To believe or not to believe - that is the quesiton.

[RJT]

From Webster’s New World Dictionary (handiest one):

Atheist: rejects all religions * and denies the existence of God.
Agnostic: a person who thinks it is impossible to know whether there is a God or a future life…**


* I think we are all agreed with the religion part here.

** We believers (least I do) realize this to. Guess we believers are agnostics too. We just chose to believe certain things that we know are impossible to know.

So, now that we have proven that all our differences are minor, what do we talk about on the forum?

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
From Webster’s New World Dictionary (handiest one):

Atheist: rejects all religions * and denies the existence of God.
Agnostic: a person who thinks it is impossible to know whether there is a God or a future life…**


* I think we are all agreed with the religion part here.

** We believers (least I do) realize this to. Guess we believers are agnostics too. We just chose to believe certain things that we know are impossible to know.

So, now that we have proven that all our differences are minor, what do we talk about on the forum?

[/ QUOTE ]

I get the impression that some folk believe there is a reason to believe that there is a god.

chez

Agnostics are atheists who haven't come out of the closet yet. Think homosexuals in the 1950's.
Either that, or they are 99.9999999% sure there is no god, but they are hedging their bets "just in case"
I think agnostics are gutless, and I probably have more disdain for them than I do for "true believers". Theists (in whatever denomination) just don't know any better, which is sad, but more palatable than people who profess to be agnostic or theists for public consumption but know better.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Agnostics are atheists who haven't come out of the closet yet. Think homosexuals in the 1950's.
Either that, or they are 99.9999999% sure there is no god, but they are hedging their bets "just in case"
I think agnostics are gutless, and I probably have more disdain for them than I do for "true believers". Theists (in whatever denomination) just don't know any better, which is sad, but more palatable than people who profess to be agnostic or theists for public consumption but know better.

[/ QUOTE ]

See RJT, its pointless. This whole thread so far followed by a post that uses different meanings of athiest/agnostic to reach a dubious conclusion.

chez

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
See RJT, its pointless. This whole thread so far followed by a post that uses different meanings of athiest/agnostic to reach a dubious conclusion.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Chez,

It is indeed difficult to discuss things with one who won’t state anything specific. Kind of like Judo, in Judo the hero doesn’t actually ever attack just divert the opponent. Kid likes to do that. He seems to divert the question/discussion to: Well you guys do/say this. It is not my place to define atheists/agnostics. I used the friggin’ dictionary. That obviously was an error on my part.

I will ask this, before I get into another discussion with an A (I’ll just use the letter for now to mean whatever it is we are talking about atheist/agnostics), do you(said person) believe in the possibility of a god or that it is not at all possible. Like I would advise A’s to do when talking religion: Are you Jewish or Christian, if Christian what denomination, etc. Or better yet, to not even begin to discuss things with folk who are not interested in furthering the conversation as you are, chez. From now on I’ll just say to those not interested in serious conversation, “You are right.”

Oh,well, such is life.

RJT

[ QUOTE ]
It is indeed difficult to discuss things with one who won’t state anything specific.... Kid likes to do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I say a lot of things that are specific, but you are asking for unfounded beliefs on faith (since the questions are unanswerable), and I'm sorry if I don't have many of those to offer.

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It is indeed difficult to discuss things with one who won’t state anything specific.... Kid likes to do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I say a lot of things that are specific, but you are asking for unfounded beliefs on faith (since the questions are unanswerable), and I'm sorry if I don't have many of those to offer.

[/ QUOTE ]


All I can say Kid is this: you seem to agree that it is hard to defend the statement “there is not God, period”. You also seem to suggest that there are no such folk who feel such. Then I read Jasper109. What am I to think? Thus my OP.

RJT

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
See RJT, its pointless. This whole thread so far followed by a post that uses different meanings of athiest/agnostic to reach a dubious conclusion.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Chez,

It is indeed difficult to discuss things with one who won’t state anything specific. Kind of like Judo, in Judo the hero doesn’t actually ever attack just divert the opponent. Kid likes to do that. He seems to divert the question/discussion to: Well you guys do/say this. It is not my place to define atheists/agnostics. I used the friggin’ dictionary. That obviously was an error on my part.

I will ask this, before I get into another discussion with an A (I’ll just use the letter for now to mean whatever it is we are talking about atheist/agnostics), do you(said person) believe in the possibility of a god or that it is not at all possible. Like I would advise A’s to do when talking religion: Are you Jewish or Christian, if Christian what denomination, etc. Or better yet, to not even begin to discuss things with folk who are not interested in furthering the conversation as you are, chez. From now on I’ll just say to those not interested in serious conversation, “You are right.”

Oh,well, such is life.

RJT

[/ QUOTE ]

Its very noticable that people are very reluctant to explain what they mean which is a shame as we would achieve a lot more if people took more time to discover what they were discussing before they spent much time discussing it.

I used to think there were three reasons for this reluctance:

Debating tactic to win an argument unfairly.
Feeling that its a waste of time.
Fear that explaining a position clearly will only serve to make clear why it is irrational.

Recently I have had to add a fourth possibility, the DS view that it overcomplicates things (I don't understand what he means by this but I don't expect him to explain as it would overcomplicate things).

chez

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
3)Fear that explaining a position clearly will only serve to make clear why it is irrational.

4) Recently I have had to add a fourth possibility, the DS view that it overcomplicates things (I don't understand what he means by this but I don't expect him to explain as it would overcomplicate things).

[/ QUOTE ]


Are you suggesting 3 and 4 are different? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I just don't understand what we are debating.

A

Hundreds of thousands of verifiable scientific observations.

vs

B

Faith


Can one of you give me ONE EXAMPLE of a miracle that the Catholic church deems a prerequisite for sainthood?