Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So a gnostic theist knows that the god(s) s/he believes exist do exist? This presumes a distinction between "knowing" and "believing" where gods are concerned -- which is not meaningful unless there is some god-detecting device out there that I haven't heard about.

Well, they believe they know, and leave no possibility for doubt in their mind.

For example, my grandfather 'knows' God exists because he's supposedly talked to him during the many near-death-experiences he's claimed to have had over the course of his life, and will not accept any possibility of an alternative.

Of course, what my grandfather believes he knows does not make it any more true (and it doesn't make him any less of an donkey-cave, but that's another topic).

That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Manchu wrote:No. According to you, the definition of an agnostic theist is "Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know." I am not saying that I feel the existence of God is unknown or impossible to know. I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.

Which would be more along the lines of fideism or what I described as a pure theist. Knowledge of or certainty of god is irrelevant.

Anyway, this is not a road I want to go down. I just wanted to show that agnostic does not automatically equal atheist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?

Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Which is why I put the word 'knows' in quotations.

Maelstrom808 wrote:

Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?

Not by encountering them during what I claim are "near-death experiences," that's for sure. And my personal phenomenological experience of refrigerators and gravity is not what is at stake; rather, their apprehension according to scientific investigation is. God, by contrast, is invulnerable to such investigation. Or He doesn't exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:

Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Which is why I put the word 'knows' in quotations.

So you would say that an agnostic theist believes in god while a gnostic theist ... believes in God in such a way that you would state it twice but instead of using the word "believe" a second time you would instead use the word "know" but not actually mean "know" but rather mean "believe"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Maelstrom808 wrote:

Manchu wrote:I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.

Which would be more along the lines of fideism or what I described as a pure theist. Knowledge of or certainty of god is irrelevant.

And I am saying, to Fafnir, that this "pure theisim" you describe is a meaningless term. EDIT: Except inasmuch as it could refer to those who believe that empirical evidence of God's existence is inconsequential to God's existence.

Anyway, this is not a road I want to go down. I just wanted to show that agnostic does not automatically equal atheist.

Well I agree that not all agnostics are atheists but I'm not sure your description of pure and agnostic theists does that. EDIT: see edit above


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seaward wrote:There have been polls as recent as 2006 showing that 50% of the country would not vote for a qualified atheist for any level of office; that around the same level would not want their child to marry an atheist; that 40% of the country believes atheists to be un-American.

I don't find any of this troubling. There is some percentage of people out there who would not vote for a Catholic candidate because they are Catholic and I'm okay with that. I wouldn't be okay with not allowing Catholics to run for office, of course. And I'd like chance to explain why Catholics aren't bad political candidates or potential spouses, at least not by virtue of them being Catholics. So I have to conclude that the point of this rally was or should have been held to communicate to the people mentioned by you above that being an atheist doesn't make you a bad political candidate or potential spouse. Given that, how would you rate their success?

Seaward wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:How can you prove something is truly selfless? Last I checked that was impossible.

Well, I would posit that sacrificing oneself for the protection of another would meet the definition, but regardless, it's irrelevant. Whether or not something can ever truly be selfless has no bearing on the point I was making, namely, that we can scientifically observe and prove the existence of emotional attachment, trust, etc.

Just for fun:

1 Corinthians 13:3 wrote:

And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor , and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

John 15:13 wrote:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Acts 20:24 wrote:

But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

The only thing in the entirety of scripture that can kind of be construed as a selfless act *might* be Jesus dying, though the phrasing is that god is basically blackmailing him into it for his love of people. Doing stuff for others or for a cause isn't selfless so much as self-fulfilling.

And as for the whole knowing vs. believing vs. semantics vs. the universe thing:

Hebrews 11:1 wrote:

Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.

That's the only answer you'll get out of someone who believes. Just leave it at that, it kind of summarizes itself.

No John 3:16?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.

