Do You Believe In God?

[Justinde75]

please understand™

When you accidentally mix the wrong ingrediants and you create an entire species

 

[Lacius]

Well this is a complicated question.
But i'm gonna go with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
^Thaaaaat's me.

I'm curious why people identify just as agnostic when it's an entirely different issue. With regard to belief in a god, one is either an atheist or a theist. The topic of belief is separate from the topic of knowledge. With regard to knowledge that a god exists, one is either a gnostic or an agnostic. For example, a Christian can believe in a god and claim to know for sure that a god exists; that would make him or her a gnostic theist. A Christian can believe a god exists but acknowledge that he or she doesn't know for sure; he or she would be an agnostic theist. Many, if not most, atheists lack the belief in a god but acknowledge that they don't know for sure that no gods exist; they would be agnostic atheists. Some atheists, depending on the definition of the god, don't believe a god exists and also claim to know for certain that no gods exist; that would make them gnostic atheists. I personally don't believe in any gods, but I also don't claim to know for sure that a broad definition of god doesn't exist, so I am also an agnostic atheist.

 

[MsMidnight]

When you accidentally mix the wrong ingrediants and you create an entire species

*cough*PowerPuff Girls*cough*

 

[chaoskagami]

I'm curious why people identify just as agnostic when it's an entirely different issue. With regard to belief in a god, one is either an atheist or a theist. The topic of belief is separate from the topic of knowledge. With regard to knowledge that a god exists, one is either a gnostic or an agnostic. For example, a Christian can believe in a god and claim to know for sure that a god exists; that would make him or her a gnostic theist. A Christian can believe a god exists but acknowledge that he or she doesn't know for sure; he or she would be an agnostic theist. Many, if not most, atheists lack the belief in a god but acknowledge that they don't know for sure that no gods exist; they would be agnostic atheists. Some atheists, depending on the definition of the god, don't believe a god exists and also claim to know for certain that no gods exist; that would make them gnostic atheists. I personally don't believe in any gods, but I also don't claim to know for sure that a broad definition of god doesn't exist, so I am also an agnostic atheist.

It's just a philosophical difference. Agnosticism is literally weak Athesism, but the general principle is different in that one reserves judgement. tl;dr no difference, just different names for the same thing.

When you accidentally mix the wrong ingrediants and you create an entire species

Sugar, spice and everything nice plus a secret ingredient...

I can't really answer the main question anyway, I don't believe in god as people describe him but I do think is pretty possible that something intelligent and powerful can exist as I said in my previous post.

Correction - there's no proof that some omnipotent force exists, whether you call that god or not. Your whole energy spiel is also ignoring Thermodynamics and Conservation of Mass.

 

[Justinde75]

*cough*PowerPuff Girls*cough*

Ohhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Deleted member 129634]

Correction - there's no proof that some omnipotent force exists, whether you call that god or not. Your whole energy spiel is also ignoring Thermodynamics and Conservation of Mass.

I'm not talking about proof, I'm talking about what we can't explain, I'm not trying to prove that what I think is absolutely correct anyway, thermodynamics and conservation of mass could have been completely different if things happened some other way, but no, everything happened so things are the way they're now, and you're using that as proof, which is totally ok.

 

[Lacius]

It's just a philosophical difference. Agnosticism is literally weak Athesism, but the general principle is different in that one reserves judgement. tl;dr no difference, just different names for the same thing.

When a person cannot answer yes to the question, "Do you believe one or more gods exist?" that's atheism by definition. I find that agnostics typically cannot answer yes to the question, and the use of the word agnostic instead of atheist is just an effort to save face due to the negative connotations of the word atheist.

Correction - there's no proof that some omnipotent force exists, whether you call that god or not. Your whole energy spiel is also ignoring Thermodynamics and Conservation of Mass.

How does it violate the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of mass? These laws refer to the pre-existing matter and energy in a closed system and not necessarily the formation of the system itself (i.e. the universe).

I'm not talking about proof, I'm talking about what we can't explain, I'm not trying to prove that what I think is absolutely correct anyway, thermodynamics and conservation of mass could have been completely different if things happened some other way, but no, everything happened so things are the way they're now, and you're using that as proof, which is totally ok.

