Religeous Two Week Fire Gap

This is the last I'll say on this subject...

The term "agnostic" and its popular usage, as a way for people to distance themselves from atheism, evolved as a direct result of persecution of non-believers throughout history and the demonizing of the term "atheist". Those who use the term according to its popular usage, knowingly or unknowingly, help perpetuate the conditions under which that persecution persists.

The term Agnostic was developed by Thomas Huxley...

I think you've got some odd persecution complex going here.

I'm well aware of that. Now kindly piss off.

Ok, ok how about another one? Explain to us how there's no such thing as a moderate politician... or, maybe how the color gray is a logical impossibility?

No. If this were mathematics, and we were talking symbolic logic, you would be right, of course. The dichotomy would be between believing and not believing, with no subdivision of the latter.

But this is not symbolic logic, it is a living language, and the rules are different. The A- prefix is not a simple logical negative, modifying a logical proposition. The only determiner of meaning in language is usage, and its manifestation and codification in authoritative dictionaries and academic analyses.

The function of language is unambiguous communication, not the operations of boolean algebra. Whatever meaning has wide consensus in a group, that is there the meaning.

Since you have finally managed to degrade this into an etymology thread, Chip, lets discuss it. It is interesting to wonder why this one word is currently supporting two simultaneous radically different meanings. Are we half way through a transition from one to another ? Do they compete from different zones of influence ? Is the distinction sufficiently unimportant to the population that the force pushing for clarity is too weak ? Is Chip, unbeknown to us, the president of a worldwide association of atheists fighting for this meaning, propagandising worldwide and beginning to gain influence ?

I am finally succumbing to this huge derailment. I have put in a request to a pal on a university network to email me the full story on the word "atheism", its meanings and (hopefully) how they have changed down the ages. I already posted what the shorter OED says (available free online). But lets get it from the horses mouth of the english language. The mighty Oxford English Dictionary - full version (is it 17 volumes or 27 ?).

Surely that is an authority Chip will accept, and so will I.

But of course, it will probably say both, which for me (here, now) means "don't use the useless word". But those who love definition wars can continue to happily indulge, at the cost of everyone else trying to discuss the central issues.

Might tell us who is more right though, mightn't it ?

Good grief !

I'm getting sucked into it now..........e..g..o......com....pet...itive...ness...aaagh......

Well I guess I will come out of the closet then and say that I *do* know the Bible very well indeed.

I am an "ex-Christian" just like I described in the previous post. Its generally a big mistake to believe that everyone who identifies themselves as a Christian has cornered the market on what's right or that they know and follow the tenets of their own religion as well as the Atheist next door does.

If we have established one thing in this thread, it is that there is no consensus on what "God", "belief", "science", "Christianity, "agnosticism", or "atheism" is.

However, beating the drum yet again, a consensus on "science" is very easy - merely because science is a method, as compared to "GodbeliefChristianityagnosticismatheism" - which are beliefs.

Speaking for myself - Chip is an atheist because he says he is - and there's room enough in my lexicon to accord him the favor. I hope there's room enough in his lexicon to afford me this favor - I do not think of myself as a atheist because I do not know whether an entity that may (in the slightest possible way) resemble "God" exists -assuming that the universe is a closed system and that entity defines and controls causality. I know it's possible, given the current limits of science, but I have no idea what the probabilities are.

I have no idea whether there is life after death - and more importantly, I have no idea how "life" might be defined after a physical death. I do know that some sort of existence is within the realm of possibility - only because I am well aware of the current limits of science in areas such as these.

I await with great interest and fascination answers to questions like these - should they come in my lifetime, or upon my death. I suspect, however, that like with most human matters of belief, speculation, and fiction-versus-reality, the answers will be far more complex than anticipated. I have always had trouble with how narrow, parochial, anthropomorphic, and just plain transparently boring the human conception of "God" has been.

haha Christian agnostics? why be wishy-washy, get off the fence, either you believe in a religion or you don't. Sounds to me that those CA's are having problems deciding that they want to be a part of a backwards-looking, female degrading, intollerant set of rules but they want to be considered 'good people' and like the bake-sales etc. those type of people are the worst as they have no faith.

yeah the problem is that people say they are Christians and do not follow the rules, eating shellfish, not treating women as property, not burning witches etc. Because there are so many wishy-washy Christians who just want to be a part of the group but don't want to follow the rules we have allowed the Catholic church to be above the law and get away with a conspiracy to hide child-molestors. So you wishy-washy Catholics are to blame for this as I know only a very small amount of you would condone this but you are spineless and lazy and let it happen.

My mother calls herself a "wistful agnostic". Isn't that sweet ?

Deists are what you describe as Thesists and they have quite a past! Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson...
http://www.deism.com if ya wanna read up on it!

haha religions teach good things? have you read the Bible? and if they do why are there so many wars and intollerance and misogeny etc all justified by religions? you live in a box my friend.

