Who here considers themselves Agnostic?

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I consider myself Agnostic, and have since I was 17. Do you?

While some have listened to my stance and said I was Atheist, I don't see myself as such at all. At the same time, I've read the Gospels and like some of Christ's ideas, and praised him as profoundly progressive for his time, and some say I'm Christian for it, but that's f**king ridiculous. The same people said you can be an agnostic Christian, but I don't think so. Maybe. Anyway, the more I read and hear about the opinions of others, and the more living I do, the more comfortable I am with an Agnostic stance. Are YOU Agnostic?

Not since 1986. Occasionally before,

I suppose I am, by default. Since I cannot know positively that either God exists or God does not exist, I must, perforce, be an agnostic. I do not reject the idea of God a priori, but I have no evidence to assert it either. I cannot prove that a God (with certain limitations) cannot exist.

That leaves me in an ambiguous state philosophically and theologically. As to my religion, Judaism, I hold it because of its underlying ethics. I would assert the ethics even if I knew for sure God did not exist. The Jews, by pure luck, hit on the best system of ethics that humans have devised to date.

ruveyn

Let me put it simply: to a religious person who has a sound understanding of his or her religion and can offer up interesting insights, I am agnostic at least outwardly, although I am admittedly quite fixed in my views at this point in my life. To the typical Born Again Jackass, I am atheist. Because I am a tad cynical, I tend to introduce myself as an atheist.

The thing is, if I introduce myself as an agnostic to the Born Again Jackass, the Jackass immediately hits me with a rehash of the same tired casuistry that drove me away from religion in the first place. I don't trust anything that needs casuistry to defend itself. I despise casuistry and all other forms of popish romanist hypocrisy.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 26 May 2011, 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Define agnostic. Taking the translation literally, I would have to say I am, given that I can't actively disprove the existence of a God.
That said, I don't believe in any way that a God does exist, so I am an atheist.

Agreed.

And at the end of the day, a good ethical human being who treats others well is the only thing judaism cares about. That is probably the most important aim of the Torah.

I don't think it was by pure luck though. The concepts are too radical, especially if one were to go back 5000 years ago and listen to what everyone else was thinking. It is a bazar concept if one were to go back just 1000 or 500 years ago and Judaism never existed.

Here is a good book though on ethics derived from a darwinian understanding of the world:

http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-God-Meanin ... 0521762782

I think frank zindler, former president of American Atheists, said that agnostic are atheists anyway. I'll upload the audio after work if I find it.

Jewish law is totally ret*d. Mutilate your genitals, sacrifice your children, stone your women and the fag next door... but God forbid (literally) you eat bacon.

Actually, the ethical system most widely in practice today remains the same general system of ethics practiced by the Stoic philosophers at the height of Rome. Our ideas are based very much on concepts such as fairness and equality. Compassion is not a Jewish invention, either.

In fact, the Jews actually had a very cruel outlook on the mentally ill. Someone suffering from Tourette Syndrome would most likely have been ostracized if not stoned to death outright. Furthermore, I think the people of Ancient Judea routinely had women stoned to death for the crime of adultery, whether or not it was actually their fault. Dang, my Anglo-Saxon ancestors may have objectified women and been disgusting drunken pigs in general, but never ever did we have women punished, especially with such severity, for the crimes commited against them by men. In fact, if my reading of history serves me correctly, I think the Anglo-Saxons tended to dote on their women almost to the point of being ridiculous.

Jewish culture may have come a long way since then, but 2000 years ago, they were one of the most coldly elitist and misogynistic and ethnocentric religious groups ON THE PLANET. We're only blessed that 2000 years have been enough to change them into a more level-headed culture. MUCH more.

Also use honest weights and measures. Keep your word. Not swear falsely. Keep hands off other people's property.

ruveyn

Please do. I'd like to hear his reasoning, because I disagree. I've talked to Agnostics who said they lean toward Atheism, but strongly believed life carries on. Other's lean toward Atheism, and strongly think life ends at death. I myself would hope not, but don't have solid evidence to the contrary(I read about near death experiences, and I do think there's something more to it than brain activity misfiring, but can't truthfully call it evidence.) The only reason I'm not Atheist is because believing has helped me cope with my fear and pain when nothing else would, so how can I insist there's no God or afterlife, or that prayer does nothing, without being a hypocrite? It greatly helped me function, and so long as I don't insist others share my belief, and stay honest with myself, I haven't lost anything. If there's nothing after this, nobody's the less for it.

I want to check out that book by Richard Dawkins (it deals with his outlook. He or somebody else penned it.)

Those are standard ethics for most cultures that had some form of the concept... Nothing special about that.

The Jews INVENTED these "standard" ethics.

ruveyn

That's quite spurious. You're going to have to back that one up.

Prior to the Jewish people saying so, nobody had a concept of respecting private ownership? Nobody believed in being straight about the parameters of materials? Nobody had any idea lying was bad?


Crap doodle.

Compare the ethics of the Hebrews to the Canaanites who burned their children to ensure better crops.

Read the 613 commandments of which 225 are ethical requirements or prohibitions and compare them to the prevailing ethics of the neighboring nations and peoples. These closest thing to the Hebrews were the Greeks, particularly the Stoics. One big difference. The Hebrews outlawed ownership of people. Slavery or servitude was limited to seven years. In Athens only one sixth of the population was free and autonomous. The rest were women (who did not enjoy rights in Athens), slaves or tolerated aliens permitted to dwell in Athens and not vote. In Sparta, the made Stalin's Russia look like a summer camp.

At the same time the Babylonians practiced slavery on a large scale.


ruveyn