Absence of an explanation is never evidence for something else. Hindsight pronouncements of improbability don't actually demonstrate improbability either.

 

[Deleted member 129634]

Absence of an explanation is never evidence for something else. Hindsight pronouncements of improbability don't actually demonstrate improbability either.

I agree, I'm just not trying to prove something, I'm just speculating about god so absence of proof is valid for me in this case.

 

[Lacius]

I agree, I'm just not trying to prove something, I'm just speculating about god so absence of proof is valid for me in this case.

If you care if your beliefs are true, you require sound reason and evidence for your beliefs.

 

[chaoskagami]

When a person cannot answer yes to the question, "Do you believe one or more gods exist?" that's atheism by definition. I find that agnostics typically cannot answer yes to the question, and the use of the word agnostic instead of atheist is just an effort to save face due to the negative connotations of the word atheist.

If we analyze the roots of the words, yes, they're literally identical. It's a less offensive term in terms of connotations.

How does it violate the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of mass? These laws refer to the pre-existing matter and energy in a closed system and not necessarily the formation of the system itself (i.e. the universe).

I may have made a jump in assumptions here. The way it read along with the username containing 'anakin' may have triggered me. That was a straw man argument, sorry.

 

[Deleted member 129634]

If you care if your beliefs are true, you require sound reason and evidence for your beliefs.

I don't care, I have better things to think about than god, I just wanted to talk about what I think could be possible.

 

[Lacius]

I don't care, I have better things to think about than god, I just wanted to talk about what I think could be possible.

You made a claim about what you think is, not just what you think is possible.

 

[Deleted member 129634]

I may have made a jump in assumptions here. The way it read along with the username containing 'anakin' may have triggered me. That was a straw man argument, sorry.

Well I believe there might be planets like tatooine somewhere.

You made a claim about what you think is, not just what you think is possible.

My bad.

 

[Jack Daniels]

While God has all the power in the universe (and probably more, but I can't really comment on this since I've never been outside the universe), there are some things He cannot do. He cannot act against His own nature, so questions like "can God make a stone so big he can't hold it" are invalid.


The rule forbids murder. It is distinct from killing because murder is killing without justification. This is why it's justified to kill certain criminals without becoming murderers ourselves.


A lot of this is not advocated by God himself. While some deaths have in fact been mandated by God, many have not been, and those who claim this are misusing His name. (We'd need specific examples to discuss this further.)


That's not it at all. Quite the opposite really.

We sin. A lot (unfortunately). We've disobeyed God, and His standards are perfection. And the punishment for sin is death. "But what about all the good I've done?" someone may ask? Imagine a brownie. A marvelous, delicous brownie. Now let's add a tiny amount of dog poop. Not so appealing anymore, right? Unfortunately, that's us.

Fortunately, God still loves us, in the way I love my cat even when she makes a mess or bites me, so God has provided a way for us to live, without eternal death. If the punishment for sin is death... the does it have to be the one who sinned? Thousands of years ago He told the Jews to sacrifice an animal in their place, to pay for their sin. This was only a symbol of what would come. In order for this substitution to work, He sent his Son to save us (who existed from the beginning, the specifics of this are a discussion for another day). His son entered this world as a baby, concieved by the Holy Spirit and a virgin (Mary). Jesus was raised from birth as a Jewish carpenter, performed miracles to prove his divine power, gave one of the, if not the most, influential sermons ever (the Sermon on the Mount), and was tempted by the devil to sin in many, if not all, of the ways we are. Because Jesus wasn't born into a sinful nature like we were, he managed to never sin, and was absolute perfection. Because reasons (the details of which are in the bible and are again a discussion for another day; basically Jesus denounced their bad practices, and there was some political stuff going on too), the Jewish leaders plotted to kill him. But this was part of the plan all along. Jesus willingly confronted his own death by crucifixion (on a cross), in order to pay for our sins. (To make it worse, he was almost killed by lashes from a whip beforehand, and what many people did to him around that time can easily be simplified as "torture".) He died in our place so that we can live.

