Atheism is wrong, Agnosticism is right.
Offline I will just copy and paste what I posted in my blogger. http://myfavtopics.blogspot.com/
It is wrong to be Atheist, it is better to be Agnostic.
Against a religious opponent an Atheist and an Agnostic will be friends of one mind. When alone, they’ll be bitter antagonists, one accusing the other of a closed mind and the second the other of a mind too broad to be of any use. Obviously, the latter charge is against the Agnostic. But it is my sense that the Agnostic is the one that will answer all the questions. The Agnostic is armed to the teeth, for to him all is about knowledge and knowing, and nothing about believing. It has been the claim of a popular Atheist commentator that Agnosticism is “the pussy version of Atheism.” Well, it may certainly be viewed in that sense by those who do not understand the mind of the Agnostic, an ever rotating machinery grinding at questions, unsatisfied with both extreme positions of the Theist and the Atheist. The Agnostic in that sense is the true philosopher, the true thinker, and in short, the real scientist.
According to the same commentator mentioned above—name not worth mentioning—Agnostics stand in error. To him it is all about a question in your heart: “do you believe or don’t you believe?” Well, unfortunately, that is not what launched the Shuttle Discovery into orbit. Just believing does not answer the question of mechanics or questions of the universe. As much as Atheists would like and seek to separate themselves from what is worldly to what is religious mystery, they can’t logically do it, since we are dealing with Substance and Absolutes. Theirs is not a mind unequal to one that believes one opinion is as good as the other. “I believe this is how it is and therefore it is” does not answer the mysterious question of the dead cat in the box. To say one doesn’t believe a dead cat is in the box doesn’t make the cat disappear from it or make it nonexistent; one word is not enough to make the space flat or curved; it is like saying that the tree did not fall in the forest because we couldn’t hear it. To not believe in God does not make God disappear.
The question of a probable existence of a “mover” or any entity whatsoever, whether it had any hand in any visible creation or not, or has or has no influence therein, should be a matter of thought and study, not speculation. In this sense, the Atheist is like the Existentialist, without a reason to live but going to school, because somehow or other there’s a reason to live. This and other trends of the Atheist promulgate a speculative mind, set in a conviction like that of any religious pastor that stamps his foot on the floorboard of his stage to tell his audience that God is like those planks of wood, real and with motion, and that just like the planks of wood sustain him so will God sustain the believer. The mind that questions and studies all is a learner of mysteries. In this light the Agnostic is an active mind, closer to the Atheist in the refutal to the god of the Bible, but without disparaging the probability of the unknown. There is an existing Absolute to the Agnostic—the existence of the “it is” or “it isn’t.” To the Agnostic the middle ground is the Absolute, regardless of opinions. Opinions to the Agnostic are just that, opinions—some smarter than others, perhaps closer to the truth, but still only opinions. Whether an opinion approaches the truth is not the field of the Agnostic—the Agnostic wants to touch, and he or she will spend endless nights and days questioning the universe, the unknown, and God.
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Welcome to the forum.
You're arguing semantics.
The members of this forum do not consider agnosticism and atheism to be mutually exclusive. Ask any informed atheist on here, and they will tell you that they DO not hold positions of certainly with regard to the existence of all Gods. What they will tell you is that they define atheism as unbelief and that they are "agnostic atheists." They do not believe in any Gods; ergo, they are atheists.
You don't believe in God. Therefore, you're an atheist. You don't claim to "know" that there is no God. So, you're an agnostic atheist.
It is not "guilty or innocent." It's guilty or not guilty i.e. innocent until proven guilty i.e. not enough evidence to be established as guilty. Atheism is not guilty.
Irrelevant.
It answers the question of whether or not you believe God. Ergo, it answers the question of whether or not you are an atheist.
No one is claiming that it does.
No one is claiming that it does.
Do you "speculate" that you don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster?
Atheists still question the existence of God.
In our definition, atheism includes the middle ground.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in the serious possibility of any God figure, and is normally a logical consequence of an open-minded, rationalist view of the world, where ideas need more than some statement from an authority figure before being fully accepted as likely to be true. And in accordance with science, most 'facts' and especially theories are acknowledged as provisional, as currently the best available data and explanations for stuff. Such recognition of the lack of ultimate absolute provability of most such ideas is obviously compatible with agnosticism, which does not prevent us from assuming that observation strongly suggests that the likelihood of a God is vanishingly small, if not provably zero. This is the view of people like Richard Dawkins.
