Rotten Tanx wrote:As I said (or tried to) you might as well say it with certainty or else never say anything with certainty since in an infinite universe anything can change.

I say with certainty that I'll wake up tomorrow. But I might not. Doesn't mean I shouldn't live as if I won't because of uncertainty. The facts as we know them say there's no god so lets take that as a fact and if anything changes we'll adaprt.

So you're certain everything's true as we know it right now, but you're also certain we'll know differently in the future? And that you should hold onto your beliefs, yet also change them accordingly?

"....as we know, there are 'known knowns'; there are things we know we know. We also know there are 'known unknowns'; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also 'unknown unknowns' — the ones we don't know we don't know." --Donny Rummy

lemur68 wrote:
So you're certain everything's true as we know it right now, but you're also certain we'll know differently in the future? And that you should hold onto your beliefs, yet also change them accordingly?

I never said that.

Now I'm sober I don't give a fuck about this discussion. It will never go anywhere but in circles.

Take care.

There's a whole other aspect to consider here as well...

I'd say in order to call yourself an Atheist means you've really come to some sort of decision in your life that there is no god as far as you're concerned.

But I think the term Agnostic can cover two slightly different scenarios:

1) I've come to the decision that there just isn't enough data for me to make a decision.

2) I really don't spend ANY of my brainpower or available free time worrying or deciding about this shit. I can't even be arsed to make any decision. It's not even on my 'to do' list AT ALL...

(in other words I wouldn't ever just assume that an Agnostic is merely a pussyfootin', hedging-their-bets Atheist...)

nonnihilist=crap.

annihilist= awesome.

Rick Reuben wrote: 'atheists and mentals', as you claimed when you were not sober.

The word "mentals" should be a clue that I was joking. Or being jokingly offensive.

The agnostic position is the one that is most respectful of the available evidence.

The available evidence being nothing whatsoever. That's pretty good evidence for something not existing.


God dammit, how did I end up back here?

The agnostic position is the one that is most respectful of the available evidence.

The logical position on an extraordinary claim is to not believe it, unless extraordinary evidence is also provided. The claim that prior to the universe there existed some kind of extremely powerful creative intelligence is certainly an extraordinary one. Until convincing evidence is presented, atheism is the logical default position.

If you can't say that the universe was or was not created, then the best answer to the question, "Is there a Creator?" is "I don't know."

And again, the best answer to the question 'Do you believe the origin of the universe was X?' is 'No', unless convincing evidence for X can be presented.

Rick Reuben wrote:What makes the suggestion of a Creator's hand in the design of our universe 'extraordinary'?

The Creator itself is what would be extraordinary - We have no knowledge of how such a being could exist or could have come to exist, and its existence would violate many physical laws.

Shit looks pretty thought out to me.

Then you haven't looked closely enough.

You think humans, polar bears, and potatos all evolved randomly from the same primordial ooze? That seems extraordinarily unlikely to me.

First, evolution is not random. Second, it isn't extraordinary - it's a well-understood process consistent with a vast amount of evidence.

Either way, you don't know how you came to exist, so until you figure that out, no claims are categorized as extraordinary

Obviously, the categories 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' depend on our current state of knowledge.

especially not by you, a not very complex or evolved form of life.

'Not very' when compared with what? We're the most complex and evolved form of life that we know of.

Rick Reuben wrote:The appearance of matter in a total vacuum violates the biggest physical law: something beginning from nothing.

Which is an argument for not believing any explanation of the origin of the universe (or something that then created/became the universe, such as a deity), unless it can adequately answer this question. It's an argument for both atheism and a-abunchofotherideas-ism.

Since the origins of matter are impossible for you to explain, you have no business attempting to credit evolution for everything you see- because you can't explain where evolution got the raw material.

No one's trying to credit evolution for everything... only how living things we see could have developed from whatever the earliest form of life was. Where that initial form of life came from is irrelevant to the theory. If we could create life from scratch in the lab today, evolutionary theory would tell us something about how it might change over generations, but nothing about that initial creation. Are you also going to argue that we can't credit plate tectonics for the current arrangement of the continents, if we can't explain the origin of every atom they contain?

Stop, you're both right.

Atheism and agnosticism are the sensible positions. Since they're not contradictory positions, why not hold both? I do not believe there is a god, since I do not believe in that for which no evidence is shown, and no evidence is shown that supports the existence of a god. At the same time, I recognize that whether a god exists is unknown (and probably unknowable). Atheism. Agnosticism.

If atheism were the position that we know there is no god, then the two would be contradictory, and agnosticism would be the more sensible choice. But atheism isn't about knowledge, it's about belief - actually, lack of belief. An atheist doesn't even have to believe there is no god. An atheist only has to not believe there is a god. Someone with no beliefs either way regarding the existence of a god is still an atheist.

Clocker Bob, you should learn more about evolution before you talk about it. No educated person thinks that evolution is random (although there is an element of randomness in it), and no educated person wants to "credit evolution for everything you see." The process of evolution is observed fact, and the theory that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is supported by evidence. What we do or do not know regarding the origin of life poses no problem for evolution.

Oh, yeah, I totally agree. I should have said 'agnostic atheism' in that first post.