Pro: Agnosticism / Con: Atheism

[dusken]

It is my understanding that atheism is based in logic, a main idea essentially being that anything other than atheism asserts God and that assertion is illogical. When I first heard this approach, I dismissed it with the claim that it defies the idea of probability. However, I was compelled to think about it further and refined my stance to the following rebuttal and support for agnosticism.

Atheism is fueled by the limitation of language. It traps itself with words that have no substance — more specifically, by the use of the terms God or a god. Those terms are completely meaningless; they have virtually no definition, whatsoever. Philosophically, one cannot argue against an idea that has no specific definition. Rather, one must attempt to form conclusions based on concepts that do not depend on language, a good example being the idea of cause and effect. One cannot argue, with our current understanding of reality, that everything is a cause and has a cause and that everything is an effect and has an effect. This applies with equal validity to the "universe as we known it." Toss the idea of "a god" out the window and, instead, replace it with "cause of the universe." This makes more sense and is a very logical assertion. Now that we have an unknown cause, we can understand that, by its very nature, it is infinite. It is infinite because the nature of it cannot be defined; it has not been observed and facts for induction do not exist. From the perspective of ignorance, the potential chain of cause and effect that effected the present is infinite. This brings us back to the atheistic approach. If someone subtracts a value of one from infinity, he or she is left with infinity. If someone adds the value of one to infinity he or she is left with infinity. Such action has no outcome. This is what is happening when one attempts to define the cause of the universe that, logically, has an infinite number of possible manifestations. In that sense, atheism does what organized religion does: defining the cause that cannot be defined. They decide that which should not be decided. Agnosticism says, that the nature of the cause of the universe has infinite possible manifestations, ergo Christian thought may be right, Jewish thought may be right, Hindu thought may be right, atheism may be right, but believing in any one of them is ridiculous because it has no merits beyond another. They are all infinitesimal and equally worthless. What now? Until science discovers that which has no cause, forget about defining the cause of the universe as we know it and seek the knowledge that can be sought, all the while knowing that you know practically nothing.

[Anonymouse]

You forget one thing, and that is that the scientific approach and method is simply another metaphysical assumption. This point about the "causation" principle regarding the universe is pointless. Loser argued this incessantly with me, and the point is that no one can really know the cause, it is beyond our grasp, since we only came after whatever was the cause, in that sense, not even science will know, and it is precisely why faith is the only thing that matters, which of course you will find silly, but you choosing not to believe is in itself another form of belief, which I was trying to get loser to understand.

[dusken]

You forget one thing, and that is that the scientific approach and method is simply another metaphysical assumption. This point about the "causation" principle regarding the universe is pointless. Loser argued this incessantly with me, and the point is that no one can really know the cause, it is beyond our grasp, since we only came after whatever was the cause, in that sense, not even science will know, and it is precisely why faith is the only thing that matters, which of course you will find silly, but you choosing not to believe is in itself another form of belief, which I was trying to get loser to understand.

I did not forget anything. What you said has nothing to do with this thread; you are inciting a discussion about an unrelated topic.

I will say, however, that even though one can argue that any cause can only be presumed, the use of induction will provide a more credible possibility than pure faith. If you make the claim that everything is in someway a matter of faith, then it makes the idea of faith have no value as it is encompassing the lack of faith. Yes, you will dismiss this by using terms like "relativist" but I am right. Faith is fine as an idea on its own but not all "faiths" have equal weight in terms of their conclusions about reality. This is the end of the discussions about things other than agnosticism versus atheism.

[anileve]

Agnosticism says, that the nature of the cause of the universe has infinite possible manifestations, ergo Christian thought may be right, Jewish thought may be right, Hindu thought may be right, atheism may be right, but believing in any one of them is ridiculous because it has no merits beyond another. They are all infinitesimal and equally worthless. What now? Until science discovers that which has no cause, forget about defining the cause of the universe as we know it and seek the knowledge that can be sought, all the while knowing that you know practically nothing.

AMEN!!!!!!!

It's interesting but recently I realized that majority of people are fixated on keeping the terms pure, it really doesn't matter whether there is a broader meaning. A gayridge is ok, but not marriage because it's a term for a man and a woman. "The word God is ok; Unknown=God is absurd although we don't really know the meaning of the word, but the main focus here is to keep the term isolated from any other possible definition and keep it pure. Even if it takes a senseless repetition of the silly statements which go something like this:

A: "God is God, it's not the unknown."
R: "Well then what is it?"
A: "I don't know, but it's God."
B: "So then we can substitute God with the Unknown?"
A: "No, it's not the unknown, it's God."
B: "Well than what is God?"
...............And so on........until the break of dawn

There you can see this human fixation of defining everything, placing into little packages and smacking labels on them. I mean how awful would it be to live in obscurity? How ridiculous.

[Anonymouse]

I mean how awful would it be to live in obscurity? How ridiculous.

Yet that is exactly what relativism does.

[dusken]

Yet that is exactly what relativism does.

Though she deviates a bit from the topic, that is what she said.

[loseyourname]

I believe the lady was being sarcastic, Mousy. She was saying that it is okay to live in obscurity, it is okay to admit that you, in fact, do not know everything.

[dusken]

I believe the lady was being sarcastic, Mousy. She was saying that it is okay to live in obscurity, it is okay to admit that you, in fact, do not know everything.

Rhetorical. Not sarcastic.

[Anonymouse]

I believe the lady was being sarcastic, Mousy. She was saying that it is okay to live in obscurity, it is okay to admit that you, in fact, do not know everything.

We all live in obscurity, that is not the question, it is what you believe, and man is hopelessly dependent on belief, one way or another, and will always believe because of that obscurity. It is funny that those that are living in obscurity are the least happiest inside spiritually, although they will never admit.

[dusken]

We all live in obscurity, that is not the question, it is what you believe, and man is hopelessly dependent on belief, one way or another, and will always believe because of that obscurity. It is funny that those that are living in obscurity are the least happiest inside spiritually, although they will never admit.

Or maybe you can take your presumtions about people's happiness to a more appropriate forum.