Within the context of modern understanding of 'Life, the Universe, and Everything', 'God' is a worse than superfluous concept.
It inherently fails as an ultimate explanation for existence, since any attempt to justify it as necessary to explain the existence of complexity and sentience leads to an infinite regress of ever greater 'necessary' creators.
We know from everyday experience informed by science, complexity can arise from simpler, less organized elements, and that even a conceptually infinite sequence of ever smaller, simpler events or entities or 'cause-effect' connections is convergent and not necessarily infinite in extent or duration. So there is no such problem with such a scenario, compared with the implications flowing from the obsolete assumptions of a 'necessary' being.
Hope this clarifies things for you, Cesar.
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The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Atheism is a rather broad term that covers a variety of positions...Agnosticism in a broad sense seems to be a more narrowly defined version of atheism.
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Well Cesar, I do hope you are just as agnostic when it comes to unicorns, leprechauns, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy as you are with the idea of gods, since you wouldn't want to be like us "close-minded" Aunicornists, Aleprechaunists, ASantaists, and AToothFairiests, who do not mince words when it comes to our lack of belief in fairy tales.
Sorry, but that whole "atheists are just as close-minded as theists" is a terrible straw man, and it's ridiculous that you come in on your high horse claiming an intellectual superiority simply because you don't actually understand what and how most atheists think. We understand that nothing can be known with 100% certainty, but if something is so improbable as to be (in my opinion) almost impossible, why should I hem and haw about my lack of belief in it. Therefore I call myself an atheist, so that most people don't get the wrong impression and think that I put them at equal probability.
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dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
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No Gods, No Masters!
If you knew the history of the word "agnostic" and the history of the word "atheist" you wouldn't be making this long dead and debunked argument.
"agnostic" is NOT a stand alone word despite what the masses sell you. Go do your homework BEYOND popular memes before you make bad arguments.
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Atheism/theism is an answer to the question of belief.
Agnosticism/gnosticism is an answer to the question of knowledge.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
In the most fundamental sense, even science cannot answer any question with 100% accuracy. There is always the possibility the observations are wrong, the conclusions are wrong, or that we are minds in a jar and reality is an illusion.
Even with all that, we can get arbitrarily close to 100% certainty. As an example, I present gravity. You probably do not doubt the earth will continue to orbit the sun. I doubt you fear too seriously the possibility that the bonds of gravity will break, and the earth will go flying off into space. But, there will come a day when the earth no longer orbits the sun. That day is hopefully a billion or more years in the future.
Conclusions about the non-existence of a type of thing is especially dangerous, because you only need one sample of the thing, and suddenly that thing goes from near-100% certainty of its non-existence to essentially 100% certainty of its existence.
That doesn't mean the thing doesn't exist until found. As far as our knowledge goes, though, it is more rational to assume a thing does not exist, until such time as it has been proven to exist. This is especially true for something that has extraordinary claims, and absolutely no evidence, such as a god.
Practically, a theist would claim, "This unproven thing exists." An atheist would say, "This unproven thing effectively does not exist, pending proof of existence." An agnostic would say, "There is equal probability this unproven thing may exist, or may not exist."
However, I would wager the agnostic has an opinion about whether or not God exists. It's hard to be in a state of perfect uncertainty.
That's how I see it, anyway.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
His head exploded, he's gone.
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And very much in the same order...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Actually, I do hold a position of certainty regarding the God who talks to people, writes bad literature, etc. Strictly a storybook figure. That's why I choose to call myself atheist and not agnostic.
Marveling at the universe's mysteries and working to solve them creates a sense of wonder which I respect with something that may be akin to a spiritual sentiment. But it's not a sentient god. I'm not a sentient being either. Put away your holy books and make the world a better place instead. Just for the heck of it, not because you actually have a choice one way or the other.
Does anybody read these comments, or do they only write them and move on?
Oh, conversation from a few years ago:
Someone: I believe in God.
Me: I forgive you.
http://www.michaeledits.com You can't eat grits with chopsticks
I had trouble posting that. Divine intervention?
You never know. Some - like me and you - stick. Others are blowing in the wind and never seem to circle back here.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
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"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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If you were really agnostic, you'd sit on the fence a while and think about it
I dissagree with that because I think that there ar no right and wrong things. There are many different situations and that is why we think logically when something is right or not.
I agree to some points that you mention because your point of view is well argued but just don't like when people are making boundaries to their minds.
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I'm beginning to see what Bob Spence means when he said (to the effect of) "(I observed that) philosophy could not possibly keep up with Science"
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)