An argument in favour of agnosticism.

I know it is a simple and obvious argument... but what is a Christians answer to this line of thought?

We are all individuals and we all have different personal interpretations of everything we perceive due to us being in a different physical position in space and having different experiences of life and understanding.

We can all make mistakes.

Therefore we can doubt our own interpretation of anything and, more easily, doubt other peoples understanding.

Therefore it is impossible to know beyond doubt that anything the bible, a priest or holy person says has any meaning at all.

The bible in itself uses circular logic.. as it tells us God is real, and it tells us we can trust the word of the bible because it is the word of God. Many other religions do this... so why not believe them also?

The "rules" laid down by God in the bible hold less and less meaning or power as time goes by. Why do you Christians abandon the "word of God"? You claim that parts of the bible where not meant to be taken literally.. but why then is it so vague and hard to understand? Back in the day people used to be stoned for committing adultery etc.. so whats changed? Have you started to realise it is not the truth but are too proud to accept defeat?

If the interpretation of the bible has changed so much throughout the ages and throughout most denominations then it is obviously hard to understand and is open to doubt. The very fact that anyone has even questioned something that claims to be the "word of an almighty God" should make people question their faith.

How about "The word of a few spiritual fellas from some time ago who smoked one too many"?

 

Here goes...

Ah, relativism. The crazy offspring of post-modernism. I think relativism (in this case moral relativism) is bunk, and can be Relativism is how white supremacists can use the USA's wording that all people are equal to exclude black people because they aren't really people. If everything can be "right" because we all can define it for ourselves, then the UN's Universal human rights declaration is useless. If you accept relativism, then me killing you doesn't make me a bad person, I just have my own views (and that is alright).

Ok, no qualms here.

Sure. Questioning and personal study is important.

Well isn't that the problem of canon. how do you make a limited number of texts apply to everything. You interpret; you use hermeneutics. Sometimes you are wrong.

Actually, the bible doesn't "prove" god. People use circular logic in concordance with the Bible to "prove" god. The Bible presupposes that God exists. Why not believe the other ones? Well I have looked at the other ones. I've done some studying of what they believe and practice(I am a religion major in university), and I've decided that Christianity makes the most sense considering I do believe in a personal god.

now we get into some meaty stuff. 1) The bible is not the revealed Word of god. The Qur'an is the uncorrupted Word of god delivered to Muhammad, but the Bible was written over (preventing hyperbole) hundreds of years to specific audiences by certain schools of though. (BTW- All of those Leviticus rules arguable do not apply to christians because they are meant for Jews. Christians though would still fall under the Noahide Laws because they are gentiles). How do you mean though, considering this fact of Noahide Laws, do God's rules mean less and less? Some events weren't supposed to be taken literally, sure. such as the two different stories of creation, some on the other hand was supposed to be taken literally (Pauline epistles for example).

I will not deny it isn't open to doubt. Doubt and curiosity are good. Well I've already covered that it is not the revealed word of god, it is the words of men talking about how God has touched them and their lives. (In the theology of Christianity, Christ is the fullness of God's revelation).

The Human Word of God.

Apart from a couple inaccuracies and an ignorance of some modern scholarship and theology (which isn't necessarily a putdown) you seem to have the argument that "There is more than one interpretation overtime of the Bible. Therefore it is not good". There have been many many different interpretations of national law in the USA and of their Bill of Rights. Is the bill of Rights inherently wrong, or should it be doubted that all men (and women) have certain inalienable rights, even though some people in history read it differently to exclude all women and certain men?

 

Subjectivity/relativism. No, you killing me doesn't make you a bad person. But neither does you having your own views make it "right".

It is not so much that relativists are rebelling against morality and saying "bad" things are okay... they just truly don't believe there is such a thing as objective morality. How can you expect people who don't actually believe in "wrong" and "right" to adhere to what you say they mean?

Arguing from the position that there is no God is the reason that relativists don't believe in a universal moral code. God is the only thing that could bring subjective individuals under one objective banner. Without God it's not that everything anyone says is right... it's that everything anyone says has no objective meaning. For a God-less person to claim a moral law is meaningless.

