Fats_Tuesday said:
But your vague, abstract concept of god answers absolutely nothing in a useful way for me. When faced with a great unknown, I prefer to say "I don't know", rather than start dabbling in speculation. Attaching labels such as "God" to this adds nothing to our knowledge.
But are you saying "I don't know"? If so then we are in the same boat and I misunderstood, apologies. Most atheists I know are not saying "I don't know" - and I know this because that's what I'm saying and we don't agree.
But your first opening sentence here is key I think; the way you frame it is almost as if you were seeking meaning from the concept. But really, if we discard the religionist approach (and we should imo) then all we have - for now - is a 'vague, abstract concept'. Philosophically this is enough because it is as far as we can go;
for now.
I am an atheist and an agnnostic. Agnosticism is simply a statement of knowledge - can the existence of gods be known? Clearly not, as in all definitions I've seen of gods, the lack of concrete knowledge of the existence is pretty much built in.
I didn't think you could be both. Are you sure? They are clearly not the same thing.
I'm an agnostic of my tooth fairy, because by its definition it ould only be discovered after our death. I also don't believe in it.
I don't believe in the TF either. I am not sure I would rule out the possibility that 'something' could appear to be, or be interpreted as, the TF. And I would not say that the non-existence of the TF rules out the existence of 'something'.
And God could just be what unenlightened people call that 'something' and then go on to describe it wrongly and make laws and rules to oppress each other as humans are wont to do.
I also think you are disregarding the experiential aspect of religion. Rightly or wrongly - the founders and certain key figures in the major religions claimed an
experience of 'something other'. You may disregard or deny this - and you are perfectly entitled to - but my point is not whether they were lying or whatever but that their religious status and belief is very different to the status and belief of Mrs Smith who pew-warms every Sunday for 40 years and never has any numinous experience or even suspects the possibility.
You have a point re all the Mrs Smiths who litter religious history but figures who do claim direct experience of the divine also exist within the religious framework and logic demands we factor these in to any assessment.
Atheism refers to lack of belief and says nothing about knowledge. It in absolutely no way denies the possibility of gods existing. It simply takes the rational position that unless there is reason to suppose they really do exist, we should assume for the time being that they don't.
This is a model. Your model. It is probably a good one and it may even be correct. But as of now it is a model - and one cannot apply it to those of a religious bent any more than they can apply their model of original sin to you.
Why can't we assume they do? Who makes these rules? God? Or God's stand-in?
Why do you feel atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive?
Because there are such people as agnostic theists but you cannot have atheistic theists.
Compare gods with aliens. I don't "believe" in aliens. I consider their existence a very strong possibility when we look at the physical nature of the universe, but I don't hold a belief in their existence, as that would be ridiculous. I just feel the same way about gods, only based on the evidence I can see, I consider their existence unlikely and irrelevant - and this is only refering to your vague deist god idea.
This analogy does not hold up though - when you look at the Universe you see the possibility of aliens in the abstract but you don't 'believe' per se. I take the exact same stance.
But I also feel that way
looking at the physical nature of the universe re God.
Now, to look at it from another angle and leave the nature of the Universe out of it; if I read a
book on aliens then I reach the conclusion (9 times out of 10) that there is no such thing and the subject is utter lunacy.
Likewise if I read moist Scripture I reach a similar conclusion. But reading a human book and observing the universe are two different things and we should compare like with like.
You have succinctly boiled it down to the key issue: the universe (non-human creation) versus books (human creation). I can believe almost anything is possible on the level of the universe....but most atheist arguments don't key in at that level, they ficus on human creations (religions) and set out to prove they are human. And so they are....
But that's not all there is...
As I've already pointed out, atheism is a reactionary stance to theism, and you're only seeing atheists organise as you are at present because of the perceived political threat by the Abrahamic religions on the world stage, in the form of right-wing Christian America, Jewish Israel and the various factions of Islam. To those outside religion (and to most of those within, to be fair), the disputes look like sheer madness.
Well, that is another reason why I argue that such atheists are irrational. Either that or ignorant (just as bad) because these movements you cite - essentially fundamentalist ones - are all corruptions of the original religious impulse they claim to be a manifestation of.
To be truly rational - and, I would argue, effective - they should concede that these manifestations are not actually the real thing. They never do this though - because it would undermine their campaign.
So I don't really buy it that they are reacting against these movements, rather the movements have grown so extreme and moved so far from the original idea that they are the perfect tool for use in a Criusade against the religion itself.
Clearly admitting they were not representative of the religion would undermine the atheists agenda. That of course is intellectual dishonesty and that's a shame...
If we weren't seeing faith schools opening and teaching creationism in the UK and Christian bishops talking about introducing Sharia law onto the statute books, we'd be a pretty quiet lot.
Well who needs to be noisy? I thought there was such a thing as free speech? Surely this can't just apply in certain instances?
Why should a Muslim not have recourse to Sharia'a law (I mean legal rulings on everyday matters here not the Daily Mail induced fantasy-frenzy).
No problem having Creationism and Darwinism taught side by side and allowing people to choose is there? I know Xian fundies would argue against this because they alone 'have the truth' but I don't see why the atheists should take the same approach..sadly, it seems that's what's happening.
That headline the day after 9/11 should have read "We're all Fundies now...."