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Can someone be intellectually honest about religion without being agnostic? Religions seem to leave out the most important questions humans face or provide incredible or illogical answers. Atheism on the other hand closes the possibility of the existence of a higher reality only because it does not conforms to the current paradigm of the scientific method of corroboration as the only basis for knowledge.

Lacucaracha 4 Dec 17
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36 comments

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1

OK, you have a god. What is it for and what does it do? Oh, it protects you and also will save you. What does it protect you from? Your enemies you say. Yes, and it also might save you from your enemies. IC. Does it ever tell you to not piss so many people off?

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If credible, verifiable evidence of the existence of any god(s) ever is presented, I'll rethink my position.
Unless and until such time, I remain an unapologetic atheist,

However, even IF any god were ever proved, I'd still remain a staunch anti-theist.
Religion is inherently dishonest.
Intellectually and emotionally.

Nice response. I always wonder how would a god be proven, at all. Look to Star Trek Generations character Q - a "superior" being with God like abilities, but not a god. Thus, if something like that showed up, I could believe in the power, but not the philosophy.

@NoPlanetB Damn skippy!

6

At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men. Like Grimm's Fairy Tales.

I chose rational thought, not magical beliefs.

Michigan had a hard winter when I was 13. Bored and restless, my little brother, 10, and I read the World Book Encyclopedias. I was inspired by rational philosophers Descartes and Spinoza, who were bravely anti-theist (anti-God), anti-church and anti-clergy in the 1600s when heretics were burned at the stake. They had to go into hiding.

Their writings inspired the European Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. It stressed reason, logic, criticism, and freedom of thought over dogma, blind faith, and superstition.

We share a common early background in religious skepticism. Thanks for posting.

6

Many agnostics say this. That seems a bit haughty to me. Do agnostics say this about people who definitely don't believe in the tooth fairy, or baldur, or ganesh, or athena, or just people who definitely don't believe in the abrahamic god?

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@TheMiddleWay Sorry, but i find that ridiculous. Anyone can make up any old shit and i less i can prove they made it up, i cannot categorically dismiss it? No. I dismiss that.

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If you don't do that, you're not doing science. Therefore, you can't claim science, and by the way, reason and logic, as the basis for what you believe.

Part of the problem is the point about how atheism is the only logical position, which actually it is, without adhering strictly to what exactly that means.

Your point that you're making is based on gut feeling, not reason and logic, and therefore is no different than a fundamentalist Christian making his argument based on the same thing.

@TheMiddleWay "anything that can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

@Kenny82 dismissing it is not disavowing it.

@Metahuman agreed

@Kenny82 One of my favorite Christopher Hitchens quotes.

@Metahuman I am not in fact "doing science" and have never claimed to do so. I am not a scientist. Holy shit, do i have to be a scientist to be logical person? And do i have to have my belief that there are no gods, tooth fairies (this despite the fact that the tooth fairy still owes me a quarter from the early 1960s and between interest and inflation a professed belief in her could possibly make my twilight years quite comfortable, if only i could collect) vetted by anyone to avoid censure for being unscientific? Will you censurr isaac asimov too? He actually was a scientist, and an atheist.

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."

-- Isaac Asimov

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@TheMiddleWay My parents never made any such admission and no one else told me either. I figured it out, all on my own, and although i am told i am quite bright, I cannot make any especial claim to genius on that specific count. Any normal human being could have deduced that one.

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@TheMiddleWay No we don't. They have to prove it. Scientists do not have to disprove every moronic claim. They would never get anything done if they had that obligation. Let the claimant prove, or at least provide evidence, or at least make a reasonable case for, the claim.

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@TheMiddleWay the great thing about science is that it's inductive. You build ideas from from evidence. You don't just whittle down a bunch of assumptions and end up with something. You build off of pre-existing knowledge and evidence. When the Higgs was finally found(like 60 yrs of looking), there was already good theory and evidence pointing towards it. My point is that someone didn't just dream it up out of nowhere and make some claim. There was good reason for the claim based off of preexisting knowledge. It appears the "cute quip" stands.

@TheMiddleWay sorry but you contradict yourself a few times there, and meanwhile, asimov, while admitting that emotionally he is an atheist, was still an outstanding scientist. of YOUR accomplishments i have never heard.

g

@TheMiddleWay it is not my job to debunk gods. there is no evidence of a god or two or three to start with to debunk. neutrinos have a definition and you can try to disprove them, if you can, based on what they're supposed to be. no one even knows or agrees what a god is supposed to be. with which god should i start? my lifetime, like everyone else's, is brief. i don't feel i am intellectually lazy or dishonest when i prioritize. i can still call myself an atheist, and be honest about it, you think otherwise. your opinion of my honesty doesn't impact my life, though, any more than an invisible skydaddy does.