But that's not the end of it. While not many realized it at the time, Jesus is God's Son. Three days after Jesus was executed, God brought him back to life. Not only in this world, but eternal life, which He is offering this as a gift to anyone who wants it. All you have to do is believe that Jesus did in fact die on the cross to save us, and your sin is paid for.

TLDR
Here's 6 words that summarizes all of this. I remembered this half way into typing all of this, it may or may not explain it all better.
http://www.lifein6words.com/


This is a sad side effect of the world being corrupted by sin.




The Big Bang is an effect, and it is outside the scope of science to attempt to explain the cause. Not only is it outside the nature of the universe as we know it, scientifically, any idea anyone comes up with is just a guess, because the biggest requirement of a hypothesis is that it can be tested. Any guess about this cannot be tested.

I believe that God is the cause. While I am not aware of any evidence that can prove this, there is other evidence indicitive of God.
One of these is the question of where languages come from. Evolutionists believe there is a common ancestor, using this theory, one would think language would be the same, right? One single language that became the ones we have now? Wrong! We have many different languages that are completely different from each other. To quote wikipedia, "The origin of language in the human species has been the topic of scholarly discussions for several centuries. In spite of this, there is no consensus on the ultimate origin or age of human language." The Bible explains this nicely: God told everyone to spread out, to fill the Earth, but we were like "naw, we like it here, let's build a giant tower that will keep us occupied here", so God invented different languages for everyone so that everyone would spread out, since different groups of people couldn't understand each other.



While there might not be hard evidence for God's existence (at least, not to my knowledge), there is are various hints.

The TLDR version (all this typing is making me tired ):
-Intelligent design - all of creation is rather complex. Athiests like to believe it all happened by chance, but that seems unreasonable to me.
-The story of Jesus - proclaimed as fact by witnesses... who were burned at the stake at parties until they simply said something like "it was all a lie", but no one did. Christians were murdered, persecuted, many people tried to completely destroy all trace of the bible... and it's still going strong today. Divine intervention anyone?
-Languages
-God's instructions - The old testament has rules on how to deal with various types of mold. People back then would have had no clue how it all works, but these instructions are consistent with what we know today. Also the thing about not eating certain meat? Back then, people didn't know how to safely cook everything, but now we do.

read the books man, they kill just without reason whole nations for religion... not criminals... what rock were you under?

 

[mashers]

If we analyze the roots of the words, yes, they're literally identical.

No they're not. 'Atheism' comes from the Greek 'atheos' which in turn comes from 'a-' (without), and 'theos' (god). It means that you believe there is no god. 'Agnostic' comes from the Greek 'a-' (without) and 'gnostic' (knowledge) and specifically means the believe that we cannot know whether god exists or anything about him/her/it.

It's a less offensive term in terms of connotations.

'Agnostic' is not just a 'watered down' version of 'atheist'. If you ask someone if they believe in god, this is not a binary question. A religious person would answer 'yes', an atheist would say 'no', but an agnostic would say 'I don't know'. The word agnostic literally means 'lack of knowledge' which is completely different to someone saying 'I know for sure that there isn't a god'.

 

[chaoskagami]

No they're not. 'Atheism' comes from the Greek 'atheos' which in turn comes from 'a-' (without), and 'theos' (god). It means that you believe there is no god. 'Agnostic' comes from the Greek 'a-' (without) and 'gnostic' (knowledge) and specifically means the believe that we cannot know whether god exists or anything about him/her/it.

The greek word for knowledge, but in this context is derived from a class of religious studies. The meaning of -theist and -gnostic is functionally identical. Both refer to the concept of some 'outer' knowlege or existence. If 'agnostic' was intended to be read at face value without subtext in terms of word origin, it wouldn't mean what it does.

'Agnostic' is not just a 'watered down' version of 'atheist'. If you ask someone if they believe in god, this is not a binary question. A religious person would answer 'yes', an atheist would say 'no', but an agnostic would say 'I don't know'. The word agnostic literally means 'lack of knowledge' which is completely different to someone saying 'I know for sure that there isn't a god'.