I read the Bible and I remember how Jesus got pissed at the lack of respect for the house of worship and went beserk. All I'm saying is that there is good reason to bring religion down. that .000001% by your calculations (I suppose petty intollerance is ignored in your guestimate) has allowed the Catholic church to be a sanctuary for sickos and allows murder to be advocated on tv. That's enough for me to want it gone.

If you truly believe the odds are equal, or that assigning odds is itself a leap of faith, then I can afford you the favor. I can afford you the favor no matter what, really, but it is my personal belief that anyone who thinks the odds even slightly favor there being no god is an atheist.

The simple truth is that the majority of atheists are weak atheists, which is exactly the same position as those who claim agnosticism but think the lack of evidence favors there not being a supreme being. If they both believe exactly the same thing, why do some choose to call themselves agnostic even though their beliefs are in exact accord with those of most people who do call themselves atheists? You know my theory

This right here would make a very excellent subject for discussion on its own. It forms the core of my own crisis of conscience with regards to life in general.

Chip, I do understand you were illustrating a point... But as someone who has spent a lot of time on both sides of this fence - I am agnostic. Period. Actually, agnostic leaning away from atheism - I have seen to much synchronicty and order, too many things that (unless Kendra's right and it's all delusion, my head's way of trying to see patterns and order in the cosmos) tell me that there is SOMETHING out there. I don't even know if I believe it's intelligent, let alone a "god" or omnicient, ect... I belive in many Buddhist beliefs. I am eclectic in that I agree with most of what the Universalist Unitarian churches I have attended say. I find a lot of the deepest, most powerful spiritual revelations I've come across in my life have come from gnosticism, Carl Jung, and buddhism. And to reiterate the believe Kendra stated earlier using my bastardized, probably grossly-misremembered quoting of gnostic gospel, "The kingdom of heaven is spread out over the earth, yet men do not see it". I simply do not believe that the flying spaghetti monster has worked enough in my life to point me towards any organized faith. I do believe pretty firmly now that many of the world's religions are all paths leading to the same thing, "fingers pointing at the moon" as the Buddhists say. This is my spirituality, it's not about the finger, it's not about the bible, it's not about the church. It's about treating eachother how we want to be treated, it's about being civil and humane to one another. It's about enjoying life and not feeling that there's a condemning, wrathful old testament God waiting for me to screw up. It's about appreciating what we do have and feeling that we are a part of something much greater.

No, she was not in denial, and she is not afraid of being thought an atheist. My brother was also not in denial and also not afraid of being thought an atheist; he WAS an atheist.

These terms were very useful to us. I also had a first-hand, life-long demonstration of exactly what these terms mean. I considered them to be shorthand for a spectrum.

Not a "believers" vs "atheists" thing. Among believers, there is a wide spectrum, as well. And other words for those types of believing, I discovered!

You can't just make the language get rid of a very useful term because you don't like it, or you personally feel its use means the person using it is fearful or in denial.

coco

Now I've started reminiscing, I'll bore you with a bit more.

My father was a determined atheist, positively believing that there was nothing beyond the apparent material existence, and that all contrary beliefs were weakness and self-delusion. He would not have been as polite to Chip as I have been. Being classified in with my mother would not have amused him.

His father was a Christian minister, as was his.

My father believed that the whole point of humanity was to exhibit compassion, optimism and morality right into the face of a pitiless lack of meaning, and right up to the jaws of obliteration.

To behave well for reward or out of fear, he saw as a diminishment.

I believe it all at once, and none of it, embracing the paradox, and delighting in the contradictions.

The two of them adamantly taught me nothing on these matters, stating only that it was a question for me when I grew up. I only winkled out their beliefs later.

For this restraint I thank them. Probably saved me four or five lifetimes. Or maybe four or five hundred. Who's counting?

Chip, I just wanted to say that I enjoy your posts more than anyone else's. They are always very insightful and more importantly calm and levelheaded.

Amazingly, I think the whole theist or not a theist (atheist) thing IS too hard for people to digest...

I'm willing to bet you didn't know this, but many Christian Christians would argue Catholics aren't Christian. They would argue the Catholic church teaches things contrary to Bible teachings.

So you would be tarring many Christians with a brush they reject. There are many understandings of scripture.

To blame Christianity for the actions of a few priests in one religion would be similar to blaming all atheists for the acts of Nambla (a group promoting homosexual sex between men and boys) because it's an atheist organization. I wouldn't suggest homoexuals are child molestors either, because I don't associate the acts of a few with the others who did nothing wrong.

I think it's safe to say there isn't any further constructive conversation happening in this thread, as such it's being closed. I urge all of you who wish to continue debating theology in the Off-Topic Forum to please remember not to personally attack those you either don't agree with or who hold different opinions and/or beliefs than you do. While I understand this is a highly passionate subject, intolerant and attacking behavior will not be allowed.