C_T_U, I'm not accusing you of it in this case, but the charge of "That's Just Semantics" is about the most miserable thing I see posted on the OT board, maybe second to the "I'm The Victim Here" strategy (colloquially, BLAME THE VICTIM).

I was just commenting that we have a page's worth of arguing fine detail of something that's a really simple concept. I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started. On top of that, you're aware of my love of hyperbole by now

Manchu wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:

Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.

Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?

Not by encountering them during what I claim are "near-death experiences," that's for sure. And my personal phenomenological experience of refrigerators and gravity is not what is at stake; rather, their apprehension according to scientific investigation is. God, by contrast, is invulnerable to such investigation.

Personally, I think that the more we delve into things like quantum physics and studying how the brain functions, the line between belief and knowledge begins to get fuzzier and fuzzier (more fuzzy? not sure which is right...anyway <shrug> )

And I am saying, to Fafnir, that this "pure theisim" you describe is a meaningless term. EDIT: Except inasmuch as it could refer to those who believe that empirical evidence of God's existence is inconsequential to God's existence.

And I guess I'm still not understanding how it is meaningless. Maybe if you could break down how you view the differences or definitions of atheists, agnostics, and theists, that would give me a little more perspective on your position.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I was just commenting that we have a page's worth of arguing fine detail of something that's a really simple concept. I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started. On top of that, you're aware of my love of hyperbole by now

LOL, I don't honestly think that we are going to come to any sort of consensus on subjects that have been debated on for centuries by people far more intelligent than we, and changing someone's mind on an internet forum is about as likely as getting hit by lightning, winning the lottery, then getting hit by lightning again, all in the same day. I always love getting someone else's take or perspective on things like this and getting a little more understanding of an opposing viewpoint.

Besides, I need something to kill the time while waiting for mixes to finish exporting

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started.

That's not the measure of merit regarding a point.

Maelstrom808 wrote:And I guess I'm still not understanding how it is meaningless. Maybe if you could break down how you view the differences or definitions of atheists, agnostics, and theists, that would give me a little more perspective on your position.

The main problem is that for theists in 2012, there is no meaningful difference between the statements "I know that God exists" and "I believe that God exists." So any definition of a "pure" or "gnostic" theist that relies on a distinction between them cannot itself be meaningful. I think you partly offered a much better definition: "someone who believes that evidence of God's existence is irrelevant to God's existence." The trouble with that is that it can be said of any theist, given that "believing in God" and "knowing that God exists" are the same thing for a theist.

They are not the same thing for an atheist. Atheism, or at least the new atheist position articulated by Dawkins, assumes that everything that does exist exists like the things that we know exist. If God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators or gravity, then he does not exist at all. But Dawkins says that it is possible to believe in a thing that doesn't exist and this is his account of religious faith. Basically, he thinks that believing in God is the same thing as believing that unicorns exist. Or that flying spaghetti monsters exist, in the popular parlance. Dawkins's argument is irrelevant to theists because they reject that God exists in the same sense as refrigerators and gravity -- bringing us back to the theist conflation of belief and knowledge, regarding God.

A person who says that s/he believes in God but is not sure whether He exists is saying one of two things: (1) the kind of evidence whereby we know of refrigerators and gravity is irrelevant to the existence of God or (2) s/he's not actually sure whether s/he believes in God. So to the extent that one speaks of an "agnostic theist" you're just talking about someone who finds belief in God compelling more often than not. This is different from an agnostic atheist, who believes that while God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators and gravity, it may be possible that God could exist in a different way.

Manchu wrote:They are not the same thing for an atheist. Atheism, or at least the new atheist position articulated by Dawkins, assumes that everything that does exist exists like the things that we know exist. If God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators or gravity, then he does not exist at all. But Dawkins says that it is possible to believe in a thing that doesn't exist and this is his account of religious faith. Basically, he thinks that believing in God is the same thing as believing that unicorns exist. Or that flying spaghetti monsters exist, in the popular parlance. Dawkins's argument is irrelevant to theists because they reject that God exists in the same sense as refrigerators and gravity -- bringing us back to the theist conflation of belief and knowledge, regarding God.

