Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Exactly. :yes:
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Should Believers Avoid and Fear Athiest?
- Thread starter GadFly
- Start date
Exactly. :yes:
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
I agree.....I said something like thisa few threads ago.....
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
The ocean is deep and still a mystery to all of us.....there....ha!
So you believe Atheists are superior to Agnostics?
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
No, but I believe that your opinion is the opposite, which was the reason for the quotation marks.
Escéptico
Active Member
A lot of people use the term 'agnostic' just to mean 'undecided' or 'unsure,' and I suppose that's up to them. But agnosticism is much more than just indecision.
I'm agnostic in the sense that I feel that the validity of claims about gods, the supernatural, and the afterlife can't be assessed scientifically. As a result, I deny that we can know about these subjects the same way we can say we know about natural history or microbiology.
Note that believers can be agnostic in this sense as well. Whether or not they think gods and supernatural reality can be known in any objective way, they believe in the existence of these things.
I'm sorry to disappoint you. Actually, I believe Agnostics are the most scientific among us. I fail to see how they are a downgraded belief.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
You are a Christian. I'm not sure whether you will admit the possibility of your being wrong, but for this purpose, let's say you will. That makes you just as much of an agnostic as I am. Will you admit that?
So, when you single out atheists with the claim that they are mostly agnostics anyway, but you leave out the believers who would be in exactly the same position, to me that's trying to degrade our stance, by saying that we're not sure, while leaving out the fact that we're in the same position as most Christians. If you said that most people were agnostics, instead of most atheists, it would have come off much differently.
There are no universally known scientific tests for disproving the exsistance of spiritual things; therefore, Atheism is a religion based on faith.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
And??
And while the Athesist and Christian both require faith to hold their position, the Agnostic does not.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Actually, everybody requires faith to hold their position, if you want to get technical. Agnostics might have gotten the evidence one way or the other that they needed, but forgot it, or were not paying attention, etc. They have faith that reality is as they see it.
Escéptico
Active Member
No matter how many times this old canard gets trotted out, it's still wrong.
Faith is a belief held either without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary.
A belief held with evidence, even if the belief is still tentative and the evidence incomplete, is not faith.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Escéptico;1106670 said:
According to you. You're more than welcome to use that definition for yourself, and that's why this got dropped before. The point here, though, is that you have to make the distinction. If an atheist requires faith, then so does an agnostic.
People have had mystical experiences "with God". That is evidence to the contrary of the position of atheism, yet you still think that atheism is correct. By your own definition, that means that you have faith.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Howso? What does the agnostic have faith in?
The Agnostic would change their belief if the evidence presented it's self.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
So would most atheists.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
The agnostic has faith that there is no evidence one way or the other. For all we know, the evidence is there, plain as day, we just can't see it, or we have been shown and forgot it, or any number of scenarios. I know it's a little technical, and isn't practical, but it was necessary to prove a point.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I'll defer to Storm on this one. In my opinion, atheists would be more willing to accept Christianity if the proper evidence presented itself than Christians would be to accept atheism if the proper evidence presented itself.