supernatural stuff of their religion and its books.

Agnostics differs also from Atheists, because Atheists also believes Dogmatically that there's no God.

What is it to be confused here? An atheist who says is agnostic, then he's probably unsure whether God exists or not; to be atheist he must believe there's no God, or at least as Nietzsche on Also Sprach Zaratustra says "God is dead".

Gettin' In Tune

In general, I find that agnosticism applied to the god concept is untenable. Agnostics claim that they don't know enough about god to suspend disbelief in god. If you can't know that a god can't exist, because you have no knowledge of god, then you can't know that a god might exists.

I find that the word god suffers from theological noncognitivism. One must cognitively define god before one can make a claim on belief. What sort of god are you basing your agnosticism on? Thor, Artemis, the christian god, Aakuluujjusi, Cernunnus, etc.

According to your definitions of dogma and atheism, an atheist is someone who lacks a belief in god based on insubstantial evidence. I do not agree. Could you please describe god and the evidence for belief?

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"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

SirArthur

If I could or on any way find it tangible to sustain evidence on whatever matters for proof or disproof God then I wouldn't be an Agnostic.

Therefore your request has no sequence, since you know from the beginning I can't reply to you. But, quoting Huxley: And neither do you.

Gettin' In Tune

I did not ask you to prove or disprove god. I ask for the evidence of why you do not lack a belief in god. I asked if you could define god. I think these are reasonable questions to ask. I am also curious to know if you are agnostic to every conception of god that has been created throughout the history of humanity?

You previously claimed that atheists believe, without any solid evidence, that god does not exist. Could you also elaborate on you claim; the so-called insubstantial evidence that drove me into the bosom of atheism with respect to a personal god or a god from a revealed religion?

__________________
"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

SirArthur

There're still substantial evidences that supports the concept that it might be a supreme cognitive entity on the Universe. Otherwise how can we justify, for an instance, the whole complex system and links all over our Nature and Universe? Is a non-cognitive entity able to create cognitive beings as we are?

Why are we unable to understand or reach that supreme cognitive entity? On this I believe is a flaw on ourself. We judge others, the World and the Universe always based on ourself and therefore we may not be able to see, reach or in any way understand cognitive patterns other than ours. Maybe God is hide on plain sight and we simply can't see Him.

Gettin' In Tune

Where is this substantial evidence? Why do we need a supreme entity to justify our existence? My understanding of the evolution of intelligent life is that it is a crap shoot. Without the meteoroid hitting near Chicxulub, Mexico I am not sure if intelligent life would have evolved. If it did, I am not sure humans would have came into existence.

My current understanding is that non-cognitive forces created life based on six numbers. I do not know where these forces or parameters came from, but I am hesitant to fill this gap with god. Here are the six parameters

nu (a ratio of the strength of electrical forces that hold atoms together compared to the force of gravity which is 10 to the 37th power)

epsilon (how firmly the atomic nuclei bind together which is 0.004)

omega (amount of material in the universe)

lambda (force of cosmic "antigravity" discovered in 1998, which is a very small number)

Q (ratio of two fundamental energies, which is 1/100,000)

delta (number of spatial dimensions in our universe)

Science is speculating that there may be multiverses where the physical laws could take on different parameters and geometry could also be different. Tweaking the physical parameters may result in an environment that is not conducive to life.

I am not sure if I completely understand you, but why did you apply cognition to god? It is possible that god, if god does exist, lives beyond our intelligence, senses, and comprehension. If this is so, what are the observations that leads one to this conclusion?

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"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

SirArthur

And as so who or what made that equation? An accident? I do believe on accidents... but too many accidents at once is betting far too much on luck.

You insist however in to follow a theological chat, pushing and pulling God. Me, or you, are unable to reach or understand God and therefore proof or disproof His existence. But also if He comes to be a God He has to have cognitive intelligence, and also maybe He can achieve a status of intelligence we're simply too dumb to understand.

As an Agnostic to religion, I do not care much about theological and dogmatic stuff, all I do care on religions is their reflection on society. For me all of them are men made in order to get power and control over others, however some reflect more on society than others also some are more hazardous than others. Apart from that, the subject whether there's a God or not is not essential to me.
I'm not an Atheist (means I've no evidence which can support He does not exist) neither a Theist (I also have no evidence to support He does). I tend to believe He does, thus I can't describe Him or even believe anyone does. Also I do not believe any atheist can support on evidence their belief that there's no God, be their mathematical, scientific, theological or whatever. As so both, Theists and Atheists stands over Dogmatic ground.

duck

On a related note, a debate I was in recently in with a fundamentalist minister used the term "apostate" as equaling agnostic.

Not sure I agree with that, and told him so.

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Religion: The ultimate definition of verisimilitude

Gettin' In Tune

Why fill in the gaps with god?

I am an atheist with respect to theological gods. I am agnostic with respect to various deist gods. My atheism is subject to change based on knowledge. For example, if the rapture happened tomorrow I would pull out the j-card.

Deists are able to (loosely) define god. Agnostics, in general, cannot define god. If you do not lack a belief in god, there must be some evidence to support your belief or your position to hold open the possibility. Concerning god, many agnostics claim that they do not know if god exists. If you have no evidence of god existing then why hold open the possibility? Unless an agnostic can tell me how they know that they can't know something, about something, they are effectively telling me that they know something about nothing. If they can tell me how they know that they can't know, then they are making a contradictory statement


Your claim that you have no evidence on god to support atheism or theism is on shaky ground. If you tend to believe that god does exists, then provide solid evidence Your claim that atheism is dogmatic goes unsupported. You previously stated that atheism is a conclusion based on insubstantial evidence. I ask you again, where is the substantial evidence to refute atheism. Either recant or support your claim.

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"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