As an agnostic I go along with roger Ingersoll on the agnostic point of view, I would like to ask my atheist friends did they ever consider agnosticism or did they go directly to be atheist? And can they please state here what your arguments are for the belief you espouse.
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Agnosticism and atheism are generally not considered to be mutually exclusive (as they are answers to two different questions). For example: I'm an agnostic atheist.
I usually describe a/theism as having to do with belief and a/gnosticsm with knowledge. Agnoticism is not some sort of land in between theism and atheism. It is not the *kinder, gentler* version. Like Nyar, I identify as an agnostic atheist as I have neither belief in nor knowledge of any god(s).
Consider agnostic, then become an atheist? Ridiculous!
It is NOT a natural progression.
I for one was a christian before I came to a realization and became an atheist. Of course, I contend that "atheist" is a natural state of how to be.
To be a christian or a believer in any god you have to defy logic and ignore facts. You have to make a HUGE assumption based on nothing more than the figment of an imagination.
To me, atheism is a natural state that requires proof of a god before you can believe or assume a god. "Agnostic" is also making a HUGE assumption. Why say something can exist? It makes NO sense what so ever. I could easily say a purple cow billions of miles wide (but invisible) COULD exist. That is the same thing that agnostics do in reality.
I am an atheist. I don't ask for proof that something "CAN" exist. I demand proof that something DOES exist!
I view agnostics as lost, confused, illogical. It makes no sense to assume something can exist when anything can exist,...possibly. So what. Prove it exists, don't speculate on what could be possible and also have the equal conviction that it could not.
I agree with mykcob4 on this one. Agnosticism doesn't really make any sense to me. There's an infinity of things that could exist. The Christian god is just one of those possibilities, and not even one of the more likely ones. Of course I can't prove that god doesn't exist, any more than I prove that the flying spaghetti monster, Santa Clause, and Betrand Russel's cosmit teapot don't exist. But the absence of evidence is so overwhelming that it becomes evidence of absence. So why bother keeping your options open?
They are not mutually exclusive. I don't believe any of the god claims I have heard so I don't believe in gods so I am an atheist. I don't know that gods exist so I am also agnostic. okay??
I don't really know what I am. Using a label of any kind wouldn't really add anything to the quality of my life, or offer any further enlightenment. If I were to find evidence that's EVEN REMOTELY compelling, I'd take it in to serious consideration. I've spoken to some that inform me that this makes me agnostic, but that pretty much seems to be modus operandi of every atheist I know. Even mykcob4, who is one of the most outspoken atheists I've come across probably has the same philosophy.
I wish the evidence was there, I really do. I would love nothing more than to believe that I'll be able to spend eternity in paradise with the people I love. More and more, I hear theists make the claim that we just don't WANT to believe in God, but that's just not true in my case. I'd also love to find out that, not only does God exist, but that all of our religions were completely fucking wrong and he/she is actually a really good dude.
Knowledge, or lack of it and holding out until it is in hand, is not how I roll with regard to theism because it is laughably invalid, yet entertaining in its backfiring of the joke man imposed upon himself.
Theism is, strictly speaking, the imagination of a younger mankind conjuring up all manner of supernatural explanations for that which he did not understand well enough to describe or explain. In that effort he decidedly liked some of the stories he contrived and found them too addicting to dismiss regardless of his own intellectual advancement and gained knowledge of his world. To ensure these pet stories survived he played mind games that generally challenge himself to un-conjure what he had conjured, which he knew he could not do, thereby staving off final judgement of himself and his conjured stories.
Because the god/immortality story is so engaging, and his desire to wish it real being unfathomable, he further conjured up a calculated wait-and-see posture called agnosticism that gave him a safety net just in case, LOL. Yes, atheism can dwell in that period before revelation is in hand and we're all okay with that. But, should revelation occur, well, we were still valid in our previous persuasions and held harmless by creating the fall-back of agnosticism.
In other words, heaven can wait.
Not buying it. You're either in or out and vacillating isn't fooling anyone.
I guess one can judge from the foregoing that I went from doubting theism to atheism without a stop in agnosticism's safe place.
Goddamn Pitar! Are you published?