A Question to Agnostics

[Diogenes The Cynic]

I understand the standpoint the standpoint of Atheism. A person doesn't believe in G-d, and therefore lives life according to how he or she thinks is best in light of that belief.

I understand the standpoint of a theist as well. A person believes in G-d and lives life in accordance to what they think G-d expects of them.

What I don't understand is the standpoint of an agnostic. From what I have observed they live their lives no differently then atheists, but if they were true agnostics, they would hedge their bets and take Pascals Wager.

For a true agnostic, one who thinks G-ds existence is ambiguous, they would have little philosophical inclination to object to performing religious ritual. If they had strong moral objection to the performance of religious ritual, then they would be effectively atheist, wouldn't they?


Your thoughts?

[BonerJoe]

I have no objection, unless force is being initiated.

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.

Yes but beyond that, if a person was in actually honestly agnostic, wouldnt they have an incentive to take Pascals Wager?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Unless theyre being dishonest about being agnostic and are in fact just lazy, or something else.

[digitalfour]

I can't choose what to believe or not believe. I have to face evidence for my beliefs to change.

The bottom line is, I don't know. I can't make myself believe something my subconscious tells me is at least partially untrue.

[fatcat]

What I don't understand is the standpoint of an agnostic. From what I have observed they live their lives no differently then atheists, but if they were true agnostics, they would hedge their bets and take Pascals Wager.

For a true agnostic, one who thinks G-ds existence is ambiguous, they would have little philosophical inclination to object to performing religious ritual. If they had strong moral objection to the performance of religious ritual, then they would be effectively atheist, wouldn't they?


Your thoughts?

First, Pascals Wager is bullshit. There are many different religions that all say you will go to the bad afterlife if you worship other gods. Therefore you're better off just living a good life and not devoting your life to the improvable possibility of after life. Well you're better off not believing in superstitions but you can't have everything.

Your shit about following rituals is impossible to follow in practice. Many religions say you don't go to the good afterlife if you aren't buried in the right way, therefore its impossible to be buried in more than one "right" way. Even within a religion there are sects that disagree with what makes you go to heaven and hell, often that leads to contradiction, meaning picking heaven for one sect means hell for another.

Therefore Pascals Wager is fucking retarded since by trying to follow any one religion you are potentially simultaneously enraging dozens of others, not to mention some religions have literally millions of gods.

IMO Most Agnostics are just Atheists who are afraid/confused of the label.

Atheism means lack of belief.

Any answer to the question "do you believe in God?" thats not yes, including "I don't know", means you're an atheist.

Gnosticism refers to claims of knowledge. You can be a Agnostic Theist. I.e. someone who believes in a god but doesn't claim to know it exists.

I've never met an Atheist who claims to 100% know for a certainty there are no gods. That level of absolute certainty is useless. However most Atheists will under practical definitions, actively believe there is no god, just as other theists actively disbelieve other contradictory religions, and just how every sane person disbelieves in Santa's existence. (yes, I just went there)

[fatcat]

I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.

Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?

edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

First, Pascals Wager is bullshit. There are many different religions that all say you will go to the bad afterlife if you worship other gods. Therefore you're better off just living a good life and not devoting your life to the improvable possibility of after life. Well you're better off not believing in superstitions but you can't have everything.

Your shit about following rituals is impossible to follow in practice. Many religions say you don't go to the good afterlife if you aren't buried in the right way, therefore its impossible to be buried in more than one "right" way. Even within a religion there are sects that disagree with what makes you go to heaven and hell, often that leads to contradiction, meaning picking heaven for one sect means hell for another.

Therefore Pascals Wager is fucking retarded since by trying to follow any one religion you are potentially simultaneously enraging dozens of others, not to mention some religions have literally millions of gods.

IMO Most Agnostics are just Atheists who are afraid/confused of the label.

Atheism means lack of belief.

Any answer to the question "do you believe in God?" thats not yes, including "I don't know", means you're an atheist.

Gnosticism refers to claims of knowledge. You can be a Agnostic Theist. I.e. someone who believes in a god but doesn't claim to know it exists.

I've never met an Atheist who claims to 100% know for a certainty there are no gods. That level of absolute certainty is useless. However most Atheists will under practical definitions, actively believe there is no god, just as other theists actively disbelieve other contradictory religions, and just how every sane person disbelieves in Santa's existence. (yes, I just went there)

I wonder what percentage of your posts begin with x ......is bullshit.

