In a sense, I have always looked at Agnostics as Atheists, only more complicated. To my understanding, Agnostics believe in a higher power. Do I understand this correctly??? Just what do Agnostics believe in where a higher power is concerned??? Do Agnostics believe in an afterlife??? Divine power???
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07-06-02, 07:18 PM
frankvan
I can't speak for all agnostics, just this particular one. I don't think there is any particular virtue in belief as such. Many people believe things that are patently ridiculous, because they are uneducated, gullible, or superstitious. I try to avoid belief until I am convinced that the preponderance of the evidence convinces me or persuades me of its truth. In areas such as the existence or non existence of a supreme being, I choose to reserve judgement until such time as there is at least more evidence than I have seen, or until there is greater agreement or consensus. I see no reason to believe in an afterlife other than dissatisfaction with this one, which I don't have. And how can anyone believe in a god who is able to punish his children for their inability to acknowledge his existence when it is certainly not that evident - at least to me. I think that the greatest virtue is tolerance and everyone is free to worship whatever he wishes or feels compelled to. At my age, I don't have too much longer to wait to find out firsthand the answer to all these things, or perhaps to simply never know.

07-07-02, 04:09 AM
Lighteningrodd
Perhaps something else I should have added to my question. What do Agnostics think of the Bible??? Do Agnostics consider the Bible to be a history book or a book of fairy tails???

07-07-02, 10:55 AM
Minnesota
What Frank said.

As for the Bible: As an agnostic I take the Bible as a compendium of fables, history, tall tales, misinformation, poetry, mad ramblings, concocted nonsense, and a contrived tool to further a religious agenda. And, of course, its existance is not due to the hand of any god.

07-07-02, 06:31 PM
Sarai
LighteningRodd, as a "weak atheist," I could also be defined as an agnostic. I agree with almost everything that is written here, except that with regard to the Bible, I highly doubt that it was influenced by any God (as I doubt any scripture was). However, I recognize that it's possible that God was behind it, but it seems dubious to me. I lean much more toward Minnesota's interpretation, but am open to the possibility that it could have been divinely inspired.

07-09-02, 06:38 AM
Elexina
It has always been my position that an atheist denies the existence of god while an agnostic acknowledges the possibility. An agnostic does not necessarily believe in *god* per se, but he or she believes that a higher power may possibly exist.
As Frankvan so wonderfully put it: "I try to avoid belief until I am convinced that the preponderance of the evidence convinces me or persuades me of its truth. In areas such as the existence or non existence of a supreme being, I choose to reserve judgement until such time as there is at least more evidence than I have seen, or until there is greater agreement or consensus." That is precisely it. While an atheist has made his or her judgement, an agnostic (or weak atheist, perhaps) reserves it, for the moment.
And an agnostic's opinion on the Bible will vary from agnostic to agnostic. But the general consensus seems to be, as Minnesota stated, that it is misinformation, mad ramblings, and nonsense, having no divine inspiration whatsoever.

07-26-02, 05:02 PM
kittypal
I think a lot of us beleive in God because it offers us a comfort. Lately I don't know what I beleive, it's hard to think of God when so many bad things happen. People (beleivers in God) say God has a plan, everything happens for a reason. If God is so good, why does he permit suffering, sickness, and poverty, why do good people the ones who always try to do right seem to have no leg up on those who don't? Hopefully if there is a God, in the end (after death) there will be reward.

07-27-02, 12:49 PM
frankvan
"I think a lot of us beleive in God because it offers us a comfort".

That seems to suggest to me that belief is something we just choose to do. I feel that I believe only that which I am forced to believe. by whatever seems logical. I do not believe in anything that seems to be inconsistent with logic or reality, and I see no reason to do otherwise. I certainly am not willing to wait for the next world to right the wrongs of this one.

Some for the pleasures of this world, and some
Long for the prophet's paradise to come.
Ah take the cash, and let the credit go
Nor heed the rumble of some distant drum.
Omar Khayam.

07-31-02, 02:07 PM
grandmaflask
"and a contrived tool to further a religious agenda. And, of course, its existance is not due to the hand of any god."

