The worst thing about religion

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It seems the main issue you people have with my argument is not logic but the terms I am using.

I do not have a positive belief that god does not exist. I am agnostic. However I also think everyone else should be agnostic also. This is a logical demand of agnosticism. If I come to the conclusion that there isn't sufficient reason for myself to believe in god, then it follows that everyone else should also come to such a conclusion. Either I am incorrect or theists are incorrect.

I see no reason to believe in any god. Thus I conclude that others who believe in god hold an incorrect belief. No atheist or agnostic could disagree with this or they would be admitting the existence of gods.

Does this sooth your battered ego?

It is not arrogance to suggest that everyone should share my opinion. If I have come to my opinion rationally, then everyone else should be capable of coming to this conclusion. If they do not either they are wrong or they have knowledge I do not possess and I am wrong. T

he cosmological argument is not sufficient reason to suppose that there is a god. It is sufficient reason to conclude that we need to learn more about the Big Bang. I am agnostic about the cosmological argument.

Is there any other knowledge that I should know to enable me to conclude that god exists?

You are using the term "delusion" in an improper context, and then applying it to a psychological context improperly. I mean, honestly, delusion is not the equivalent of "mistaken" at all, period, hallelujah, amen, etc etc.... I mean, claiming that everyone who disagrees with you or that you yourself must be insane... is well.... a bit crazy.

The problem is that it is possible for sane people to be mistaken. Being wrong about any given subject does not make one delusional. Thus, it is perfectly consistent for an atheist to consider me sane, but wrong on the subject of God. Similarly, I can regard atheists as sane despite their denial of God. Objectively, God does or does not exist, but without sufficient evidence to prove indisputably one way or the other it is possible for rational people to come to different conclusions.

You seem to be mistaking sanity for infallibility.

This is quite untrue. Either my ideas are incorrect and I am insane or their ideas are incorrect and they are insane. Two conflicting ideas necessitates a state of delusion in one of the two people. This is a simple idea. They could both be wrong so they may both be delusional.

The terms you are using are reflective of your position. I mean, at best you are denying proper denotation to support an arrogant connotation, and at worst you are being malevolent. As well, your concepts are a bit questionable at times as well.


If you come to a conclusion, then you come to a conclusion. Your conclusion only must be universally accepted if you know all things, and understand all things, and if all truths are communicable. I mean, yes, there are only 2 conclusions but that does not mean that either side can know themselves to be correct. You can't know all things, and a logical conclusion will usually be somewhat tentative anyway, and thus not go forwards with the seeming arrogance you have.


An agnostic doesn't know.


It does somewhat.


Umm... the issue is that you don't know everything and you consciously know you don't know everything. So, to assert that everyone should share your opinion is to assert you know all things. In fact, if you were an agnostic, then you would likely be more appreciative of variations in knowledge.


It is pretty effective. I mean, yes, you can take it agnostically, but it is strong enough to warrant a theistic position.

The ontological argument could do something. One could also refer back to historical arguments about the existence of particular religious figures. We could argue that the unique experiences of individuals can constitute some form of evidence, so on and so forth. Really though, I would argue that you should stop acting so absolutist in terms of knowledge, you aren't a machine no matter how much you think you are.

Being incorrect and being insane are very different things. I mean, no definition of insanity claims that sane people have perfect knowledge and insane people are slightly wrong.

Like I said, your use of delusion is somewhat incorrect, and thus your application of delusion to insanity is completely incorrect.

Quite untrue.

A fact is either correct or incorrect. I am either right or wrong about facts.

I don't believe in god. You do believe in god. Either I am right or you are right.

A belief can be either justified (my existence) or unjustified (belief in a god).

A belief is not the same as a fact.

Sanity is the state of holding beliefs that are justified.

Insanity is the state of holding beliefs that are unjustified.

By sanity I mean to make no reference to mental illness. I do not consider belief in god to be psychotic.

Somewhat. You have been using terms dishonestly to disparage religious people.


This statement of your is false, as I will demonstrate shortly. If you are an atheist, you should simply admit it. You needn't be ashamed of your beliefs.


Why then do you approve of atheism?


By establishing that tautology (either yourself or theists are incorrect) you have affirmed yourself to have a positive belief in the non-existence of God. An agnostic does not know whether God exists or not, and so holds no stance on the matter. Thus, the theistic position can be correct without necessitating that agnostics be mistaken, since agnostics have no stance on God's existence. YOU ARE AN ATHEIST.


If belief in God is an incorrect belief, it logically follows that the correct belief is that God does not exist. You have a positive belief that God does not exist; you are not agnostic but atheist.


No, an agnostic would simply be admitting that they are ignorant of whether God does or does not exist, and so is in no position to judge whether it is the atheists or the theists who are mistaken.


It annoys me with more shoddy reasoning.


Yes it is. And if you seriously dispute that, you have transcended arrogance, soared past hubris, and are in serious need of psychiatric help.


You know, by your reasoning atheists are insane. Why haven't you ever made that claim?

