Agnosticism

[Davin]

Because finite man cannot comprehend the infinite God. But God has revealed Himself.

Uhhh...okay...

The question still stands.

Mortals cannot fully understand immortals, but the head honcho immortal has opened his rain coat a few times to some people, therefore one should believe in dancing waffles and also that man has a built in religion of agnosticism. You shouldn't try to understand why it is so because of how incomprehensible muffins are to us mere skin bags, just accept it as well as the concept behind not being able to understand ice cream shoes baking in the oven, but it is what it is. Obviously.

[Achronos]

Because finite man cannot comprehend the infinite God. But God has revealed Himself.

Uhhh...okay...

The question still stands.

Are we really arguing over semantics, again?

Mortals cannot fully understand immortals, but the head honcho immortal has opened his rain coat a few times to some people, therefore one should believe in dancing waffles and also that man has a built in religion of agnosticism. You shouldn't try to understand why it is so because of how incomprehensible muffins are to us mere skin bags, just accept it as well as the concept behind not being able to understand ice cream shoes baking in the oven, but it is what it is. Obviously.

Can you restate that, with coherence?

[Davin]

Mortals cannot fully understand immortals, but the head honcho immortal has opened his rain coat a few times to some people, therefore one should believe in dancing waffles and also that man has a built in religion of agnosticism. You shouldn't try to understand why it is so because of how incomprehensible muffins are to us mere skin bags, just accept it as well as the concept behind not being able to understand ice cream shoes baking in the oven, but it is what it is. Obviously.

Can you restate that, with coherence?

Yes I can, can you make your statement coherent?

[LegendarySandwich]

Because finite man cannot comprehend the infinite God. But God has revealed Himself.

Uhhh...okay...

The question still stands.

Are we really arguing over semantics, again?

You said agnosticism was the natural state of man. I said that agnosticism is not a religion. In response, you said, and I quote, "Because finite man cannot comprehend the infinite God. But God has revealed Himself."

I fail to see how that answers the question.

[Ihateyoumike]

I've thought this guy was a troll in sheep's clothing since he signed up. I'm glad he's finally showing his true colors to everone now.

[Sophus]

I've thought this guy was a troll in sheep's clothing since he signed up. I'm glad he's finally showing his true colors to everone now.

I agree. It's been nothing but sarcasm, insults and zero constructive input from this guy.

[Achronos]

Let me clarify my original position since that term 'religion' entails some sort of negative connotation which would fit 'agnosticism' in a box. What I am saying is that we don't know about God but only what has been revealed to us.

I think I made a mention in another thread about not using arrogance when trying to define what exactly God is, but we may even approach God in an Aquinas persepctive and define what God is not. But the only thing we can 'accurately' describe about God, and I must reiterate this, is what has been revealed to us. And in my case that revelation is Jesus Christ, the Logos, the Incarnation of God. So going back to my initial claim stating that agnositicsm is the natural 'religion' of man, I mean that in the sense that we cannot exactly fully know or comprehend God; but that's not to say Orhtodoxy is based on agnositicsm because we do know God does exist by His revelation in the form of Jesus Christ.

One of the compelling things to me when viewing Christianity is that Christ showed the way for man to be in communion with God; not merely just as a revelation. To me it seems rather foolish that a divine Creator, who would have created all things, would not want a relationship with His creation who He made in His likeness and image. This is one of the pitfalls Islam has, because they view God as a trandescdant being and there is no real conenction, or I would say relationship, with God. God had to incarnate Himself into man so we can understand how that communion between God and man happens. This is why Christ has two natures (although not seperate but in a hypostatic union) both Divine and Man.

I'll say this if my mind was of God's, if I had the very mind of God then I would comprehend myself because I would essentially be God. But the union between our mind and our heart, which is essential in 'knowing' God was severed at the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden. That's a bit of a different topic in it's own entirely, but in conclusion when we do pass from this life into the next, to be in communion with God again only then can we begin to understand and know God. In my opinion the old question of what will we be doing in eternity is a continual relationship with the infinite God, so to understand and know God more and more would be infinite. Then I'll throw in and say since God is perfect, is love, etc then we can be perfect in that state with communion with God for eternity. Again we are diving into more theology than I have time to really get into and explore further.

I've thought this guy was a troll in sheep's clothing since he signed up. I'm glad he's finally showing his true colors to everone now.

Odd.  I thought that summed up you.

[Wilson]

It's pretty simple.  You can't prove the existence - or the non-existence - of God.  In fact, you can't prove much of anything - gravity, evolution, the earth rotating around the sun - to an absolute 100% certainty.  All you can do is say that you are 99% certain or 99.9999% certain.  

So even those people - like me - who consider themselves atheists aren't 100% sure that there's no God.  In fact, since an understanding of how the universe began - where it came from - is so beyond our capacity to comprehend at this time - and probably for all time - we should be a little modest in our declarations of certainty.  Assuming that something created our universe, we can't be absolutely sure that it can't think.  But in my opinion it's unlikely.  The chances of a personal God are really really unlikely.  The chances that Christianity or Judaism or Islam has it right are almost zero - but not quite.