Pascals Wager is superficial belief, and in that sense, its not really real, but from a cost-benefit analysis, to a true agnostic, it makes sense.

The whole "many religions" argument doesn't sway me. You could theoretically reason what you think is best. Everyone has critical thinking abilities, right?

I agree with your assessment of most agnostics really being atheists.

[mikehz]

Some people just can't take a position on any issue. These are the ones who mark "undecided" on all of those surveys.

"Do you favor death? Mark Y for Yes, N for No or U for undecided." Some people will always mark the U.

"Do you believe in a deity?" Again, some people will answer, "Uh--I don't know."

[CaL DaVe]

One does not need to have all the answers in the world. Nor take a position on everything. Some things are too complicated for a human to understand. Because our minds can only deal with patterns.  I think agnostics understand that the concept or existence of a god(s) is just too big of a question for a human comprehend.

[fatcat]

I wonder what percentage of your posts begin with x ......is bullshit.

Lots

Pascals Wager is superficial belief, and in that sense, its not really real, but from a cost-benefit analysis, to a true agnostic, it makes sense.

The whole "many religions" argument doesn't sway me. You could theoretically reason what you think is best. Everyone has critical thinking abilities, right?

WTF? for this post I'm going to be mostly emphasizing in caps

Pascals wager says that since believing in god will get you to heaven, then you might aswell do it because the penalty for not believing is high, and the costs for believing are so low, except IT IGNORES DOZENS OF OTHER RELIGIONS.

Unless you can prove to me that 1 religion is true and all others are false, then it is SPECTACULARLY bad game theory, since if you decide to believe in 1 god, there are countless other gods you have to discount. I.e. You can't believe in the one and only god Jehovah, who made the earth in 7 days, and simultaneously believe in hinduism, norse pantheon, greek pantheon, sikhism etc.

The majority of religions make the same arguments. You can't prove God X doesn't exist. Look at all the amazing things around you, they couldn't have happened by chance, god must have made them. We have a really old book that has eyewitness accounts of people seeing and talking to god/s.

And you can't use multiple rituals from different religions because there are numerous gods who punish belief in other gods  them with hell/bad afterlife. Thou shalt have no other gods but me ring a bell? (im paraphrasing)

Whats not to get?

Imagine you have a ballot paper. On the paper theres a list of all the different religions. They have a box next to them. They say TICK THIS BOX TO GO TO HEAVEN, but they also say TICK ANY OTHER BOX AND GO TO HELL.

Ticking any one box vastly increases your chance of going to all other helsl compared to going to that one heaven. Not all of them are like this, some of them puss out and say as long as you live a good life you'll go to heaven, but ALOT don't.

[BonerJoe]

Agnostic for me means that I believe we can't understand everything.

[Zhwazi]

I'm an atheist, but in defense of agnostics, it may be that they believe in the existence of some kind of god but don't know which god, or don't care whether or not a god exists because it doesn't appear to bear any impact on their life, and thus rightly declare that they don't know, and that it's not going to change because they don't plan to find out. There are lots of things in life where it seems like there is an overall intent to the noise of the universe, but it's nothing that can't be easily reasoned away as chance unless you can demonstrate a consistent way to do it. To an agnostic, they may recognize the possibility "Yeah okay maybe a god does exist, maybe not, weird fortunate things do happen but not reliably enough to the believers in any particular religion, and not to a degree that can't be explained in other ways.

[mikehz]

I am, myself, agnostic. That is, when I'm in a very good mood, which is most of the time. The rest of the time, I'm atheist all the way.

I even published a book on the subject.

[libertylover]

What if whatever an individual happens to believe is the truth for themselves. 

In the movie, "Eric the Viking," when the crew of the ship was lifted up to Valhalla (Viking Heaven) all the Vikings saw their version of heaven with Odin and other Norse Gods.  But the Christian monk missionary who was also in the ship just saw clouds and nothing of Valhalla.   

If this is the case that our own beliefs create our own individual afterlives.  What will the agnostic or atheist have created for themselves.  Maybe they would never believe themselves dead and continue as though they are living for all eternity.  Maybe even getting angry at a random post on a message board which might make them question the nature of their current existence.  Are you really alive now?  I suppose the agnostic will be undecided.