Conclusive proof that I'm an agnostic

..actually, I'm not sure.

:P

Seriously people, how can anybody be scientific and state with a certainty that God doesn't exist, or that they just 'don't know, so they'll just sit on the fence'.

Agnostic people confuse me because their position doesn't seem to be predicated on anything. Of course if you hold the belief that theological claims are unknowable (and thus pointless to pursue), then we are in agreement and so we shouldn't compete in mortal kombat.

For the rest of you cohorts of the damned, I call Sub zero.

It isn't really a matter of "not knowing" whether or not God exists. Agnosticism, to me anyway, is more about the answer being inherently unknownable, and therefore, not very important. I don't outright deny the existence of a God or a group of Gods, I just don't feel it is important enough for me to worry about.

Incidentally do people who are agnostic or athiests (here in the fora) have any problems with denouncing the holy spirit?

ie, the blasphemy challenge

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Strong agnosticism (also called hard agnosticism, closed agnosticism, strict agnosticism, absolute agnosticism)—the view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of god(s) is unknowable by nature or that human beings are ill-equipped to judge the evidence.
Weak agnosticism (also called soft agnosticism, open agnosticism, empirical agnosticism, temporal agnosticism)—the view that the existence or nonexistence of God(s) is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if more evidence is available.
Apathetic agnosticism—the view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of God(s), but since any God(s) that may exist appear unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic anyway.
Ignosticism—the view that the concept of God(s) as a being is meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences, therefore it cannot be usefully discussed as having existence or nonexistence.
Model agnosticism—the view that philosophical and metaphysical questions are not ultimately verifiable but that a model of malleable assumption should be built upon rational thought. This branch of agnosticism does not focus on a deity's existence.
Agnostic theism (also called religious agnosticism)—the view of those who do not claim to know existence of God(s), but still believe in such an existence. (See Knowledge vs. Beliefs)
Agnostic atheism—the view of those who do not know of the existence or nonexistence of god(s), and do not believe in god(s).[5]

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I'm the soft agnostic, I think it can be proven by things like the rapture, or any other gods way of being like OBVIOUS of his existance. But until the sky lights up with fire and the bible is proven true, I'm not going out of my way to presue it because it's pointless to presue something that has the same ammount of hard evidence as someone going "The sky was purple today" yeah they may have thought it was purple, but just because they go around telling a mass ammount of people the sky was purple that day doesn't mean it's a fact.

There we go, some things I can pick and attack / debate / discuss.

A lot of those agnostic beliefs aren't really based on anything scientific (and it seems like a lot of our resident athiests insist on verifiability and scientific rigor); they seem more like a self-actualised conclusion based on modern-day interpretations of God.

For example, I had/have a perception that the biblical God doesn't interfere in the matters of the world. So 'Apathetic agnosticism' makes sense to me (at least only when limited in that case).

Since you said you were weak agnostic, I should preface that this isn't about you per se. It seems weak agnostic isn't really based on anything. Of course God can be either knowable or unknowable, but we have no basis to believe in either since we have no verifiable aspect of God to work with. As I am wont to say in discussions about God, he is irrefutable and therefore excempt from logical or practical discourse.

Basically what I'm saying is that believing God is a concept we can understand is as much of a belief as our belief that he exists, and to put the term 'belief' and 'agnostic' together confounds me :P

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Originally Posted by Bunny

It isn't really a matter of "not knowing" whether or not God exists. Agnosticism, to me anyway, is more about the answer being inherently unknownable, and therefore, not very important. I don't outright deny the existence of a God or a group of Gods, I just don't feel it is important enough for me to worry about.

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This is exactly how I see it and this is why I call myself agnostic. I'm sort of at the point of my where religion doesn't matter to me and I spent 14 years worrying about sinning while I was Catholic, I sort of need to get away from those beliefs, it only made me paranoid about death. I believe that maybe someday something might make me believe in a god of some sort again, but if I want to believe in something, I don't want to believe out of fear. And who knows? Maybe I'll finally convince myself that there is no god.

One can argue divorce from God is the first step to knowledge and self motivated morality.

It is quite interesting to consider the different ways to subcatorgarise agnosticism. I used to lean more towards to the athiest agnostic point of view. However, I guess I have become more apathetic over time. I think there is more to be gotten out of what we can actually prove, learn and know, rather than believing in something that itself can't be proven.

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Originally Posted by Pureghetto

One can argue divorce from God is the first step to knowledge and self motivated morality.

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Interesting idea. Self-motivated morality being especially important.

People divide things into too many sub categories.

But to know if you're an agnostic: you don't believe there's a god, and you're not some jerkoff who thinks he KNOWS there's no god.

So an atheist then.

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Originally Posted by MecaKane

People divide things into too many sub categories.

But to know if you're an agnostic: you don't believe there's a god, and you're not some jerkoff who thinks he KNOWS there's no god.

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Wrong. Atheists deny the existence of God. Agnostics do not. Read the rest of the thread if you are going to make baseless accusations.

I'm a weak agnostic.

I don't think its right to try to claim that there is or is not a God because I'm not important enough and there is not enough proof.

Witholding judgement. ;)

I've never known an agnostic to be combative in religious debate. Most of are equally apathetic about political concerns and social issues, too.

My problem with the fact that God supposedly can't be proven by science has always bothered me cause it's assuming that our current level of science is in fact "absolute" and "omniscient" when in reality, as much as we know, it still equals up to jack squat. There is a chance, that our current level of science is just not advance enough to see the real evidence.

I'm a pantheist myself, but I feel that there is a high enough level of logic to how the universe work that persuades me into feeling that a "higher being" exists.

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Originally Posted by Harmless

I've never known an agnostic to be combative in religious debate. Most of are equally apathetic about political concerns and social issues, too.

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That's pretty much me, but I majored in philosophy. Made me argumentative and insistent on a scientific / logical vigor.