So without a God.. there is no such thing as wrong and right and everything is relative.. we all make our own personal and relative assumptions about the bible.

Society can exist without objective morality by installing laws based on mutual agreement. Most people do not want pain or hardship.. so a good place to start is to mutually agree not to hurt other people. This is why majority governments and control systems exist. It is always the opinion held by the most amount of people that gets into power... NOT the most "moral" opinion.

It is not wise or logical to make decisions when there is a possibility that you could be wrong, ESPECIALLY when those decisions determine how you will live for the rest of your life.

Accepting an interpretation of the bible to be the truth when you KNOW there is always room for doubt is the equivalent of of sentencing someone to death when you KNOW there is doubt about the evidence put forward.

Such contradiction and vagueness in a book should be enough to put someone off it. In fact.. if the word of the bible is simply the word of God interpreted by a few men and their experiences.. then it leaves a huge amount of uncertainty about the truth of the content.

This is why i am agnostic.. doubt only leads me to a disbelief due to not being able to interpret the word of God and therefore know if he exists at all.

If something is supposed to be so important and life changing i'm sure it would be far more straight forward and doubtless.

If the bible, which is physical matter, can't prove God then how can anything in the perceived world prove it.

But they can all be doubted and doubt only creates more doubt.

I didn't mean they literally mean less and less... i meant Christians adhere to them less and less.. e.g. they decide it is okay to use contraception... they stop stoning people.. they allow war... blah blah.

How do you know this? Perhaps the whole bible wasn't meant to be taken literally and was just some guys metaphor as to how to have a consistent society.

Noah's ark and Adam and Eve make more sense than God existing in the first place... yet a lot of Christians take only the former to be metaphor.

I'm not saying anything about it being good or bad... i'm just saying that there is far too much doubt to bother with it. If it was something like a recipe for how to make a cake.. i'd be more likely to just bake the cake without inspecting it... but the bible entails that you live your whole life a certain way... which is a heafty request.

I don't think that there are such things as objective "rights". If the bill of rights is deducted from religion then they obviously adhere to faith that i don't have. There is nothing else they can adhere to... but perhaps athiests have tried to find "rights" without God.

I think we can create rights for our society.. but we do the creating.. and the majority usually win.. hence rights are different in different societies.

The world is a crule place with or without religion.. but i think people do themselves a favour by living by their own rules rather than that of a man made religion.

 

IMHO, Agnostics are just Atheists without balls...

... please grow a pair.

 

Atheism = lack of a belief in God

Agnosticism = lack of a belief in God for lack of evidence or ability to experience God.

Therefore agnostics are a denomination of atheist. Faggot.

 

Ok

A quick wikipedia search of moral relativism will revel a quote from an American Buddhist that a "godless" religion has a absolute moral code. Richard Dawkins also argues against relativism.

Yeah we all make our own judgements about the Bible, just as we do about killing someone. If someon thinks it is right to kil, then I think that our moral ode says that is wrong.

See, you say that society can exist without an objective code, I think that there is a objective code, I just hink that you don't realize it. We aren't ever going to agre I think.

So, I am just not going to do anything then? It is unwise to act when there is any doubt? Would you then say that skydiving, bungee-jumpin, driving, et cetera are foolish actions because tere is the slightest possibility o dying (and not really that slight in terms of driving). We just don't think of the consequences of most of our actions. Or we don't care. Most people don't have "doubs" about driving because hey don't believe it will ever happen to them. There is stil the possibility they will rash and die though. Foolish drivers.

I just think it is the best considering what we have. If there was inconclusive proof that god did not exist, then I'd abandon m belief. If there was very very compelling evidence against God (even if it was not 100% I'd probably stop believing)

There may be contradiction in some things (orders) but what most of it remains consistent.

So because you can't do something, you won't believe in it? have you tested most of our Natural Laws on the universe, do you doubt those as well? Are you a gravity agnostic?

Have you heard anyone try to describe their experience with God? How can you describe something so awesome, so amazing, so ineffable? Look at people describing war, or the attacks o Sept 11/01. Who can give a perfect answer that is clear an straight-forward.

