i'm not agnostic--i simply do not believe in any god. Its just too stone age for me.
Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.
by ExBethelitenowPIMA 98 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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nicolaou
ExBethelite, you may enjoy this old topic;
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/123456/there-no-such-thing-agnosticism-agnostics-do-exist
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peacefulpete
Habakkuk famously declared that what he was told would happen for those who devoted their lives to Yahweh worship, never happened. It seemed clear that Yahweh wasn't even watching them. However, instead of reconsidering the pointless sacrifices he and his people had made, (maybe even stoning their own children if they left the religion), he imagines Yahweh's reply, "just keep waiting. though it might linger it will not delay," whatever that means.
I attended a funeral yesterday. WELS Lutheran. Very religious family. They have spent thousands of hours sitting on hard wooden benches. Must have heard the pastor declare that the deceased was in heaven now 30 times. Those words didn't keep anyone from mourning.
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ExBethelitenowPIMA
How dare anyone tell anyone else that they can’t believe something.
I can choose to be agnostic that is my choice. If someone else believes the origin of life was chance or intelligent design that’s their choice.
I am finally very happy with my choice of my belief system. It’s taken a lot of searching to get where I finally am. Im mentally agnostic and I’m staying physically in as JW in case the Bibles promises turn out to have any truth in them. This hope gives me comfort.
I am also just as agnostic towards Darwin’s theory of evolution or some similar origin of life came about by chance theory.
The entire point of being agnostic is that you have come to the conclusion that either chance or intelligent design can’t be proven.
If one could be proven then all agnostics would jump that side of the fence.
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nicolaou
Evolution has been proven.
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slimboyfat
Evolution has been proven.
That is, using the human mind, which is the product of evolution, if evolution is true. And if evolution is true then the human mind evolved for its survival advantage not for its accurate representation of reality. But an accurate representation of reality and survival advantage are not at variance with one another, you might say. In fact research suggests there probably is a difference between the most accurate representation of reality and the perception with the greatest survival advantage. That being the case, the human mind cannot be expected to perceive reality correctly. That being the case there is no reason to suppose that an evolutionary understanding of human development is correct since it itself is the product of the human mind which is adapted for survival not for accuracy.
This leaves us with two options: 1) the human mind perceives its evolutionary history accurately because reality was intentionally constructed in such as way that humans could draw accurate conclusions, or 2) humans do not perceive reality accurately and cannot suppose their inferences, including evolutionary theory, are accurate.
I suspect that option 1 is the case, scientist Donald Hoffman makes the case for option 2.
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cofty
Agnostic is an unhelpful word.
It is popularly used for a synonym for 'I can't decide'. Actually it is a very strong assertion that something can't be proven.
It absolutely can be proven that all living things descended from a common ancestor by means of evolution. Being 'agnostic' about this fact is a false assertion and simply reflects either a lack of effort to acquire the necessary information or an unwillingness to accept reality.
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slimboyfat
There are different kinds of agnosticism. Weak agnosticism says that we don’t know but one day we might find out. Strong agnosticism says we don’t know and we will never find out.
Evolution has been proved by humans applying their rational mind to available evidence. Yet there is no reason to suppose that the human mind is equipped to make a final determination about the world in itself. We would not imagine that a chimpanzee has accurate models in its head for things such as how weather comes about or how food grows, although it probably thinks something about those everyday experiences. It probably doesn’t even have a conception that its perception is limited, even though it appears to be very limited from our perspective. Similarly we as humans don’t know what we don’t know, and we don’t know which of our perceptions and deductions about reality are not only wrong, but miss the point entirely. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to assume that humans are uniquely equipped to understand reality in its fundamentals and to explain why that should be the case. If there is a key aspect of reality that requires perceiving the world in terms of extra dimensions that we can’t perceive, or colours outside our spectrum, or echolocation which bats have and we don’t, or yet other aspects of perception that we entirely unaware of, then we may be missing something fundamental about reality which entirely changes the picture of how we came about. When you really think about it, the idea that there aspects of reality that humans don’t have access to is actually more likely than not. We can see the limitations of the creatures around us but we cannot see the limitations in ourselves because we can only perceive using our own limited perception.
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cofty
Ridiculous. THIS is how you got to the state of being unable to affirm that we can't know if the earth is flat.
Science works. Philosophy is 99% BS
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slimboyfat
You think what is ridiculous? That humans probably don’t perceive every aspect of reality that might be needed to provide a fully accurate picture?
I think it’s ridiculous to assume that humans are fully capable of perceiving reality. No other creature does, as far as we know. Why would humans be the one exception? It’s not “rational” to suppose that we do. It’s more like wishful thinking, a nice story to tell ourselves because we don’t want to accept we may not be equipped to answer basic questions about reality. Simply exclaiming ridiculous doesn’t help.