That argument's been around long before Dawkins, but yes, you're correct, minus the "exist in the same way" part. Existence is provable.

My question for those who insist God doesn't play by the rules in terms of existence is thus: What else doesn't play by the rules? You fully embrace God, yet deny leprechauns and abominable snowmen and woodland fae creatures who come out at night to rearrange sock drawers.

Seaward wrote:and woodland fae creatures who come out at night to rearrange sock drawers.

I hate those donkey-caves.

My black socks, white socks, blue socks, and beige socks all have designated, segregated storage areas. Who the hell keeps moving them? WHO???

Manchu wrote:<snip>

Well, that gives me a better grip of where you are coming from. Personally, I think that you are approaching the subject from a fairly singular viewpoint leading to some pretty narrow definitions. But then again, [lebowski] "That's just like, my opinion, man [/lebowski].

I'm not a fan of militant atheists, they annoy me just as much as militant theists.

Seaward wrote:Existence is provable.

Well, the existence of refrigerators and gravity is provable. Christians believe the existence of God is not, at least not insofar as we're talking about the manner in which refrigerators and gravity exist -- namely, because, in the sense of those things, a Christian would agree that God does not exist. If you say that I can only exist if I am a pelican then I will be forced to reply that, according to you, I don't exist.

Seaward wrote:My question for those who insist God doesn't play by the rules in terms of existence is thus: What else doesn't play by the rules?

According to Christianity, no one. God does not "play by these rules" as a matter of God's own definition. Christians don't believe that God is a thing that exists in the world alongside of other things so it strikes us as odd for someone to insist that we look for Him amid refrigerators and gravity -- and even more odd when someone insists we'll only find him amid unicorns and leprechauns.

Maelstrom808 wrote:Personally, I think that you are approaching the subject from a fairly singular viewpoint leading to some pretty narrow definitions.

That's true but I think it's necessary. I'm only interested in accounting for how and why Christians in 2012 believe because, of all the positions actually addressed by atheists in 2012, that is the only position that I can speak from.

corpsesarefun wrote:I'm not a fan of militant atheists, they annoy me just as much as militant theists.

Yarp.

Hence the "Get of my lawn" meme that I posted.

Seaward wrote:
Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not.

Strictly speaking, the deities in question don't have to be supernatural, they simply have to be viewed as a deity; though most non-deranged people would require their deity to be at least supernormal.

Fafnir wrote:Basically, gnostic and agnostic.

Gnostic means you know, agnostic means you don't.

An agnostic atheist would not believe in any deities, but would also say that there is a possibility of God's existence, even if it is extremely farfetched and unlikely. You'll find that most atheists fall under this category.

A gnostic atheist would "know" there is no God.

Similarly, the principles also apply to theists.

Its not quite the same regarding theism. All theists believe that God exists, but none of them know that God exists (though some believe that they do). The distinction of gnostic and agnostic as it applies to theism deals with knowledge of God. In brief, gnostic theists believe it is possible to know God or things about God, agnostic theists do not.

dogma wrote:In brief, gnostic theists believe it is possible to know God or things about God, agnostic theists do not.

I still think we have a collapse: belief in God implies a sort of knowledge of God's existence, which is itself knowledge of God.

kronk wrote:

Seaward wrote:and woodland fae creatures who come out at night to rearrange sock drawers.

I hate those donkey-caves.

My black socks, white socks, blue socks, and beige socks all have designated, segregated storage areas. Who the hell keeps moving them? WHO???

Malfred my man, Malfred.

mattyrm wrote:
I'm agnostic, I accept that there might be a God, I just doubt there is, and ill happily change my mind if I see any good reason to.

I feel this way about the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot also...

Manchu wrote:I still think we have a collapse: belief in God implies a sort of knowledge of God's existence, which is itself knowledge of God.

Not necessarily. In order to say I believe in a thing, I have to outline the parameters of what make that thing, that thing.

