All Christians are Agnostics.

[DougShrapnel]

The definitions of agnostics, and atheistic have come under the microscope a couple of times. It appears that the def on atheism will be forever attributed as hard atheism. There is no god. I have adopted the description of bright to desribe my lack of beliefs in god and the supernatural, as well as to include other types of beliefs similar to mine.

But it's the def on Christian that I want to make a point of now. All christains are agnostics. By this I mean that all christians are of the mindset that God can not be proved, be known of. It is only thru faith that man can know God. Xtianity is as agnostic as you can be.

[txag007]

[ QUOTE ]
The definitions of agnostics, and atheistic have come under the microscope a couple of times. It appears that the def on atheism will be forever attributed as hard atheism. There is no god. I have adopted the description of bright to desribe my lack of beliefs in god and the supernatural, as well as to include other types of beliefs similar to mine.

But it's the def on Christian that I want to make a point of now. All christains are agnostics. By this I mean that all christians are of the mindset that God can not be proved, be known of. It is only thru faith that man can know God. Xtianity is as agnostic as you can be.

[/ QUOTE ]
Some of the things in atheists minds take more faith to believe than Christianity.

The following can be found here: http://www.godandscience.org/apologe...asonfaith.html

Reason And Faith
by Van Fisher
One line of attack by skeptics and scoffers concerning attempts to show the compatibility of the Bible, truth and science, is to assert that belief is incompatible with reason. Since we must accept the Bible not based solely on our own personal experience, but also by trusting in the fundamental truths of the Bible, the attack hits close to home. The attack usually includes quotes indicating that our "science" is "ends driven," meaning that if the result fits with our biblical view of things, then we accept it as truth, and if it does not, we call it bogus or soft-science. This line of attack has merit because it is partially true. However, it falls apart, or more accurately, the falsity surrounding the core of truth melts away, when put under the bright light of reason.

Starting with some stubborn facts, let's reason together. Man has a brain capable of reason, or what we call reason. We can consider things, current, past or future, and make judgments concerning them, funny, sad, true, bad, important or irrelevant. We can work things out, study them, test them and arrange them in a way that makes sense to us - logically, if you will. An atheist will use reason because it is in his self-interest. So will a theist. So there does not appear to be any inherent problem with reason and belief.

When we make our judgments, accepting or rejecting things based on our sense, we label them. One thing is true, another is false. One thing is good; another is very bad. Something makes sense; another is bogus. We have a memory, so as we gain experience, we fit things together. One thing is true because another is true; another cannot be true, because it conflicts with what I know to be true. And on and on.

The Bible tells us about things outside our experience. Nobody, born in our lifetime, walks on water or rises from the grave on the third day. So in order to accept the Bible, we must bridge the gap between what we know or believe, and what we trust. And that bridge is not reason; it is faith. But the Bible also does not ask us to build the bridge without a foundation, which is knowledge. Therefore, I believe that reason is not the enemy of trust; it is an essential part of the foundation. It follows, of course, that the foundation should be solid, not made of falsehoods or clever stories that melt away. It must include the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Our foundation of knowledge also includes what we believe to be true from science and from the Word of God. Sometimes, what science in its day thought was true turned out to be bogus. Sometimes what believers in there day thought was biblical truth, has turned out to be bogus.

An additional problem arises here. Since trust in the Bible must be based on imperfect understanding, why not say, "If my beliefs were good enough to gain salvation, they are good enough for all those who come after me." The answer of course has to do with the bridge of faith. For example, I accepted Jesus Christ based on my understanding of the King James Version of the Bible. I had studied it, memorized verses in it, had underlined whole passages and put notes in the margin. Even though I did not understand some of its vocabulary or figures of speech, I did not see a need to change to the New American Standard Bible or New International Version. But when my local church recognized the need for a Bible that the people of our day could understand, we changed, and our impact for Christ increased. One way to look at the premise that we should not put God to the test is to say we should not ask people of our day to use more glue (faith) than necessary given their education and knowledge. So building a foundation of a slightly different shape, using reason and a different knowledge base is consistent with our biblical mandate to be all things to all people so some can be saved.1

Once we accept the Bible, and file it under truth in our minds, we initially reject things that conflict with what we believe is biblical truth. We accept the premise that the Bible as originally written was completely true; but we also accept the premise that our understanding of the Bible is imperfect. So our difficulty is in separating and discarding our imperfect understanding of either science or the Bible when confronted with a paradox, two things that seem to conflict yet both seem to be true.

