Brad Ideas - religion - Comments

It's a broad philosophy.

brad — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:18:43 -0700

You will find that Humanism is a pretty broad philosophical school, with religious and non-religious components. You may be interested in secular humanism which more closely relates to non-theism.

What is a humani sts? What

Duran Keeley — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:55:11 -0700

What is a humani
sts? What relation do they have to agnostics and atheists if any?

It is simplistic

brad — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:34:38 -0700

But since the proclaimed agnostics I know live their lives the same as atheists when it comes to "what god wants" I am presuming they don't put a very large probability on the existence of any particular god. If you thought the Christian god was 50% likely, it does seem foolish not to take Pascal's wager when the punishment (lake of fire and all) is so harsh. Not that such a god would be fooled by the most insincere form of the wager. Christians argue about how much faith their god demands, some feel it's total faith, some allow for doubt -- we being human after all -- and of course there is much argument about how important "works" are in addition to the level of faith.

Agnostics, in my experince,

Nickoli — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:27:28 -0700

Agnostics, in my experince, have been more prepared to think again about their beliefs, and listen to other points of view.

Also, this subject is one people often do not think rationally about - many people believe what they like to believe rather than carefully considering evidence, even if they don't realise that that is what they've done.

Pascal's Wager

Nickoli — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:17:28 -0700

Pascal's wager is too simplistic, though. If you decide to live as if God is real (whatever your actual belief), you then have to decide what it is that God wants you to do, and opinion is strongly divided on that matter.

Not quite

brad — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:00:54 -0700

There is a difference between having faith in something, like Christ, and not having a religious belief. It is a common argument of the faithful to suggest that atheism is itself a religion or a "faith in science" or somesuch, but, as noted above, this isn't true, at least for most. As I said above, I don't know any rational atheist or agnostic who would not, if presented with an actual God, miracles-a-poppin', accept the reality and believe. They just don't feel it's time to prostrate when the evidence is, in their judgement, so insufficient.

Declaring yourself right and everyone else wrong is human nature, and of itself not a flaw. The actual flaw is being wrong, or more to the point, having a poor estimation of your own accuracy. A wise person only assigns extremely high confidence to conclusions when they are very well justified, and if they are truly wise, the facts bear this out. If you asked most atheists if there is a god (any god, not just the Christian one) they would say they are highly confident there is not, but if they had to give a number, it would not be 100%. Agnostics might give a number that's a bit lower but I would wager it would not be a great deal lower. If an agnostic truly want to claim they think it's 50-50 whether there is a god or not, then Pascal's wager starts to make a lot of sense since the stakes are so high, and they would no longer be agnostic.

Christians

boris — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:57:44 -0700

"The difference is the atheist says sheâ€™s an atheist, while the agnostic says sheâ€™s an agnostic."

Really, isn't a christian just someone who says they believe in a 'god' and behaves and acts in a certain way, while the atheists, etc, say they believe or don't believe in something else, and act in some other ways a bit differently?

Viewed from, perhaps, an aliens perspective, all they'd see is a bunch of humans proclaiming to believe this or not believe that, and running around doing or not doing certain activities, while actually sharing most other attributes - having limbs, a head, needing to eat, sleep - and everyone proclaiming themselves to be right and everyone else wrong . .

I think that, basically, the

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:57:05 -0700

I think that, basically, the convictions are the same. Where there is more hostility
to the non-religious, some atheists adopt the agnostic tag, since it seems less hostile
to religion and less likely to get them into trouble. For the same reason, they will probably
need to justify this decision more, pointing out that they are not as big a danger as
atheists. Atheists who claim to be atheists, on the other hand, obviously don't care about
such sentiments, and so obviously don't feel any pressure to justify what they call themselves.

That's the difference.

Of course, whether or not one perceives hostility is subjective, so even in the same society
there will be some atheists who prefer the agnostic label.