If we're going by word definitions, "atheist" - Not of, or relating to the theistic - atheism includes everything outside of 'yes'. This is one of those things scholars have been debating for a while, actually.

 

[spacelaser]

Everyone is an agnostic they just wont admit it.

 

[mashers]

The greek word for knowledge, but in this context is derived from a class of religious studies. The meaning of -theist and -gnostic is functionally identical. Both refer to the concept of some 'outer' knowlege or existence. If 'agnostic' was intended to be read at face value without subtext in terms of word origin, it wouldn't mean what it does.

Can you provide a reference for this? Every definition I have found of 'agnostic' refers to the belief that we cannot know about the existence of god. This is very different to the definition of atheism.

If we're going by word definitions, "atheist" - Not of, or relating to the theistic - atheism includes everything outside of 'yes'. This is one of those things scholars have been debating for a while, actually.

Well, the OED defines 'atheism' as "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." In turn, it defines 'disbelief' as "inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real". This is not the same thing as an admission that we cannot know one way or another.

 

[chaoskagami]

Well, the OED defines 'atheism' as "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." In turn, it defines 'disbelief' as "inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real". This is not the same thing as an admission that we cannot know one way or another.

I don't have a copy of the OED at the moment, so you'll have to forgive me for using the poor man's dictionary (dictionary.com)

'Inability' is the key word. 'lack of ability; lack of power, capacity, or means'

'Belief' is defined as 'confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof'

Therefore, we can expand the definition of atheism as such with 'inability' to get a subset of the definition: 'Lack of ability, power, means, or capacity to have confidence in the truth or existence of God or gods without immediate rigorous proof.'

The important point when you expand as such is 'Confidence' - 'full trust'.

This subset of atheism's definition sounds suspisciously like Agnosticism, in the whole impossible to know either way facet. This specific subset also never says it doesn't believe in god, either. Does that make sense? It's more a game of semantics than anything.

 

[Lacius]

No they're not. 'Atheism' comes from the Greek 'atheos' which in turn comes from 'a-' (without), and 'theos' (god). It means that you believe there is no god. 'Agnostic' comes from the Greek 'a-' (without) and 'gnostic' (knowledge) and specifically means the believe that we cannot know whether god exists or anything about him/her/it.


'Agnostic' is not just a 'watered down' version of 'atheist'. If you ask someone if they believe in god, this is not a binary question. A religious person would answer 'yes', an atheist would say 'no', but an agnostic would say 'I don't know'. The word agnostic literally means 'lack of knowledge' which is completely different to someone saying 'I know for sure that there isn't a god'.

Asking someone is he or she believes in god(s) is a binary question, actually. A true dichotomy exists when the options are X and not-X. In the case of whether or not a person believes god(s) exist, the only possible answers are yes and not-yes. There are no other possible answers. It is atheism if a person cannot answer yes to the question, "Do you believe one or more gods exist?"

If a person answers "I don't know if god(s) exists" to the above question, then he or she has actually answered a different question, and I would respond, "I asked what you believed, not what you knew." Agnosticism deals with the question of knowledge, not the question of belief. When a person tells me he or she doesn't know if god(s) exist, he or she hasn't actually told me if he or she believes in god(s). Typically, an agnostic cannot answer yes to the question and is also an atheist. I discussed this at length in a previous post:

I'm curious why people identify just as agnostic when it's an entirely different issue. With regard to belief in a god, one is either an atheist or a theist. The topic of belief is separate from the topic of knowledge. With regard to knowledge that a god exists, one is either a gnostic or an agnostic. For example, a Christian can believe in a god and claim to know for sure that a god exists; that would make him or her a gnostic theist. A Christian can believe a god exists but acknowledge that he or she doesn't know for sure; he or she would be an agnostic theist. Many, if not most, atheists lack the belief in a god but acknowledge that they don't know for sure that no gods exist; they would be agnostic atheists. Some atheists, depending on the definition of the god, don't believe a god exists and also claim to know for certain that no gods exist; that would make them gnostic atheists. I personally don't believe in any gods, but I also don't claim to know for sure that a broad definition of god doesn't exist, so I am also an agnostic atheist.