Comments on: 03/12/14 – Believing in Not Believing

By: llirium

llirium — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 15:04:23 +0000

I waver between agnostic and “spritual” for lack of a better word. I believe in the infinite nature of the possibilities of the universe and that it’s a place bursting with energies, some of which we can’t even fathom yet. So if I ask for a bit of that energy, from the Sun or the Earth or anything else in it, to manifest positively in my mortal direction, maybe it will happen.

By: Kona

Kona — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 14:19:24 +0000

I have a harder time not believing in some kind of Divine intervention, for two reasons. I should be dead about 20 times over, with inexplicable reversals of what should have been deadly accidents, etc. And while I have no trouble believing that all insensible nature should eventually erode away into utter darkness and entropy, I am unable to accept that the painter of the Sistine Chapel, the builders of the Taj Mahal or a million other great writers, artists, composers, etc., will never again be seized by the muse and lift us above this mortal plane. Whatever form it takes; Heaven, Valhalla, Nirvana, etc.; I believe there is some kind of life beyond this vale of tears.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 14:43:39 +0000

@LE_Lapin, I think we’re both saying the pure agnostic of “I don’t know” but with the addition of “since there seems to be no evidence pointing towards belief, on a practical level, it’s hardly worth even thinking about.”

By: LE Lapin

LE Lapin — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 03:48:58 +0000

That’s a pretty common definition of agnosticism. But IMO it’s a bit oversimplified.

Here’s how the Oxford Dictionary defines agnostic: “A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.”

Break it down. Generically (that is, without the capital G) gnostic refers to mystical knowledge. The A prefix means without. So agnostic means you have (or profess) no mystical knowledge. You don’t hold any religious beliefs at all.

If you ask an atheist and agnostic whether there’s a god, the pure atheist would say “No, there is no god.” The pure agnostic would say “I don’t know.”

I may be pushing this a bit far, but as I see it, an atheist can’t be an agnostic too, because an atheist has a strongly held, professed religious belief – that there is no God. Make sense?

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:52:38 +0000

@Tkil, exactly. That’s more and more where I lean too.

By: Tkil

Tkil — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 08:14:27 +0000

I could say that I allow the possibility, but that probability is so close to zero that it’s effectively zero.

On a lighter note, I recognize that background. :-)