It's not about believing something doesn't exist vs. not believing something exists and it's not
about being sure or not.

Why answer

brad — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:41:44 -0700

Well, I actually have the reverse view on what's less work. I find that agnostics tend, though not universally, to make a big deal about how they are not atheists. Atheists tend to not care a lot about the difference.

Hey, it's only the most fundamental metaphysical question of all. It seems worthy to conclude something about it.

Why should agnostics answer

ConfusedAgnostic — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 05:31:58 -0700

Why should agnostics answer to atheists? If atheists tend to acknowledge that technically agnostics are correct(!), what's their beef with aligning themselves with the technically correct crowd, and living their lives as the agnostics live theirs--as you say, exactly the same? I don't know how atheists live their lives (as if they could conceivably live them similarly to one another), nor do I know how agnostics generally live theirs, but I don't find myself up late at night wondering about the possibility of God's existence. I also, however, don't feel compelled to be obnoxious enough to make a point I *technically* don't even agree with ("I believe God does not exist" as opposed to "I do not believe in God."). I can just as easily as an atheist tell a person with blind faith that I do not respect their religious beliefs and practices. It seems to me that not only is agnosticism more accurate, it's less work. It's a perfect fit for how I feel about not only belief in a higher power, but all absolute knowledge, and how I expect I will always feel. For me, atheism is not necessary and is by definition more restrictive (only encompasses religion). My label has nothing to do with cowardice.

Valid issue

brad — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 11:02:56 -0700

While I am mostly focused on the activities of the individual here, I think you do present some valid points. In theory (but really only in theory) the USA expresses a somewhat agnostic philosophy in the 1st amendment, and the USSR was officially atheist as I recall, though otherwise officially atheist states are rare.

I say "In theory" about the USA because even though it has official separation of church and state, bizarrely politics in the USA are far more influenced by religion than they are in Canada or the UK of many other European nations that don't have that separation. (This does not imply that not having separation is good, since obviously we still have plenty of nasty theocracies.) But what it does mean is that oppression or enforcement of religion seems more tied to the national mood than to any properly chosen principles of good government. The USSR was a dictatorship; its policy on religion was secondary. Canada, which has a Catholic school system and a head of state who is the head of the Church of England, probably has greater freedom of religion in many ways than the USA.

Atheist governments?

John Maxwell — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:53:10 -0700

I don't know if this counts, but I think that atheistic governments are a lot more likely to persecute theists than agnostic governments, including confiscating church property and putting people in prison. I think that there are some individual atheists who would gladly ban the teaching of religion to children if they had the power. That doesn't seem like something an agnostic would do.

I'm afraid I can provide an easy counterexample

brad — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:29:18 -0700

As I noted at the start of my post, my father was a famously professed agnostic, and we used to argue about this all the time. However, that didn’t stop him from writing Farewell to God. Now Farewell to God is not the level of attack that I understand Root of All Evil to be of course but it’s still a strong critique of Christianity.

But once again, this is pushing the boundaries between “do” and “say.” Yes, talk and argument are forms of action, but this doesn’t dispute my core thesis that the difference lies in what they say not what they do.

I will credit that quite possibly agnostics are less likely to get “evangelical” about the message than atheists. There are many stripes of atheist, ranging from Dawkins who wishes to actively promote his reasoning to those who simply wish the religious would leave them alone.

An observable difference

John Maxwell — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:59:26 -0700

One observable difference between an atheist and an agnostic is that atheists are willing to attack theism (e.g. "The Root of All Evil" by Dawkins) whereas agnostics tend to leave theists alone.

I think the important

Aaron — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 06:10:03 -0700

I think the important distinction is believing in the possibility of some sort of intelligence behind the universe, and believing that one of the current major world religions are correct. It's the latter that would motivate somone to act much differently, as Brad suggests. Agnostics and atheists alike would probably put equal credence in the specific beliefs in God that are currently in place, and in that case aren't terribly different from one another.