Incorrect is making a mistake for some reason.

Insanity is making a mistake for no good reason.

1+2=4 is insanity because there is no good reason for making such an elementary error.

I don't consider there to be any good reason for theism. Thus I consider theist to be deluded. IF I don't consider theists to be deluded, then they must have a good reason and I am wrong.

corroonb, I don't think you've ever adequately answered the regress argument. If you do not adequately answer the regress argument then all beliefs are unjustified. It goes the following way:

1. Suppose that P is some piece of knowledge. Then P is a justified true belief.
2. The only thing that can justify P is another statement – let's call it P1; so P1 justifies P.
3. But if P1 is to be a satisfactory justification for P, then we must know that P1.
4. But for P1 to be known, it must also be a justified true belief.
5. That justification will be another statement - let's call it P2; so P2 justifies P1.
6. But if P2 is to be a satisfactory justification for P1, then we must know that P2
7. But for P2 to count as knowledge, it must itself be a justified true belief.
8. That justification will in turn be another statement - let's call it P3; so P3 justifies P2.
9. and so on, ad infinitum.

Now, the issue is that anything, quite literally, can be found unjustifiable according to the regress argument, while the argument itself is still quite logically valid.


Incorrect definitions. Sane people regularly hold to beliefs that are unjustified, in fact, as I stated earlier, mentally healthy people generally hold to more positive delusions than depressed people who tend to be more realistic about the world. Because of this, there is a problem with using the definitions as given as your new meaning contradicts the original one.

Sanity is a reference to mental wellness though, and insanity is a reference to mental illness. There are much better, other terms for epistemic justification(including epistemic justification).

Everybody has a reason, who is to say what reason is good and what isn't?


If you don't know your number tables that well? I mean, the fact of the matter is that nobody will make that mistake without reason, and who is to say that the reason is good.

Well, the term "good" is subjective, so you've just once again reduced everything back to your own opinion on matters.

You are assuming perfect knowledge on the part of everyone. The matter can not be settled definitively in either direction, but it is possible for people to have differing views. Let's use an example to demonstrate how absurd your views are: Historians can (and do) disagree on how many soldiers were present at the battle of Agincourt, based on differing interpretations of available facts and historical accounts. Objectively, there was a certain discrete number of soldiers present at that battle. Does that mean historians who have put forward numbers other than that one are insane or delusional? Certainly not, it means that either they lacked the requisite information to come to the correct conclusion or, with conflicting reports, were unable to precisely determine which was most accurate. Reasonable people are capable of disagreeing on a variety of topics. Really, since no two people are in perfect agreement on everything, your stance would necessitate that there be at most one sane person in the world, and quite possibly none. Which matches up well with my earlier claims that everyone is insane, but we all know that comment was tongue-in-cheek.

Now, for the last time: Sanity is not the same thing as infallibility. You are trying to make it so, and this is dishonest.

I'm am not an atheist. An atheist believe that god does not exist.

I don't believe that god does not exist. I am agnostic about his existence or non-existence.

However, I do not believe their is sufficient evidence to conclude that God does exist. There is no evidence for his existence and no evidence against it.

This is agnosticism. Agnosticism is not sitting on the fence. Agnosticism is a state of not having sufficient information to make an informed decision about an issue, here god's existence. This does not mean that I will accept positive statements about god's existence from people who do not have sufficient information.

Infinity is not an issue. I don't why you think that proves God exists. Space is infinite and time could also be infinite. I am agnostic on this issue. I do not have sufficient information to make an informed decision.

I am an agnostic.

Factual knowledge (no. of soldiers) is not the same as holding a belief. Please don't argue that it is.

Facts have an inherent truth value. Beliefs do not.

A "fact" is just code for a "statement" (since obviously facts can't be true or false), and it is quite possible to have systems which have statements that are neither true nor false within the system. If I view the existence of god as a matter of epistemic systems (and I do), then there are conceivable systems where neither statement is true.


Well, I think that this is ambiguous. The problem with the proposition "God exists" is that it has affirming evidence but no falsifying evidence possible; thus, someone can be in possession of affirming evidence which is not intelligible as such from a limited subjective perspective. Furthermore, since "knowledge" can be defined as different from belief, it seems plain to me you can have situations where someone believes something they don't know, and still be right. Orwell may not know God exists, but he is free to believe it because it is not inconsistent with his epistemology. Whether someone has knowledge is a product of language, and maybe in my system one may not know something even if you believe it. I don't see how "You don't know" implies "You shouldn't believe" necessarily. The one is a statement of a fact, and the other is a proscription.

You haven't proven that space is infinite, and time is certainly a different issue than space, as for an eternal universe, we would have to have an infinite sequence of events before this one, that would take an infinite amount of time. An infinite amount of time is impossible to traverse, this is a problem. Not only that but no matter how much time passes, the time in the past remains infinite. The entire concept soon becomes nonsensical. Finally, where is the initial cause? Where did this infinity come from?