Caan you contrive a tool {if you desired to} to further your agenda,so as millions would follow you.Where ever your agenda may lead them?
confused

08-01-02, 12:49 AM
Yelena
I myself have recently become an agonist. From what I believe, agonists are not at all like atheists. We are not faithless, and acknowledge the prescence of a higher power. We just dont know what is true and it seems to me that the other religions arent right and I cant find the one for me thats is right. We remain open to the possibility of a specific God and religion, but until there is proof or something more realistic, we dont have a firm belief in a particular religion. They may even pray at times to the higher power in question.

08-01-02, 01:14 AM
Yelena

quote: I see no reason to believe in an afterlife other than dissatisfaction with this one, which I don't have. And how can anyone believe in a god who is able to punish his children for their inability to acknowledge his existence when it is certainly not that evident - at least to me. I think that the greatest virtue is tolerance and everyone is free to worship whatever he wishes or feels compelled to.



Frankvan, Beautifully put. You took the thouts right out of my head and put them into words like I was never quite able to. I hope you dont mind if i quote you. I myself have a long way to go (hopefully) until judgement day. Do let me know how it is when you get there.

Personally, Im not completly sure the Bible is a bunch of BS. I was raised as an Armenian Orthodox and went to a Catholic school all my life, and find it very hard to face reality and tear away from what I have been believing all my life.

08-24-02, 04:26 PM
kittypal
I don't know how anyone can be 100% sure of any God or higher power, I keep an open mind, anything could be true. I hope there is a God and a heaven, it would be a lovely thing to think when we die that we are put in a wonderful place. I do have many doubts and don't understand how God if there is one can be so cruel. If you believe the bible, God is vengeful. I really don't know what to believe. I stopped going to the Catholic church because religion is so very one sided, they think if you're not their religion then you are going to hell. I thought we were supposed to love everyone equally. I'm so confused!

08-24-02, 07:21 PM
frankvan
kittypal says: I don't know how anyone can be 100% sure of any God or higher power, I keep an open mind, anything could be true. I hope there is a God and a heaven, -------. I thought we were supposed to love everyone equally. I'm so confused!
--------------------------------------------

It isn't necessary to be 100% sure of any god or higher power. That is impossible for anyone with an open mind . Experience must surely show that the people who are 100% sure of things are dogmatic or unimaginative, and usually wrong. Like you, I hope there really IS a God, but I have faith that if there is, He/She/It couldn't be as unreasonable as the babbling bigots and preachers describe. And loving everyone equally is something that is the result of logic and sensitivity - religion often produces an opposite effect on its adherents, unfortunately.

08-24-02, 08:03 PM
babthrower
I have a problem with the distinction between atheists and agnostics, too.

The atheist 'denies or disbelieves' (Oxford Universal Dictionary)

The agnostic does not know.

I consider myself an atheist because I disbelieve. But I know it's unscientific to state something does not exist unless I can prove that, or provide very strong support. I cannot prove 'god does not exist'.

In fact I know many gods exist, because people have worshipped them since prehistory. So they exist, just as any abstraction exists, just as 'justice' exists, as a concept in human minds.

I have strong evidence that the notion of a cuddly god who loves and cares for all is false.

I don't know whether there's some kind of mind in the universe. Why not? The human brain is matter/energy, yet we believe it is the source of the phenomenon we call 'mind'.

But even if such a mind exists, it would be utterly unknowable and unlovable, so I could not worship it. It would not be a god to me.

08-26-02, 09:00 PM
amy1234
I'm not exactly the most educated person in religion. Well, yeah, I know the basics but that's about as far as I go.
I don't belong to a church of any kind and I don't actually believe that there is a God up there. But I realise that I shall never know (well, not just now) and it is possibly possible for there to be a higher power or some sort. If there were, I wouldn't abide by the rules it sets. So, I call myself Agnostic.

08-31-02, 12:05 PM
Fritzzs
MINNESOTA: What you say about the "bible" is accurate....But, you did leave out the only think about the bible that can be proven and is historically fact:
And that is: The bible has been re-written countless times to make its mmeanings fit the ruler of that present time.. At the so-happening of the bible perior, people did not know how to even write...

