I don't accept that an agnostic holds the opinion that the essential nature of things are unknown or unknowable. An agnostic simply expresses his state of not knowing whether a god, with all its acutraments, is real or not.

You are right in questioning an agnostic, 'if you think God is possible, but don't know, what would your world view and philosophy be if you knew for sure God existed and on the other hand, if you knew for sure, God did not exist.' This is a valid question, but you treat the issue as if the answer has been given to it, and the answer is a subscription to religious dogma-acceptance. That is not the case, and definitely not the case in a phylosophical sense.

Atheists share a lack of knowledge about the existence of god with agnostics. What you failed to mention that this lack of knowledge if also fully shared with all religious people of all religions.

This consideration does not prove at all any subordination of sets between the two. If you insist on this set-subordination, then your only way to go about is establishing an equality (both agnostics and atheists are not in knowledge of a God's existence, and no other subordinating factor remains in a set-theory view), and since they are equal in this sense also to all religious people of all religions, the equality that you insist on necessarily establishes it that all religious people are both atheists and agnostics as well.

So I'd retract your statement as it is not true, and if you insist it is, then it can be proven that religious people are atheists, and that's not something you would want to do, if I know people and can pick an intellectual Christian from the crowd.

Think about it. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god.

An atheists is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

An agnostic is a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

Since no one can be conclusively certain of the existence of supreme beings, including atheists. Therefore an atheist is an agnostic.

naw as an atheist there are more events and readings that to me show fact that there is not a god...people don't get it an atheist isn't a see to believe, there is no seeing to believe, cause god doesn't exist..period.thats how an atheist sees that subject

and it's not just the christian god either its all the other religions that worship "a god or gods",i even had a woman tell me i'm the devil himself i laughed and told her you don't listen do you,there can't be a biblical hell if there isn't a god....doh

Alton, this question is so very different from your original post that its own godmother would not recognize it.

The atheist can't be sure. Empirically.

He answered "no" not because of his absolute certainty in this knowledge, but because of his absolute faith there is no god.

You are right, the atheist does not know if there is or isn't a god. In this sense the atheist is not different from any religious person, who also does not know whether there is a god or not.

So you are saying that because atheists are agnostics, it follows directly that religious people are agnostic, too.

Everyone is agnostic. The separation between what you believe in is what determines your association: You would be an atheist if believe there is no god, and you'd be religious if you beleived there is a god.

Epistemologically speaking, you're right, all atheists and agnostics; and all religious, even the most fervent religious people, are agnostic.

Language is a difficult subject. Nobody can grasp it in its entirety. I don't mean just knowing all 2 million of the words in English. I mean even if you just focus on two words, such as "yes" and "epistemology", you will eventually wind up not knowing what you are talking about -- 'you' meaning the general you, not you personally. I am just as helpless against getting confused once the thought goes deep enough, as anyone else on the planet is.

My friend Paul said once, "Nothing strictly speaking is." He is a genius, a true one.

Think about it. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god.

An atheists is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

An agnostic is a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

Since no one can be conclusively certain of the existence of supreme beings, including atheists. Therefore an atheist is an agnostic.

I don't accept that an agnostic holds the opinion that the essential nature of things are unknown or unknowable. An agnostic simply expresses his state of not knowing whether a god, with all its acutraments, is real or not.

...but you treat the issue as if the answer has been given to it.

...Atheists share a lack of knowledge about the existence of god with agnostics. What you failed to mention that this lack of knowledge if also fully shared with all religious people of all religions.

This consideration does not prove at all any subordination of sets between the two...the equality that you insist on necessarily establishes it that all religious people are both atheists and agnostics as well.

God did not create everything that is in the universe.

I can name 6 things that pre-existed creation:

1. God Himself
2. Waters
3. Darkness
4. Levitation (not an object, but a thing nevertheless, a form or forerunner of gravity)
5. Angels (I call it one thing, but there was an unspecified, possibly very large number of them existing pre-creation)
6. Directions, namely, up and down.
------------

These are all experiencable things or knowledge of things--things which did exist, as they were named in genesis as pre-existent to creation, but they are not things that are necessary to exist. A universe of some form or consistency could be imagined and therefore possible to happen without any of the six things mentioned here. Some of them even consisted of matter, and some, by their nature, foretold of matter, which was not possible pre-creation, such as light. This list does not include at all the infinite number of tautologies that also existed at creation. It also does not include the infinite number of necessary contradictions.

Yes, but have you met Met? That was how it seemed to him.

Edit: typographically speaking, at least.

Think about it. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god.

An atheists is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

An agnostic is a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

Since no one can be conclusively certain of the existence of supreme beings, including atheists. Therefore an atheist is an agnostic.

However, I acknowledge that I cannot prove a negative. Therefore, I give God the same chances of being real as I do to Santa, unicorns and garden elves. Basically, none at all.

But aren't you falling for the same false dichotomy the Believers do? That if you falsify one possibility, there are none left, so the answer MUST be that there isn't one?

What if a god evolved in much the same manner as you did, except that it had many more billions of years in the crucible than our species?

More to the point, think of the possibilities that are open to our species if we hew to the trajectory of scientific discovery we are now on for billions of years?

Even more to the point, if you were at that level NOW, would you even care if a bunch of monkeys wrapped a Santa Claus suit around you with their dogma in their wetware and nattered on and on about how they worshipped you? Wouldn't you just roll your eyes and chuckle and get back on with crafting even more nifty bulwarks against entropy?


-Kerry O.

No. And frankly I don't see how you make that connection. It's my view that someone is saying there is something out there that cannot be seen, heard, felt or dected in any way. My view is, if it cannot be dected, it must not exsist.

Someone who says you must either believe God exists or else that God doesn't exist is setting up a false dichotomoy since there is the well-known third option of the agnostic, who maintains there is insufficient evidence on the basis of which to adopt a position on so momentous a question.

This part of your argument suggests that God is from some other planet? An alien life form? If so, then he couldn't be "God." He'd just be another life form. The jury is still out when it comes to life on other planets, so agnosticism is appropriate.