Agnostics are pussies

Clee_O'Patty · #**171** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suburbanite

But, as stated, one does not need to be an agnostic to have your opinion, it is perfectly acceptable to think the way you do within the atheist community. I am an atheist, and I agree with you. Why not call yourself an atheist? Its preprogrammed that you think of atheism as definitive or as extreme because theists want it that way. I've been demonized many times by people who grew up in the church who just have no idea. A mexican bitch once asked me if I worshipped the devil. This is how completely warped other's perspectives on atheists really are. I was out to lunch the other day with two atheist buddies (all my closest friends are atheists) and this exact conversation came up. One of us said that the reason people say they're agnostic is because people will instantly shut off upon hearing you're an atheist. He was claiming that he doesnt really bring up his atheism to non-atheists for this same reason. Likewise, its rare that I introduce my atheism. Just the other day, it was purposed to me in class by someone that I was an atheist and I was forced to admit to it, but it made me feel incredibly uncomfortable in the classroom. After class people came up to me with some of the most randomly patronizing crap like "its okay, don't feel bad, my brother is an atheist, too". or "hey man, its cool that everyone has their own opinion, but, you realize you have to believe in God in order to disprove him". what the hell yo? Its because of pussy agnostics driving a rift into a debate that didn't need them. You make my perspective seem extremist and exaggerated when in reality it is IDENTICAL to your perspective.

Believe me I feel your pain. I went through similar crap as a kid. Since my dad's and atheist and mom's agnostic, we never went to church. I never missed it until in the 3rd grade a teacher asked me (illegally no less) what church I went to. I had just transferred from New Jersey to South Carolina in the middle of the year and had no idea that by saying we didn't go to church, I would be setting myself up for teasing for the rest of the year.
I was told I was going to hell by everyone, teased relentlessly or on good days simply shunned. Ironically, when they weren't teasing me, everyone was inviting me to go to their church as if I was the holy grail of some church sponsored show and tell event.

I remember thinking, if church turns you as mean as you kids are, there's no way I'm ever gonna go. I was only eight at the time so the subject of whether I was atheist or agnostic never came up. If it had I wouldn't have known how to answer at that age anyway. All that really mattered was that I didn't go to church and that was enough to justify treating me like the spawn of the devil for them.

I'm just trying to say that I don't really disagree with your point that atheism is misunderstood but I don't call myself an agnostic because I'm afraid of being harrassed as an atheist. In other words I'm not a pussy.

Unfortanately there are those out there that will harrass you simply because you aren't one of their brainwashed flock. Still in the end it's worth it to be true to yourself.

Suburbanite · #**172** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clee_O'Patty

Seriously I like your definition of atheism. I sincerely hope it catches on. It's certainly much better than the current commonly understood definition. However until it does catch on, you will be swimming upstream in trying to get people to understand you.

Dictionary.com currently defines atheism:
–noun 1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Merriam Webster defines it:
noun
Etymology: Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date: 1546
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity

On the other side they define agnosticism:

noun
Etymology: Greek agnōstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnōstos known, from gignōskein to know — more at know
Date: 1869
1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2: a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics>

and from Dictionary.com:
ag·nos·ti·cism–noun
1. the doctrine or belief of an agnostic.
2. an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

Good luck in broadening the definitions, until you succeed I will continue to refer to myself as an agnostic.

My success is only in the atheist community, and i wouldn't even really say it has anything to do with me. This is the definition used by a lot of academic atheists and philosophers. I didn't make it up, in so much that I didn't come up with the idea. Its already "caught" on except for with agnostics and theists, who wouldn't care, as you can see resist me at every step. But, is it not the atheist who defines himself?
Its like jews, they tell each other they are jewish even if they dont believe in God because (and they do say this), hitler would consider them a jew. But who wants to be defined by their opposition?

Clee_O'Patty · #**173** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suburbanite

My success is only in the atheist community, and i wouldn't even really say it has anything to do with me. This is the definition used by a lot of academic atheists and philosophers. I didn't make it up, in so much that I didn't come up with the idea. Its already "caught" on except for with agnostics and theists, who wouldn't care, as you can see resist me at every step. But, is it not the atheist who defines himself?
Its like jews, they tell each other they are jewish even if they dont believe in God because (and they do say this), hitler would consider them a jew. But who wants to be defined by their opposition?

I would say yes the atheist does get to define himself. As long as you reciprocate and allow the agnostic to define herself.

On that final note, I'm not a pussy.

Suburbanite · #**174** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 10:38 PM

i'll even have to concede, you're the exception to the rule I suppose

Clee_O'Patty · #**175** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 10:53 PM

Thanks suburbanite. I appreciate that. I think we aren't really all that different.

Suburbanite · #**176** (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 11:10 PM

Damn, Teksuo or whatever that asians name is should see this

Drogyn · #**177** (**permalink**) 04-28-2008, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clee_O'Patty

There are different degrees of certainty for knowing. Of course you can't really know the sun will rise but you could set up a scientific experiment and show a repeating pattern proving the hypothesis that the sun will rise and even calculating the time it will rise in a given location. Someone else could perform the same experiment the same way and get the same results as you.

