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SteveG View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2014 at 11:38
Originally posted by Argonaught Argonaught wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

I'm agnostic 

This is the only thing a mortal can honestly state about themselves. 

Would you agree, though, that declaring there is no God because i don't believe in such things would be as intellectually arrogant as insisting that there is God,  purely because I choose to believe it?

 
Generally, if not realised, humans are creatures that survive on belief. If a solder is in a dark jungle inside his perimeter and hears footsteps that are in a place where they sould not be, he will open fire after giving some quick identifying banter that  does not work.

It was not important that the soldier actually knew that the enemy was inside his perimeter, he only had to believe it so and opened fire.

This type of belief system for survival, I believe, carries over into religious and other beliefs. Because we simply cannot survive without the first type.


Edited by SteveG - September 29 2014 at 13:24
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2014 at 13:10
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Originally posted by Argonaught Argonaught wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

I'm agnostic 

This is the only thing a mortal can honestly state about themselves. 

Would you agree, though, that declaring there is no God because i don't believe in such things would be as intellectually arrogant as insisting that there is God,  purely because I choose to believe it?

 
Generally, if not realised, humans are creatures that survive on belief. If a solder is in a dark jungle inside his perimeter and hears footsteps that are in a place where they sould not be, he will open fire after giving some quick identifying banter that  does not work. 

It was not importent that the soldier actually knew that the enemy was inside his perimeter, he only had to believe it so and opened fire,

This type of belief system for survival, I believe, carries over into regilious and other beliefs. Because we simply cannot survive without the first type.
I tend to agree, though probably would not have put it quite that like that.

The soldier is following a belief, but not as you said: Survival is a state of not being dead - he has learnt that if he does not challenge the noise in the dark then he could die, he has also learnt that if he shoots without offering a verbal challenge he could kill a compatriot who had stepped into the bushes to take a leak, and, after a court-marshal, he could also still die. If he shoots an enemy he lives, if he shoots a rabbit he lives, if he shoots at nothing he lives but if he shoots a friend he faces the firing squad and if he does not shoot he could die. He does not need to believe that the noise in the dark was a foe, he just has to be confident that it is not a friend. Confidence is a probability, it is a probability with a minimum chance of being wrong. What he has enacted is not a belief but a strategy and what he is doing is minimising his chances of being killed by using that strategy. Chance is risk, and risk is not good for survival. A successful strategy is the belief that following a procedure offers the lowest risk of death. 

There are many things we need to believe, some things we don't need to believe and a number of things we believe we need to believe in order to survive. Being creatures of habit we have learnt that if we do something in a certain way we will more likely survive than if we did it a different way. What we have problems with is telling is which bits of those strategies are necessary and which bits are not. We cannot risk leaving out the bits that may not be necessary just in case there is a chance we are mistaken. Risk and chance are not good for survival so we follow the strategy to the letter. What we have then is a belief that all the parts of the strategy are necessary, even if some of them are not. Belief in the parts that are necessary ensures survival, believing that the parts that are not actually necessary are also required to ensure survival is superstition. Superstition affects luck, and luck is chance. 

Our need to survive has programmed us (or been pre-programmed in us) to believe that superstition will minimise risk. This is the bit that I suspect (née believe) carries over into religion. We can survive without them, but we cannot risk the chance that we cannot.



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2014 at 13:44
I'm Catholic, believe in God, go to church and eat the bread and drink the wine.
I really do not care too much what others believe in or not...none of my business.

I also believe if I camp in the dense forest I will be attacked by Bigfoot, hence I don't camp a lot...outside of my backyard that is..
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2014 at 13:49

Seems to me that the basic concept of humanism is to balance human intellect with human emotion. Intellect through reason and experimentation and emotions through love, compassion and fairness towards all.   This is a sound philosophy and was perpetrated by some of the wisest men to walk our planet.

In due time I think science one day may fully explain the mechanics of the universe.  But we have an exceedingly long journey ahead of us.  If one compares that which is known to that which is unknown we can deduce that we really don’t understand anything. 

Can we truly grasp everything before this universe expires?  Will we figure out how to traverse universes and keep expanding our knowledge even after this one elapses?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 29 2014 at 15:08
While my natural inclination is toward agnostism, I lack the power to either prove or disprove the existence of God. I simply don't know, so I have a real tolerance for those that do as long as they are not militant toward me. The same goes for Atheists that claim knowledge of no god, an oxy moronic statement if there ever was one.



 

My motivation for this post is because the idea of being a humanist, if not always, is somewhat linked to religious belief and it's codes of moral behavior, as if the two can never be seperated.

 

I'm starting to wonder if that is indeed true.


