Question for Agnostics

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iamnotaparakeet: sentences are constructions linking information, declaring attributes, defining identity, etcetera... but how can a thing be true? the declaration that 2+2=4 can be true or not true, but a table cant be true. truth could only kick in when you say "there is a table" - that sentence could either be true or not.

marshall: discovering a new planet is based on the theory that what signals we process are caused by something. its useful to work with this as an axiom (causality in the world is sciences core axiom, actually, alongside "there is a world independent of subject"... but once you look over at epistemology, that isnt so clear anymore. its an assumption.) because it yields results. but that doesnt change that were working on axiomatic base.

Truth is mostly a construction in my mind as is most everything, but I have kind of a weird way of looking at the world.

i think truth is simple. people want to make it difficult and time consuming, and hard. obviously i think anyones internal truth especially when it comes to religion and any possible here after is a joke

I yearn for knowledge about the universe and how we got here, and also believe in pure math as an absolute truth given our frame of reference. However I often get the epiphany that unified theory or a description or truth to everything is impossible for us to determine or comprehend.

The main 2 problems being:
1. At some point, something came from nothing
or
2. Something on a base level is eternal, has always existed and will not deteriorate. It has no beginning and no end.

One of those has to be true. That is a truth.

Both of these are impossible for us to grasp or understand completely, as everything we know, has a beginning and an end; a cause and effect. Eternity is outside our frame of reference, meaning it does not even enter into our minds to rationalise, when we try to we can't.

That is why all scientific theory breaks down at the point of singularity. Figures go into infinites, and then Math refuses to work.

But that doesn't mean I think we should give up. Perhaps we can alter our frame of reference, as things that we once thought impossible are now possible.

Philosophically speaking, I feel that this truth will forever ellude mankind until we each reach death and one way or the other cease to exist on any plane, or discover the secrets of the universe.

Well I'm Agnostic but I believe in God. I just don't see the point of the religious activities because I have more important things to do like my schoolwork and studying. I do however celebrity the major holidays of my mom's and dad's religions.

Let me see if I can explain myself adequately.

There is a universal truth; a single truth that applies to everything. Water is wet, fire is hot, whatever (if you're a science nerd and want to prove me wrong, stfu. These are examples and I honestly don't care). Whether we know these truths is a different question.

Now, each person has their own view on something, of course. However, surely they honestly believe that whatever they think is true, whether it's true or not. So this is a truth, in a way--they think it's true, even if it isn't, thus it isn't a lie. It's just an incorrect truth (or a true truth, doesn't matter).

How this relates to agnosticism, I don't know, but uh... there you go.

On the Woody Allen CD I'm listening to right now, from a 1978 stand-up comedy routine, he said:

"I used to go to N.Y.U. a long time ago, which is in Greenwich Village; it's where I started. And I was in love in my freshman year. But I did not marry the first girl that I fell in love with, because there was a tremedous religious conflict at the time. She was an atheist, and I was an agnostic, ya know... We didn't know which religion not to bring our children up in."

We cannot know the true nature of reality, but though testing fallifiable hypotheses using EMPIRICAL evidence we can establish what the nature of reality is NOT and thus develop better and better aproximations of what the nature of reality is. This epistemology is the basis of my agnostic atheism. I have no reason to believe in the existance of anything that there is no empirical evidence for.

There is a lot of evidence that what we all experience on planet earth is because of laws behind how things on planet earth work.

The laws are real.

That's why a horseshoe magnet works, TV works, and the Internet/www works.

So, who invented all those laws behind how earth works?

God?

Nobody?

Personally, I do not know.

I do not know where I was 200 years ago.

I do not know where I will be 200 years from today.

There are aspects of being alive - life - which I do not understand at all.

I do, however, firmly believe that I am using an eMachine to keyboard on and that the desk computer is real and that a website known as WrongPlanet is real.

I have 100% confidence in that.

I also firmly believe that today is Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at least in the time zone on planet earth in which I believe.

I shall not recant those basic beliefs*.

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U.S. 309,846,677

World 6,858,780,687

15:22 UTC (EST+5) Jul 28, 2010

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

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* unless bribed with a sufficient amount of money...just kidding a little.

As an existentialist, I believe that internal truth is entirely subjective, and not subordinate to any preordained determination by the external.