This type of knowing is very different from the kind of knowing people claim to have about religion. They claim to know things which can't be proved with even a minimal degree of certainty.

I'm just one agnostic so I can't speak for everyone but I don't have a problem debating with or disproving the obviously ridiculous claims of any religion specifically. For instance, I will gladly tell anyone that there was no snake walking around in some mythically perfect garden plotting to bring on the downfall of humanity with a piece of fruit. It's clearly a myth on the same level with the myth that the earth was created on the back of a giant turtle.

It's the broader questions that cannot be answered. Is there or isn't there a creative force or being/s behind our exist? Is there a soul or essence that continues beyond this life or do we just cease to exist? These things cannot be known at least not with our current level of knowledge and technology. All we can do is speculate and we should all be honest enough to admit that what we know on this subject is speculation and nothing more.

I see. So you'll reject the Satan-as-a-snake concept outright, for very logical reasons: No evidence to support the existence of Satan-as-a-snake, no logical reason to believe that there ever was one. I get that.

But you won't reject the "Magic Force" concept outright. Why is that? There's no evidence that a magical force created the universe, no logical reason to believe that anything remotely resembling any of the deities that are claimed to have created the universe exists, but you still say "Well, I don't have all the answers."

I agree that there are different degrees of knowledge. For sure. But as neither of these things (Satan as a snake and the magical force) are scientifically testable, they both fall under the same form of knowledge. They should both be rejected outright for the same reasons.

Clee_O'Patty · #**178** (**permalink**) 04-28-2008, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drogyn

I see. So you'll reject the Satan-as-a-snake concept outright, for very logical reasons: No evidence to support the existence of Satan-as-a-snake, no logical reason to believe that there ever was one. I get that.

But you won't reject the "Magic Force" concept outright. Why is that? There's no evidence that a magical force created the universe, no logical reason to believe that anything remotely resembling any of the deities that are claimed to have created the universe exists, but you still say "Well, I don't have all the answers."

I agree that there are different degrees of knowledge. For sure. But as neither of these things (Satan as a snake and the magical force) are scientifically testable, they both fall under the same form of knowledge. They should both be rejected outright for the same reasons.

A zippo lighter could appear to be a 'Magic Force' to a caveman. Microbes, atoms and DNA existed for longer than humans have, all invisible to the eye until we discovered the technology to observe them. So yes I think it is possible that there are forces or energies that we may discover later.

Of course I don't believe that anything we might discover is ever going to literally look like Zeus with a thunderbolt or Jehovah with a long gray beard or any of the other human personifications of dieties.

I have a theory for where our dieties originally came from. I think they all started as ancestor worship. For example stories of great grandmother Athena who was a really wise woman and accomplished weaver would have been told to each new generation and probably embellished each time until Athena became something more than human.

From there, once the precedent for the existence of something resembling ourselves but more powerful was set, people took it to the next level and created stories of creators responsible for all the things they couldn't understand.

I also highly doubt that there's an intentional will behind the force that brought life into the universe. I don't see any evidence for that. But there was a beginning point and to have a big bang there had to be an energy of some kind at work. What that energy or force may be, I have absolutley no idea.

TakuanSoho · #**179** (**permalink**) 04-28-2008, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drogyn

But you won't reject the "Magic Force" concept outright. Why is that? There's no evidence that a magical force created the universe, no logical reason to believe that anything remotely resembling any of the deities that are claimed to have created the universe exists, but you still say "Well, I don't have all the answers."

Speaking for me, why don't I reject the "Magic Force" concept outright? Have you read the latest in String Theory :-)

"I don't know" is one of the most powerful answers possible, yet it is amazing how scared people are to utter them. I guess it is the natural abhorrence of a vacuum or something, but the world would be better off if people just accepted that they don’t know.

TakuanSoho · #**180** (**permalink**) 04-28-2008, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clee_O'Patty

I have a theory for where our dieties originally came from. I think they all started as ancestor worship. For example stories of great grandmother Athena who was a really wise woman and accomplished weaver would have been told to each new generation and probably embellished each time until Athena became something more than human.

Interesting topic. I think this is true of certain demigods like Hercules. Before writing, time becomes a vague concept, so there is a tendency to do what I call "time compression", i.e. turning the slow development of hundreds even thousands of years into something that occurred within a generation. So in keeping with your theory I would say that this happened quite a lot, that many different people doing many different things turned into a single person doing all those things.

But for most gods, I disagree. I think they are more personifications of nature than ancestor worship. There is a strong belief in humanity that all actions have some agent causing them. This underlies the Aristotelian belief that the natural state of items is at rest unless something causes it to move. So something had to cause a storm, hence the cause is a god. Something causes the wheat to grow, that cause is a goddess. Myths were created to explain complex interaction of differing agents. Plants grow and die in a cycle, therefore the goddess of vegetation and the god of death have some sort of agreement (as personalized by the existence of Persephone). And so on.

The Greeks, being highly rationale, took this to greater extents than most other people at the time, which is why they had so many more gods.