Edited by SteveG - September 29 2014 at 15:18
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 04:07
I like "I don't know" ... I'm not an agnostic but I think "I do not know" are the coolest, smartest and most powerful four words ever uttered by a human being. The phrase "I don't know" is what defines us and it is what made us, it is curiosity and the desire for knowledge. The initial answer to every question ever asked was "I don't know" and that kicked off enquiry, thinking, learning, experimentation, exploration, discovery and development. "I don't know" is not an answer, it is the beginning of the search for an answer. 4 million years ago when the first ape fell out of a tree and walked across the African savannah on two legs one of the first thoughts that crossed his mind was possibly "I don't know how or why I did that" and his descendants have been asking "I don't know..." questions ever since. 

"I don't know" is not the end, it is not the 'oh let's give up and not think about it', it is not "let's not question these things any more" ... it is the beginning of everything: every question and every think.

I don't know that gods do not exist, I don't know if they do. But I am not an agnostic. Theists know they cannot prove that gods exist or they would have done by now, and atheists know they cannot prove gods don't exist or they would have done by now. Mankind has been religious for at least 250,000 years, ritual burials from the earliest human archaeology strongly suggest that early man asked these "I don't know..." questions and posited gods as the answer for those things he could not explain, like what happens when we die. That is time enough to know with a high degree of certainty that we cannot answer that one "I don't know" question. 

No one is trying to prove the existence of non-existence of gods, but theists act as if there are gods and atheists act as if there were no gods... yet agnostics do not act as if there may or may not be gods. They sometimes act as if there were gods and sometimes act as if there were not, this duality is not a result of "I don't know" nor is it a consequence; it is in many ways a contradiction (a real oxymoron and not just a pun) and in other ways it is being selective. In the Atheist and Agnostic thread I called it "hedging your bets", and that relates back to my previous post - it is an attempt to minimising risk, the risk of being wrong - it is like wearing your lucky socks, not walking under ladders, or crossing your fingers when you know they are just superstition, you'll do it anyway just in case they work.

I have no desire or interest in proving or disproving the existence of gods because doing that doesn't answer any of the other "I don't know" questions. Knowing that gods exist or not only answers a single "I don't know", the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything & every think would remain '42'... which is the theological and philosophical equivalent of "because I said so". We can search for (and even possibly find) the answers to every other "I don't know..." question without questioning the existence or non-existence of gods, these other questions do not challenge the existence or non-existence of gods, and their (possible) answers will never prove nor disprove the existence of gods

What if we had no word for god and no concept of gods? Like the apocryphal stories of how the kangaroo, llama and Yucatán peninsular got their names, what if the name of every god in every language in every culture around the world was a miss-translation of the the phrase "I don't know"?



Edited by Dean - September 30 2014 at 04:34
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 10:50
^Thanks for the support. It is indeed difficult for many people to utter those four simple words in this ' it's either black or white' society we live in. Civilization has only existed for 5000 years, perhaps in another 5000 those four words will be easer to say. But I wouldn't bet on it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 10:56
Big fan of 'I don't know'. Often the wisest thing to admit to, mostly because it urges one to learn.
“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 11:37
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

While my natural inclination is toward agnostism, I lack the power to either prove or disprove the existence of God. I simply don't know, so I have a real tolerance for those that do as long as they are not militant toward me. The same goes for Atheists that claim knowledge of no god, an oxy moronic statement if there ever was one.



 

My motivation for this post is because the idea of being a humanist, if not always, is somewhat linked to religious belief and it's codes of moral behavior, as if the two can never be seperated.

 

I'm starting to wonder if that is indeed true.

Yup....I like that too. Although I believe in God that does not mean I know there is a God, I will not know till I die if my belief will be validated.
We do what we do in the hopes if there is a God I will be with him/her, that is all. But yes...I do not know.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 11:41
^Agree Catch. Obviously, this is where faith comes in. As I' ve said, I'm cool with that.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 30 2014 at 22:34
To put in a little humor; one of my favorite guerilla ontologists RAWilson once said,"If you think you know what's going on,you are probably full of sh*te."
Big smile
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 01:15
Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

To put in a little humor; one of my favorite guerilla ontologists RAWilson once said,"If you think you know what's going on,you are probably full of sh*te."
Big smile
You do like trotting out that homily whenever anyone questions agnosticism don't you. Wilson's version of general agnostics didn't require agnosticism about god. Looks like more bet hedging to me.
 
He also said "There are gods; but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually."

Philosophers are full of it.



Edited by Dean - October 01 2014 at 01:24
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 08:39
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Generally, if not realised, humans are creatures that survive on belief. If a solder is in a dark jungle inside his perimeter and hears footsteps that are in a place where they sould not be, he will open fire after giving some quick identifying banter that  does not work.

It was not important that the soldier actually knew that the enemy was inside his perimeter, he only had to believe it so and opened fire.

This type of belief system for survival, I believe, carries over into religious and other beliefs. Because we simply cannot survive without the first type.

I see what you mean, and I can certainly relate to it, but my question was about intellectual honesty, not about the role of "belief" (faith? trust? set of convictions?) in one's life.