For example, the book of James seemed to conflict with Paul's writings. Paul said salvation is through faith, works has nothing to do with it, and James said faith without works is dead. However, using reason the apparent conflict can be resolved, without abandoning, or undermining the truth of both divinely inspired writings, because a reasonable interpretation shows that there is no conflict in the texts, but only in our understanding. Works does not provide salvation; it proves salvation. Barking will not make you a dog, but a dog barks.

So the trick, it appears, is to see if we can fit scientific truth and biblical truth together, by perhaps improving our understanding and without creating additional unresolved conflicts. The task is impossible without a whole lot of Bible study. But the Bible tells believers to study the Bible and study it well.2

[DougShrapnel]

Liked the quote, as it makes sense, but what does that have to do with the agnostic core of xtianity?

[ QUOTE ]

Some of the things in atheists minds take more faith to believe than Christianity.


[/ QUOTE ]

Examples?

[benkahuna]

I completely disagree with your thesis.

Some Christians believe that you can prove there is a G-d and that they have proven so. Lots of quasi-scientific stuff out there. [cough]Intelligent design[cough]

I also think your definition of an agnostic is incomplete. I consider an agnostic to not just be someone that thinks a G-d cannot be proven, but one that also chooses to not believe or disbelieve the existence of a G-d. Theists believe in a G-d and the ones I respect most consider their belief a matter of faith and not something that can be objective proof.

I do appreciate your rhetorical efforts to unify, rather than divide, people of apparently great differences.


As for the other poster, I think it's incredibly naive to not consider atheism and theism on equal levels of dogmatic thought.

[Peter666]

God cannot be proved in a direct empirical way. But he can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt through reasoning and in an indirect manner through His creation.

Believing in God is as reasonable as believing in Napoleon.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
I completely disagree with your thesis.

[/ QUOTE ] Yeah I was expecting that.

[ QUOTE ]
Some Christians believe that you can prove there is a G-d and that they have proven so. Lots of quasi-scientific stuff out there. [cough]Intelligent design[cough]

[/ QUOTE ] Proof denies fatih. Faith is an important tennet of xtianity. If faith is so important, it seems that a reasonable man must be given reason to doubt from time to time. Making gods existance without faith unknowable.
[ QUOTE ]
I also think your definition of an agnostic is incomplete. I consider an agnostic to not just be someone that thinks a G-d cannot be proven, but one that also chooses to not believe or disbelieve the existence of a G-d. Theists believe in a G-d and the ones I respect most consider their belief a matter of faith and not something that can be objective proof.

I do appreciate your rhetorical efforts to unify, rather than divide, people of apparently great differences.


As for the other poster, I think it's incredibly naive to not consider atheism and theism on equal levels of dogmatic thought.

[/ QUOTE ] I don't wish to deabte the meaning of agnostic or atheist at this point only Christain.
The def I'm using are for this post only.
Agnostic - Without Knowledge, Unable to know about the existance of god or non existance,
Athesist - Without Belief, One who claims that there is no god. I personally disagree with both defs of the words, and try not to use them to mean what I'm using them to mean in this post. But mainly I'm just steamed that I have to use atheist as defined in a dictionary like Webster's New Twentieth Century (Unabridged), "The belief that there is no God." Worse yet, this brief line is then followed by a quote from Francis Bacon: "A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's mind to religion." And it gets worse. The same dictionary describes the Atheist as "one who believes that there is not God," and then quotes Young, saying "By night an atheist half believes a God."

Atheism is NOT a "belief." Atheism is derived from the Greek, atheos, and means simply "away from the belief in a god or gods." Atheists do not "believe," and it is incorrect to assume that the belief in a supernatural entity or entities is, somehow, equivalent to the "non-belief" in those same beings. It isn't.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]

Believing in God is as reasonable as believing in Napoleon.

[/ QUOTE ]How bout shakespear? Cause, I may not believe in him. Or how bout homer, that one I'm pretty sure didn't exist.

[ QUOTE ]
Believing in God is as reasonable as believing in Napoleon.

[/ QUOTE ]

What flavor koolaid does your cult serve?

[Peter666]

That depends completely on the reasonableness of your evidence. It may very well be true (Although while we don't know that Homer existed, we pretty much know Shakespeare existed).