Atheism or Agnosticism, which one is correct?

by Joey Jo-Jo 78 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  bohm

  Jojo:

  how could you possibly ask an agnostic to define god through assumptions is beyong me.

  Either we the word "God" has a definition or it does not, and by now you should have desided which one it is.

  If the word God does not have a definition, it makes no sence to have the discussion at all -- i can ask you the equally well-defined question: "do you believe in XSXxxxzzzfib", and what can you say? If that is agnosticism, i say its just stupid.

  Alternatively, we actually try to define the term God by applying properties to the term God. Thats how definitions work and i am surpriced the concept upset you so much, especially since you yourself did exactly that two pages back:

  So this argument does not get pushed aside, I will know refer this deity or deities as the one/s assuming that created this darkness we call space, and that created the cosmos and set them in motion, I will call my god/s that derived from an assumption as ? (Question mark).

  There you go, you just defined god.

  Now, clearly there is no evidence for the concept you describe, and no good reasons why we should accept it over any non-god hypothesis for how the universe came about. So sure, we can be agnostic towards the concept the same way we can be agnostic towards brane cosmology, quantum loop gravity interpretations or black hole evolution, but nobody actually describe their beliefs about those concepts as agnostisism, which is why i (and Zeus, cyberjesus, OTW, etc. etc.) think the idea of agnostisism is a tad silly and redundant. Its a lot easier to speak plain english: I do not believe/accept the god-idea due to lack of evidence.
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  Joey Jo-Jo

  bohm, one last time, you or any atheist can not define the god that Dawkins, Sagan, Hitchens and myself because defining involves ASSUMPTIONS. Assumptions are meaningless, I have been telling you the same thing all the way through this thread and you still just dont get it, again I am not a theist, I am not a christian.

  Now, clearly there is no evidence for the concept you describe, and no good reasons why we should accept it over any non-god hypothesis for how the universe came about. So sure, we can be agnostic towards the concept the same way we can be agnostic towards brane cosmology, quantum loop gravity interpretations or black hole evolution, but nobody actually describe their beliefs about those concepts as agnostisism, which is why i (and Zeus, cyberjesus, OTW, etc. etc.) think the idea of agnostisism is a tad silly and redundant. Its a lot easier to speak plain english: I do not believe/accept the god-idea due to lack of evidence.

  AGNOSTICS DONT TAKE SIDES - Now, clearly there is no evidence for the concept you describe, and no good reasons why we should accept it over any non-god hypothesis - ASSUMPTIONS, there is no EVIDENCE to suggest that what you wrote here is correct either.

  So sure, we can be agnostic towards the concept the same way we can be agnostic towards brane cosmology, quantum loop gravity interpretations or black hole evolution, but nobody actually describe their beliefs about those concepts as agnostisism,

  Yes you can, a book written about carl sagan conversations with Carl Sagan quote him saying "I am an Agnostic" we can and have no choice but to be Agnostics towards anything we can not explain, we can not be A-THEISTS to brane cosmology, quantum loop gravity interpretations or black hole evolution (and these are some of things we do know yet can not fully understand) but we can be A-THEISTS when it comes to talking to creationists, we can foolishly be THEISTS through faith (lack of evidence), BUT is it ok to call ourselves THEISTS or A-THEISTS? A lack of evidence is no proof that god does not exist just as a lack of evidence is proof that god does not exist. We can come up with many definitions but in the end we are limited to what we know.

  Agnostics was a word used more before than what it is used now, the idea that agnostics are ignorants is just wrong, the idea that agnostics believe in god but dont have proof are in fact apatheists.

  Its like a puzzle with many jigsaws missing

  which is why i (and Zeus, cyberjesus, OTW, etc. etc.) think the idea of agnostisism is a tad silly and redundant.

  Depending on the context, that's why I posted those videos of Dawkins and Hitchens.
• 

  cyberjesus

  the idea that agnostics are ignorants is just wrong,

  Haha i love this sentence... dont you even consider what you write?

  the idea that agnostics believe in god but dont have proof are in fact apatheists

  Oh God!

  4 pages of repetition do nothing? Do you have like a firewall turned on or something? I mean .

  READ YOUR OWN THREAD!!!! Stop quoting quotes....
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  yadda yadda 2

  Zeus, you suck, because that's a fallacious argument known as a black and white dichotomy because being agnostic is of course a third option. The way you phrase the question creates the false dischotomy by excluding the possibility of a third option, because the question to ask someone correctly should be "Is there a God?", in which case the answer "I dont know" is entirely acceptable and does not fall into the category of atheism.
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  Joey Jo-Jo

  yadda yadda 2: That's what I tried to tell Zeus lol, his reasoning also shows the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. And his definitions, before his post I copy and pasted definitions from the web on the word agnostic, as you can see there is more than one definition for the word, he does not understand that words can have more than one definition and can change its meaning during the course of time.

  Look at cyberjesus post - Haha i love this sentence... dont you even consider what you write? lol its like atheists dont lack acknowledge, its like agnostics choose to lack acknowledge, no idea.
• 

  ZeusRocks

  yadda yadda 2, ......learn how to comprehend. There's nothing fallacious in asking someone if they believe something. People do it all the time. Do you believe in fairies? Do you believe in aliens? Do you believe in god? Do you believe in magic?
  Asking someone if they believe something is different to asking someone if they know something. How hard is it to understand? I have never in my entire life ever been asked "is there a god?", the first question most people ask is if you believe in god.
  Obviously you can't seem to comprehend the difference between asking and answering a belief based question and knowledge based question.

  Get a dictionary.
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  Joey Jo-Jo

  ^^^More bifurcation yadda yadda
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  erbie

  Either or is perfectly acceptable but being an agnostic certainly makes a person sound more sophisticated!

  Atheism is so last century!
• 

  ZeusRocks

  Atheism or Agnosticism, which one is correct?

  That was your question. They both are depending on your view on each of their definitions which both have various. How's that.

  Hardly anyone uses these words in their original meanings, afterall if we did, we would all be atheists as we don't worship the greek gods and very few of us would be agnostic as most people who worship a god claim to know said god.

  That's why these debates go back and forth with nothing really happening, because the english language sucks. Most words in english have more than one definition which is why no one is really wrong and everyone can be correct even though they don't agree.

  At the end of the day I have no problem if someone wants to label me atheist or agnostic or agnostic atheist, I couldn't give two hoots. I have no positive belief in a diety and I generally leave it at that. That's why I said earlier I don't usually get into these debates because they go nowhere because of our language.

  It's like debating whether House or Home, which one is correct? To some people, their house is their home, or their home is a house, or a unit, villa, caravan, tent, cave, or they might even define a person as home. No one is wrong and everyone is correct because of the various definitions of the word.