So the dividing line between atheists and agnostics is only one of degree - atheists are more confident that there's no God than agnostics.

[Achronos]

Atheism is immoral by definition. Ingratitude is a deep character flaw and a deadly sin. We cannot prove with your atheistic logic that God exists. Your logic says that:
a) laws exist in everything (in the macroscopic and microscopic world) but no one made these laws; they are from themselves.
b) these laws have no purpose: man comes and goes forward until death and he is finished.

For example the Darwinist, if true to the Darwinian creation narrative that chaos/randomness (no preexisting logic) was the state of the beginning of the universe, has to conclude that the laws that govern the operations of matter actually arose from the matter itself. Marx thought that ideas (and thus meaning) have no independent existence at all; ideas are just a function of the neurological processes of the brain.

Extract God from your thinking, and the Logos â€" the comprehensive logic that interpenetrates all of the creation â€" disappears from view. It’s really a descent back into superstition; an incredulity about the elemental forces with no comprehension that they can be comprehended. For the atheist however, the incredulity is willful while for the ignorant it is merely naive.

[Sophus]

Atheism is immoral by definition. Ingratitude is a deep character flaw and a deadly sin. We cannot prove with your atheistic logic that God exists. Your logic says that:
a) laws exist in everything (in the macroscopic and microscopic world) but no one made these laws; they are from themselves.
b) these laws have no purpose: man comes and goes forward until death and he is finished.

For example the Darwinist, if true to the Darwinian creation narrative that chaos/randomness (no preexisting logic) was the state of the beginning of the universe, has to conclude that the laws that govern the operations of matter actually arose from the matter itself. Marx thought that ideas (and thus meaning) have no independent existence at all; ideas are just a function of the neurological processes of the brain.

Extract God from your thinking, and the Logos â€" the comprehensive logic that interpenetrates all of the creation â€" disappears from view. It’s really a descent back into superstition; an incredulity about the elemental forces with no comprehension that they can be comprehended. For the atheist however, the incredulity is willful while for the ignorant it is merely naive.

Evolution is not random or chaotic.

Here's a brief explanation from PZ Myers:

Basically, what creationists argue is that the evolution of new genes is linear and sequential â€" there is no history, no selection, it works entirely by random replacement of the whole shebang, hoping that in one dazzling bit of luck that the entire sequence clicks into the right sequence, and then it all works. If that were the way the process occurred, then they'd be right, and evolution would be absurdly improbable and would take an untenable length of time.

Another way to think of it is a bizarre version of the hangman guessing game, where one person thinks of a word, and the second person has to guess what it is. In the normal version of the game, the second person guesses letters one by one, and they're placed in the appropriate spot. In the creationist version, you only get to guess a whole sequence of letters in each round, and you are only told if you are right or wrong, not which letters are in the correct position in the word. Not only does it become a really boring game, but it also becomes extremely unlikely that anyone can solve it in a reasonable amount of time.

Evolution does not work like that. It works in parallel, changing and testing each variant simultaneously in many individuals, and then selection for the most favorable subset of changes latches them in place, making the matching letters more likely to be fixed.

And I don't know about ingratitude but Pride is a deadly sin and God has a lot of that if he expects worship without giving an ounce of proof he exists (Wrath - another deadly sin). It's much easier to be grateful toward things that exist. Which is why I show gratitude toward the real people in my life who have been there for me.

Also there's no such thing "atheistic logic". There's just logic and reason which we choose not to suspend once the question becomes about metaphysics. God is theory our critical thinking would have to prove. Not work from.

[Gawen]

Per the OP...and I don't know if this helps...

Atheist agnostic: Lack of belief in gods, sure they could ever be known anyway
Agnostic atheist: So far it's been impossible to gain any knowledge of god/s; maintains a lack of belief in them
Atheist: Lack of belief in god/s
Agnostic theist: Believes in god/s even though they have no knowledge of god/s
Apatheist: Doesn't give a shit one way or the other. This is the central position amongst them all.
Theist: Faith in god/s
Theist gnostic: Believes in a god/s and thinks that the existence of gods can be known.
Gnostic theist: Knows a higher power and able to contact it

[The Magic Pudding]

Ingratitude is a deep character flaw and a deadly sin.

Ah fuck I missed that one.
What number is it?

[Whitney]

This thread is about Agnosticism....not about how atheists are immoral, chrsitian view of sin, or about evolution (started a darwinism is made up  for that one).  STAY ON TOPIC

Thank you  

[AnimatedDirt]

This thread is about Agnosticism...

Is there a people that worship Agnostic?  

[McQ]

I do believe that an agnostic stance is a valid and tenable. I've heard a lot of arguments against various agnostic approaches, but really don't find them to be all that persuasive. Not really anything more to say other than that, for now. Just thought I'd keep us going in the direction of the thread, too.