08-31-02, 12:08 PM
Fritzzs

quote:Originally posted by donrent:
MINNESOTA: What you say about the "bible" is accurate....But, you did leave out the only think about the bible that can be proven and is historically fact:
And that is: The bible has been re-written countless times to make its mmeanings fit the ruler of that present time.. At the so-happening of the bible perior, people did not know how to even write...

And yet, people today blindly follow its writtings as law and fact...Talk about lemmings...

09-06-02, 04:09 AM
chanceygardner
On the one hand, perhaps I believe, but on the other hand, maybe I don't.

09-06-02, 02:32 PM
babthrower
Yelena, what is the difference between an agonist and a deist?
P.S. The ancient Greeks had a shrine to the Unknown God.

09-08-02, 10:14 AM
scarletpumpernickel
you said:

"In fact I know many gods exist, because people have worshipped them since prehistory. So they exist, just as any abstraction exists, just as 'justice' exists, as a concept in human minds. "



Congratulations - A really exquisite example of tortured logic.

Justice does not exist only as an abstraction
to the extent that it is translated into action.., which it is.
In order for "justice" to be an abstraction comparable to the worship of "gods" by people who never saw or heard from them except as they might imagine the will and works of their gods to be manifested (breathe), justice would need to be independent of men's actions or participation. In other words, if I strangled you in a fit of rage induced by the mere proximity to such empty rhetoric, "Justice" (like "kharma") would be assumed to start into motion, altering my destiny, meting out some sort of just punishment perhaps such as the "crime" merited. ....Except, in this example, I wouldn't be surprised if a few days later I won the lottery and got an email reply from Judith Vittet.
razz

09-08-02, 12:54 PM
babthrower
What do Agnostics believe in???
Minn

At the risk of being a bore, I will quote a definition:

Abstract refers to the ideal and general, concrete to the material and specific.

Examples given are love (abstract) and tree (concrete).

(The Oxford Companion to the English Language)

Your quaint belief that there ought to little 'strings' connecting events, such as my tragic demise and your lotto winnings, is only that: a belief. The little strings do not exist apart from human minds (or in your case, one curiously convoluted mind), and I assure you that is not what 'string theory' is about.

No, justice is an abstraction. We say, 'that (situation) is unjust', or 'this (outcome) is just', and from that we abstract a notion of what a just law, or a just state would be like. We may even try to create a just law, or a just state, or interpret a law 'justly'. But there is no concrete thing in the world you can point to and say, 'That is justice,' or 'That is a small green justice; the average justice weighs three kilos and is yellow.'

'Justice' is as much an abstraction, a construct of the mind, as is 'god', which is abstracted from our speculation about causes.

We can make a statue, and call it 'Justice' (blindfolded), or a statue, and call it 'God', but neither has a real, independent existence.

09-09-02, 09:15 PM
Minnesota
babs

?????????????????????????????????????

Are you sure it's ME that you want to address here? Nothing in your posts appears at all relevant to what I've said.

09-09-02, 09:24 PM
babthrower
Minnesota,
I do apologize, what a stupid blunder! I can't imagine how I could have confused your name with Scarlet's, no freudian slip here, you are not in any way alike. Perhaps freudian slop?

09-19-02, 10:40 PM
lucyloo
Agnostics believe that on Judgement Day, God will go easier on them than He will on the atheists.

ps- I should maybe hesitate to say this, not being that acquainted with the climate here and all, but frankly I thought scarletpumpernickle's post was rather intelligent. Hopefully I will get to know everybody as time goes by and who I'm supposed to like and who I'm not supposed to like.

09-22-02, 04:56 PM
shona
Excuse my ignorance but my understanding was that an agnostic believed in "GOD" a higher power but not in religion. As opposed to an atheist who doesn't believe in "GOD" or religion!!
Love and Peace
SHONA!!

09-22-02, 06:56 PM
Sarai
As you said, some agnostics believe in "a higher power" but they believe that the nature of that power is unknowable to us. They believe there is something we might define as "God'" or "Gods," but their belief doesn't get any more specific than that.

Others, however, don't claim to know one way or the other. They simply admit that they don't know whether or not God exists - and many believe it isn't possible for any human being to know.