Bl. Mother Teresa doubted and she is on the way to canonization. I don't think that doubt necessarily leads to more doubt. Maybe in our case i does, but not my own.

Ok, if we presuppose a God, which makes more sense. A man being created from dust, or a story which has the message hat God loves because we were "formed in his hands"?

So, from what I see in this argument is that you don't think that following an absolute moral code is not as good as following a relative one is because the absolute code is harder? or at least more demanding? It requires you to not make you to think twice before acting?

Rights don't have to come from God. They are inherent in nature You can act against them, but they still exist.

Some rights are different, but i an absolute moral code, that would make those rights wrong. All people have the right to life. People who have a law that condones a genocide goes against the absolute morality

why is that?

 

Thank you, by the way, for replying. Good conversation.

I will not deny that there are millions of "godless" people who think there is objective morality. But there are also "godless" people who disagree.. one of which is me. There are many arguments in favour of both..

Fair enough.

The way i obviously see it.. we are existing now without an objective moral code. and no.. i doubt we will ever agree but that is the fun of debate is it not?

You are stumbling across the path of Nihilism and Existentialism here.
I do not deny that we have emotions and that we can enjoy life. But i do doubt everything... so i tend not to believe in any set in stone theory. You don't have to believe in God or morality to do things. Skydiving and jumping don't require belief.. they are physical actions.

There is no compelling evidence to say God doesn't exist.. but there is no compelling evidence to say he does. Why is a belief in God the best considering what we have?

How can i believe without being able to? I can experience gravity. I can't experience God.

You could argue.. How hard is it to make up a book and claim it is the word of God without sounding to vague and contradictory? Very hard.

Well evolution and natural selection show perfectly how humans evolved from organisms. The dinosaurs help to prove this. Christians have come up with crazy explanations as to how dinosaurs existed.

No... i just meant that i would have to do a lot of considering about something that may change my life a great deal before accepting it.

Urm.. where do they exist? It's a dog eat dog world. Survival of the fittest.

You are just stating things here.. but there is nothing to say they hold truth.

Because religious laws are unnecessary.. maybe sometimes i want to be jealous of my neighbors wife?

 

Agnosticism = absence of belief in a god.
Atheism = belief in the absence of a god.

Evidence isn't necessarily a factor in either.

 

Okay but my point was that agnostics are atheists. Richard Dawkins is a self proclaimed agnostic atheist (i think).

 

Well no, that's not true. Atheists are agnostics (unless they think they have proof of the non-existence of a god), but not all agnostics are atheists.

Richard Dawkins is not the emperor of atheists.

 

Wikipedia: Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods,[1] or the rejection of theism.

So.. Atheism is basically the lack of a belief in God. Agnostics don't deny the possibility... but they don't believe in God for the time being.. hence they are atheists.. but only because they are not theists.

I agree.. i just used him as an example because some people hold him in such high regard.

 

That's one definition. As I understood it, agnosticism is distinct from atheism in that an atheist believes there is no god, while an agnostic does not believe that there is a god. It's a nuanced distinction.

 

It's not going to work, Hoatsi...
you're simply trying to project the idea that Atheist's have some kind of "belief", the belief in " no god".
It is a cop out and it is bullshit.
Next your'e going to call Atheism a " Religion", am I right?

 

I can't speak for "Christians", but only for myself, a self-labelled Christian. I don't think faith means knowing beyond doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, or even a preponderance of the evidence. As you say, humans are fallible by nature. I don't think I know anything beyond doubt. Luther described his faith as a "joyful bet", which is exactly how I think of mine. On the best available evidence, in light of our own personal experiences, knowledge, and intuitions, what beliefs do we want to bet our lives on?

You've shifted ground from belief in God to belief in the Bible as the word of God. The Bible is only one source of support for belief in God--the particular God of Abrahamic religions-- and it would be circular to rely on it as the basis for belief in God. But people have believed in divinity long before the Bible, on the basis of reason, intuition, revelations of "the Spirit", etc. As theologian Marcus Borg says, "the Bible should be taken seriously, but not literally"--as a source of powerful metaphors and historical traditions of a remarkable people. The Quakers, among others, rely mainly on the Spirit to guide them in interpreting scripture.