To take God, specifically, I might say that I believe in God, and that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenvelont. I don't know that this particular sort of God exists, but I believe that it does. Its possible that God might not have all these properties, or any of them, and the resulting being might not be properly called God, or even exist at all. But I can still claim to believe in the original that God, per the original understanding, exists without claiming any knowledge. The ultimate point being that in assigning specific labels to my beliefs regarding God, I'm really just approximating God's nature as I am best able.

For what its worth, at least as regards theists, there are very few truly agnostic believers. Most theists will claim that they don't know God, per se, but that they believe he can be known, or at least approached; so the label doesn't get used much. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.

dogma wrote:. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.

Isn't that Deism?...like Jefferson?

GG

generalgrog wrote:

dogma wrote:. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.

Isn't that Deism?...like Jefferson?

Deism is sort of in between, but definitely further towards agnostic than gnostic. It really depends on how far a particular deist reads into natural observation in terms of the knowledge of God.

The reason I heard for the rally was to let the government know atheists are real people, and voters.

after seeing the video's I'm glad I didn't go

after reading all the comments, I'd say there's some bionic dance groupies here I'm an aaronra groupie myself

dogma wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

dogma wrote:. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.

Isn't that Deism?...like Jefferson?

Deism is sort of in between, but definitely further towards agnostic than gnostic. It really depends on how far a particular deist reads into natural observation in terms of the knowledge of God.

Jefferson may have been further down the track of Deism toward Agnosticism than most Deists, even approaching Atheism by some accusations. His edits to the Jefferson Bible to remove all supernatural elements of Jesus' story while retaining all the moral teachings are one of the major elements which make him a pretty extraordinary person in regards to his beliefs, especially given the time in which he lived.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Really not the point I was making. Let me try and explain:

Mel said that if there can be religious parades, why not a specifically non-religious one? To me, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to say, and I can't disagree with her. But I wonder what folks would say if you applied that to race. We do have black pride parades, so why not a white pride parade? Where's the 'line', so to speak, when being proud of and/or wanting to support something in 'parade format' becomes incorrect or inappropriate?

Okay, I get you now, and it's a decent point.

[EDIT]: Oh, and this would be tangential, not non sequitur. Just FYI.

Nah, it would have been non sequitur. Would have been, if you meant it the way I was reading it. But it wasn't, so forget it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:So? Welcome to free speech 101.

Which would be relevant if people were saying 'he shouldn't do that and the government should stop him'. People weren't saying that, they were saying 'that guy is a trolling douche', which is, well, exactly what he was and exactly what he should be called.

Freedom of speech 101 not only allows, but requires us to comment when people are being jerks. It's what the whole market place of ideas is about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seaward wrote:Agnosticism is atheism, provided we define atheism as it should be defined - lack of belief in supernatural deities.

No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.

Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.

Giving the two terms different meanings allows us to describe both of these groups.

We do have black pride parades, so why not a white pride parade?

Most African-Americans were cut off from their respective cultures so their bond is more based around shared bondage experience and trials. I don't know what things are like in your area, but we have those quite frequently in the form of different ethnic festivals. We have an Irish festival, an Italian festival, a Greek Festival, and several other smaller ones throughout the year. Occasionally there is a parade to go along with one of them. The opposite of black, ethnically, isn't white, in this case, but a knowledge of ones ancestry. Even then there are many Americans that put no importance on that at all, when combined with being a much larger and less homogenous culture, is why you don't have "white parades".

Seaward wrote:You can, actually. It's truly very simple: either you believe in supernatural deities or you do not. If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.

No, seriously, there is a point of difference between 'I don't know if there are supernatural beings' and 'I believe there are no supernatural beings'. These are different things.

sebster wrote:
No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.

Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.

Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.

The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"

Yes = Theist

Not Yes = Atheist

Now, you could develop a means of classification that didn't use binary logic, but I spent a good year or so trying to do that for the hell of it, and none of the ones I came up with were especially good.