[This message was edited by Sarai on 09-22-02 at 07:07 PM.]

09-22-02, 07:50 PM
frankvan
If anyone asks me, I say I'm agnostic. If someone attacks atheists, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in gods or God, because I see no particular reason to believe in something that is loaded with superstition, myths, and contradictions. I am not certain that I am right but I believe I am entitled to be wrong because I have to work with the only brain I have. I have no wish to convert anyone to my way of thinking although I think the various religions of the world have been responsible for a great many of the wars, pogroms, and bigotry, as well as erecting obstacles to human knowledge and progress. Clinging to the comforts derived from religious rituals is, to me, symptomatic of arrested development which may gradually disappear as mankind evolves and understanding advances. Sorry, I didn't mean to get wound up, but I don't think labels mean anything much, so I try to explain what this one atheist, agnostic, free-thinker, skeptic, thinks he is. wink

09-22-02, 08:03 PM
Minnesota
shona and sarai

The following is taken from Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian. I think it's as good an explanation as any. Please note that he does not mention a higher power. I don't believe that more than a handful of true agnostics would say that while it is impossible to know whether there is a god or not, there is still a higher power. Such a position is almost antithetical to agnosticism.

"What Is an agnostic?
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time."

"Are agnostics atheists?
No. An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists."

09-23-02, 10:52 PM
Sarai
I agree that the majority of agnostics are probably of the form you described. That's the kind of agnostic I am, and that's also why I often choose to call myself a "weak atheist." I've found that when I say I'm agnostic, many people believe that I am of the belief that Shona described. Strangely, while I'm sure the vast majority of us are as you described, theistic agnostics seem to be more well-known - at least, that's how it is in my experience.

Here is what my HarperCollins Dictionary of Religions gives as the definition of "Agnosticism":

Agnosticism : The view that thre is insufficient evidence to posit either the existence or nonexistence of God, and by extension, of the immortal soul. Agnosticism functions as an intellectual mid-position between theism and atheism. The term was coined in 1869 during the Victorian debate over Western bibilical faith and the new Darwinian outlook in science and cosmology. There are, as well, forms of religious agnosticism, which avow ignorance about the mystery of the divine nature.

09-27-03, 07:38 PM
Vapros
My biggest issue with the devout people of this world is that they cannot, or will not, recognize any difference between what they believe and what they know.

The majority of all people believe that they know what is true, and it is nearly always the same as what they have been taught to believe by the people around them.

I think we should be more concerned with the matters immediately at hand, in the assumption that if there is a god and a heaven, we will be granted credit for our good intentions and efforts.

They may all feel pretty foolish if, on Judgment Day, we discover that the real god is a big beetle named Jerome who lives in a chinaberry tree in Tupelo.

10-15-03, 09:28 PM
aminator2002
Hail Jerome !

(I like to cover all bases, just in case) Wink

10-15-03, 09:55 PM
mattlynda
lol ami.

so what would you call someone who has absolutly no belief in any higher power, but dosent throw out the idea that they might be wrong, and there might be one?

10-16-03, 11:39 AM
DvdGStwrt

quote:Originally posted by mattlynda:
lol ami.

so what would you call someone who has absolutly no belief in any higher power, but dosent throw out the idea that they might be wrong, and there might be one?



That would be Agnostic.

Websters' defines it:

: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

Cheers

David

10-16-03, 01:02 PM
mattlynda
thanks!

03-31-06, 09:47 PM
revpo
What great answers or brain storming on the subject.
GOD...I dont know, I dont care, and lets move on.

revpo..

03-31-06, 10:20 PM
juanruiz

quote:
and lets move on



The thread was over 2 years old, why did you dredge it up to say that?

04-01-06, 01:11 AM
babthrower
Cheese, JR, this is a religion site, and you're worried about textual references over two years old???? Roll Eyes

04-01-06, 01:45 PM
juanruiz

quote:
you're worried about textual references over two years old????



No. I just thought it strange someone would bring up a nearly 30-month old thread just to say "Let's move on," when it was apparent everyone already had.

04-01-06, 02:17 PM
babthrower
Oh. Red Face Sorry, I missed that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,