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 09:33
^As I noted in a earlier post A, Intellectual honesty will almost always be related to some code of moral behavor so relegion will always creep into this type of question/discussion. Sorry, but it comes with the territory.

Edited by SteveG - October 01 2014 at 09:33
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 11:42
I don't know, I guess I am a big fan of I don't know. I guess agnostic is the best fit. I was once religious, but I have moved on and taken to heart that which is good from xtianity.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 12:48
Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by Argonaught Argonaught wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

I'm agnostic 

This is the only thing a mortal can honestly state about themselves. 

Would you agree, though, that declaring there is no God because i don't believe in such things would be as intellectually arrogant as insisting that there is God,  purely because I choose to believe it?

 
 
Not sure I would say it's arrogant as a rule,  though I have met some atheists who are.
There's no way for us to know conclusively if there is anything 'other' so that's why I think for now , for me, agnosticism is the only tenable position.

are you also then agnostic on santa claus, the easter bunny, and a full original Genesis reunion?  Can't disprove them either, but they are not real.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 13:11
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

To put in a little humor; one of my favorite guerilla ontologists RAWilson once said,"If you think you know what's going on,you are probably full of sh*te."
Big smile
You do like trotting out that homily whenever anyone questions agnosticism don't you. Wilson's version of general agnostics didn't require agnosticism about god. Looks like more bet hedging to me.
 
He also said "There are gods; but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually."

Philosophers are full of it.


I’m sure there are philosophers that are “full of it.”  But one must be careful not to assume they understand what the thinker is thinking.  The spoken or written word is actually a very poor communicator.  Even when trying to communicate simple ideas in plain English there is often miscommunication.   Add to that deep and involved concepts shrouded by obscure language and you have a riddle wrapped in an enigma tucked inside a paradox box.

I never heard of mr. Wilson but I think I get the gist of what he’s trying to convey.  But do I really?  I don’t know…


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 16:04
Originally posted by CosmicVibration CosmicVibration wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

To put in a little humor; one of my favorite guerilla ontologists RAWilson once said,"If you think you know what's going on,you are probably full of sh*te."
Big smile
You do like trotting out that homily whenever anyone questions agnosticism don't you. Wilson's version of general agnostics didn't require agnosticism about god. Looks like more bet hedging to me.
 
He also said "There are gods; but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually."

Philosophers are full of it.


I’m sure there are philosophers that are “full of it.”  But one must be careful not to assume they understand what the thinker is thinking.  The spoken or written word is actually a very poor communicator.  Even when trying to communicate simple ideas in plain English there is often miscommunication.   Add to that deep and involved concepts shrouded by obscure language and you have a riddle wrapped in an enigma tucked inside a paradox box.

I never heard of mr. Wilson but I think I get the gist of what he’s trying to convey.  But do I really?  I don’t know…


I have heard of Robert Anton Wilson, I have also read some of what he has written, albeit a long time ago.
 
Robert Anton Wilson was a writer of fiction by profession, he was also (according to Wikipedia) a psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic. Communicating ideas to others what what he did for a living. 

There is very little that can be misconstrued, misunderstood or misinterpreted by either the phrase "There are gods; but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually." or by "If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of sh*t.". Getting the gist of what he is conveying simply requires reading the words he wrote.

Conversely I do not get the gist of what you are conveying in "a riddle wrapped in an enigma tucked inside a paradox box" nor what relevance it has.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 16:14
Originally posted by Gully Foyle Gully Foyle wrote:


Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by Argonaught Argonaught wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

I'm agnostic 


This is the only thing a mortal can honestly state about themselves. 


Would you agree, though, that declaring there is no God because i don't believe in such things would be as intellectually arrogant as insisting that there is God,  purely because I choose to believe it?


 



 

Not sure I would say it's arrogant as a rule,  though I have met some atheists who are.

There's no way for us to know conclusively if there is anything 'other' so that's why I think for now , for me, agnosticism is the only tenable position.

are you also then agnostic on santa claus, the easter bunny, and a full original Genesis reunion?  Can't disprove them either, but they are not real.
This is a strange comparison to me as you are comparing a possible creator with definitive man made creations like St. Nick. It's not really the same thing if you take the time to think about it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 01 2014 at 16:23
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:


Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

To put in a little humor; one of my favorite guerilla ontologists RAWilson once said,"If you think you know what's going on,you are probably full of sh*te."
Big smile
<span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;">You do like trotting out that homily whenever anyone questions agnosticism don't you. Wilson's version of general agnostics didn't require agnosticism about god. Looks like more bet hedging to me.</span><br style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;"><span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;"> </span><div style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;">He also said "There are gods; but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually."
<div style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;"><div style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px;">Philosophers are full of it.



Dean, I recall you stating once that you were a "post theist" or some similar term. I don't believe this of you personally, but do realize that term might be viewed as "heg betting".
It's similar to someone saying that they are a recovering alcoholic. They may be recovering, but they're still an alcoholic.

Edited by SteveG - October 01 2014 at 16:24
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