God is unknown to me. I make no claims as to whether he exists or not, but I don't believe any of current theistic claims.
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I definitely am one with the belief that gods are unknowable. I admit it is a belief.
I wonder however how 'unknown' claim works. Do they say "God is unknown to me" or "God is unknown to everyone"?
The second claim is still a belief.
Doesn't a problem lie in, 'Where did it all come from?'
Perhaps it could be argued that they do make a claim, that to the best of their knowledge the evidence for a god is insufficient. (Compare for example to someone who is not convinced that cows exist.)
I'm going to have to disagree with your definition of agnosticism here... There are two definitions, you're thinking of the 'unknowable' definition, but there's also the more common (and applicable to this situation) 'unknown' definition.
What you describe as an atheist is a 'weak atheist' or 'agnostic atheist'.
Agree with the rest of your post, but this last bit is kind of a stretch. Making claims about what you think you believe (or believe you think, or believe you believe, or think you think) are pretty low on the "faith required" scale. You don't get very far in life without assuming you can reliably know that you know what you know. Or believe that you know what you believe. Or know that you believe what you believe. Even pondering the opposite - that we don't reliably know what we know - leads down a "do I really know I don't reliably know what I know" kind of paradox. My head hurts just thinking about (or mistakenly thinking I'm thinking about it, as the case may be).
"Agnostic" as a belief system is quite different than the popular "not picking a side" idea.
I'm including both weak/agnostic atheists and strong atheists under the same banner as atheist, but I consider also that most of them are not strong atheists despite how useful it is to think so. I'm sure there's also atheists who believe the earth is flat, but their holding that belief doesn't translate back to all atheists.
Doesn't a problem lie in, 'Where did it all come from?' Then you have The Big Bang but where did that come from? Being naturalistic sounds hip but once we get to the edge of where we understand nature to be things get weird. Such as with String Theory. Do you consider those other dimensions, if they exist, as part of nature? Then you have the different rules those dimensions are governed by. I don't believe in magic either but I think there is a lot more to 'it' than meets the eye.
Yes, I realize this. Although the true 'popular' definition is more on the side of 'I don't know'. Saying I don't know puts you squarely in the side of non-belief in any particular religion which makes you a weak atheist as well.
No, it's not more useful to think so. I don't even know why you'd imply that? It's only useful to those who attempt to justify their beliefs by saying 'well it takes more faith to claim no gods exist!' which is a straw man for nearly every atheist.
"It all" came from a source that is eternal, from an infinite regression of causality, or from a violation of the law of cause and effect. And each of these also have materialistic examples. No one has yet come up with a scientific explanation with sufficient predictive capability to claim it as the explanation for where the universe came from.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows with 100% certainty whether there is or is not a god. Which means that everyone, from the Pope to Richard Dawkins, is an agnostic.
"It all" came from a source that is eternal, from an infinite regression of causality, or from a violation of the law of cause and effect. And each of these also have materialistic examples. No one has yet come up with a scientific explanation with sufficient predictive capability to claim it as the explanation for where the universe came from.
Yes, I realize this. Although the true 'popular' definition is more on the side of 'I don't know'. Saying I don't know puts you squarely in the side of non-belief in any particular religion which makes you a weak atheist as well.
No, it's not more useful to think so. I don't even know why you'd imply that? It's only useful to those who attempt to justify their beliefs by saying 'well it takes more faith to claim no gods exist!' which is a straw man for nearly every atheist.
Indeed. Why use the word "agnostic" to describe something about me? I.e. that I claim I don't know something. I'm not important. The real important question is "Is there God(s)?" and I believe that this question is unanswerable(edit: well, it is obviously answerable. I meant the real answer of this question is and will be unknown). Using it to describe "weak atheist" is a waste.And if you define an agnostic as a weak atheist, what then is an atheist but a strong atheist?
It's not about actually knowing, but claiming to know. The Pope will tell you with 100% certainty that God exists and he speaks to him. I know a whole lot of Christians who would claim to know God exists based on personal experience.
First off, this probably belongs in Philosophy, rather than Ethics and Morality.
Secondly, 'historical gospel' is not evidence any more than 'Little Red Riding Hood' is evidence for the existence of speaking, anthropomorphic wolves capable of imitating old women. Without ample physical evidence to back it up, the legitimacy of an old book as a source of truth is laughable.
Even if a few parts of a story have a basis in truth, that does not mean the rest of the story does as well. For example, we know that the city of Troy existed, because we have found said city, but it would be foolish to assume that Scylla, Circe, Amazons, Cyclops, Achilles, Ares, and Athena all also existed because they are referenced in the same very, very old story.
Thirdly, it requires no faith to be an atheist.
Religious people often seem to have trouble understanding this, and will go so far as to call any kind of assumption 'faith' in order to justify their own beliefs.
I assume the sun will come up tomorrow. I assume that unicorns don't exist. I assume that ice cream will be cold, boiling water will be hot, and tides will follow a predictable pattern based on the revolution of the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun.
I also assume there is no god, because I haven't seen any evidence of one.
I assume we have all of these things in common except one, and to single any one of them out and call it a 'faith' is to stretch the meaning of that word until it encompasses any thought or concept and is rendered meaningless.
For more clarification in a ear-caressing english accent, please enjoy the following videos:
Laughable? I just don't see too many happy atheists.
Then you haven't seen too many atheists. Sure, there are unhappy atheists, just as there are unhappy theists. Due to depression and the like. But show me an atheist who is unhappy because of his atheism, if you can. I certainly am not one of them.
Laughable? I just don't see too many happy atheists. Complaints, complaints, complaints.
Then you haven't seen too many atheists. Sure, there are unhappy atheists, just as there are unhappy theists. Due to depression and the like. But show me an atheist who is unhappy because of his atheism, if you can. I certainly am not one of them.
I'm happy. It's great to be alive!I just don't see too many happy atheists.
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