Bruno

Discussion (6) ¬

1. 
   Tkil

   March 12, 2014 at 1:14 am | #

   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. :-)
2. 
   Christopher

   March 12, 2014 at 8:52 am | #

   @Tkil, exactly. That’s more and more where I lean too.
3. 
   LE Lapin

   March 19, 2014 at 8:48 pm | #

   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?
4. 
   Christopher

   March 20, 2014 at 7:43 am | #

   @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.”
5. 
   Kona

   April 7, 2015 at 7:19 am | #

   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.
6. 
   llirium

   June 1, 2017 at 11:04 am | #

   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.