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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (222352)	4/21/2013 10:49:17 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 545085

You said it well. Not knowing (i.e., agnosticism) is the only rational position that doesn't involve a prior bias. I understand that people begin with bias. Even as an agnostic, I'm biased toward atheism as being more likely than not though I think there could be "something". The universe which I know suggests that even if something exists, it would necessarily be much different than what most people imagine. Experience has shown me that when people guess factual things, they are wrong more often than they are right. Guessing a prime number with 27 digits is just not likely to produce a good and true answer. In the end,we are likely to be wrong about any detailed theory held with so little data. It is though I were guessing what is buried in a box, not knowing the history of the box, who owned it, what continent it originated on, or the purpose behind the burial. It is simply a buried box. I won't say dragons or genies are in it until it is unburied and opened. Even then I may not understand what I've found.

To: bentway who wrote (222352)

4/21/2013 11:23:26 AM

From: koan

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 545085

We are saying the same thing except there are three states of mind, not two. It is not know and not know. It is believe, doubt and disbelief.

We are dealing with semantics here. Atheists are not saying they know there is no god, they are saying they do not BELIEVE there is a god. No evidence.

Charles Pierce once said: "all people are in one of three states of mind regarding any issue: belief, disbelief or doubt. And one cannot do anything about it. And they stay in that state until some new evidence comes up to change their state of mind.

So we atheists are not saying we KNOW there is no god, we are saying we do not believe there is a god.

Agnostics are saying they are in a state of doubt. I am not in a state of doubt, but I am also not saying I know.

So there are believers, people in doubt and people who do not believe.

And I have said many times I do believe sentient beings and consciousness is pervasive throughout he universe. Just not a personal god (although there might be-lol!). The whole concept of a god makes no sense to me.

I think most religions like Islam and Christianity are really talking about tribal chiefs.

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"So the rational people would be those who look at the evidence and believe accordingly, and that would be the atheists."

I diagree Koan. I think the most rational and humble people in this vast universe are those that accept that they do not know whether there is a God or not, the agnostics. I personally believe that if there IS a God, we are so insignificant, small and beneath His notice that functionally, you might as well proceed as an atheist, since you are beneath God's concern or notice. If we ARE creatures of a God, we're on our own.

Which makes humanism all the more important. We have to work together to advance ourselves in the universe. If there is a God, he at least gave us that option.