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@TheMiddleWay rofl rofl rofl your baseless assessment of my emotional state and your presumed role in it. Get real. That is just a friendly suggestion. It will not affect me at all if you decline.

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I consider myself an atheist, as I see absolutely no evidence of the existence of any gods and little possibility of there ever being any such evidence. No, I do not know that no god exists with absolute certainty. Zero evidence to the contrary of my stance is good enough for me.

5

No.

And that was a shameless point grab.

@Allamanda - Why, thank you kindly! I thought it was to the point, if I do say so myself!

🙂

Here's some points. Have you no shame?

@BryanLV - None! Many thanks! I'm a whisker away from Level 6! 🙂

4

I don't see any harm in doubling-down strictly on what's observable. It seems the more intellectually honest way to go, in my opinion. It's not about "what's possible," it's about what's likely or more reasonable.

exactly. while materialism is subject to agnostic consideration, it is not "intellectually dishonest", it is reliant on true observation for it's core. there is nothing dishonest in "I believe what can be tested for truth".

4

If you do not believe the scientific method is the only method to determine reality then anything would be possible. There would be no reality. The inside of the sun could be made of pancake batter.

4

"Atheism on the other hand closes the possibility of the existence of a higher reality only because it does not conforms to the current paradigm of the scientific method of corroboration as the only basis for knowledge."

Face - Palm.

Atheism is simply lacking a belief or not accepting the positive assertion that a god exists.

There is no standard that dictates the why a person lacks a belief in a supernatural (not of the natural/real world) sky-daddy etc.

If a person has not been introduced to a faith (belief without evidence) based religion that asserts one or more gods exists or if that person has not imagined a need for a god, or if he/she simply does not want to waste time on the entire god/religion theater, (no desire to burn time and money on trivial topics), he/she would be an atheist without the necessity to recognize the "intellectual honesty" defined by Wikipedia as "an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different way" that the scientific method requires.

4

The thing about the label "agnostic" is that it's vague. You can be agnostic about a lot of things. I'm agnostic about faeries existing, but I have no reason to believe they do exist. So I guess you could say I'm an agnostic afaereist in that context....

4

Atheism is simply the position that no belief about deities can be formed absent data on which to base it.

It is the only intellectually defensible position on ANY topic.

Deities are non-falsifiable by design.

In theory. Not in practice. Kind of like communism.

4

"Atheism on the other hand closes the possibility of the existence of a higher reality only because it does not conforms to the current paradigm of the scientific method of corroboration as the only basis for knowledge."

Right. Atheism is evidence-based. Religions are faith-based.

Faith is believing in things without the benefit of evidence. This is illogical. Faith is what children use to believe in the existence of Santa Claus. Should adults use that same method to believe in gods?

@TheMiddleWay The existence of the gods cannot be proved nor disproved.

All agnosticism says is show me the proof or I must withhold judgement. Atheism says I must choose which to believe so I'll go with no gods exist because there is no evidence for a god to exist. When evidence comes in that a god exists, I'll change my mind.

@TheMiddleWay Your comment is logical. I think for atheists the default position is skepticism rather than gullibility.

3

I agree.
Agnosticism is the only honest approach.

3

Not just scientific method but reason as well. Science is after all a branch of philosophy. I think the big difference between atheists and agnostics is one of probability. Both agree that there is a possibility of a god. It is just that the former view that the odds of it are so huge that it does not bear reasonable discussion.

3

Yes. Study religion as a whole instead of on a case by case basis and you have to be intellectually dishonest to think there's some supreme being of any stripe behind the curtain. Religion as a whole is self contradictory and can only stand as "the truth" if no other variations of it exists, and there's like 10's of thousands of variations of it.

Athiesm just says "you guys are full of shit", not "we know everything". Actual evidence of a god would end athiesm, but then we get to decide if we think that god is worth worshipping - but it would most definetly be acknowledged.

But I'm not going to get sucked into the "but athiesm beats agnosticism" bullshit because your just arguing which method of non belief is the correct one, and we can see how stupid an argument that is just by looking at what it's done to religion.

The basic fact is agnostics and athiests live thier lives almost excately the same, so this is, quite honestly, one of the silliest, most pointless lines of demarcation that can exist. Best part? There's some fuckers selling books making money off this pointless crap.

1of5 Level 8 Dec 17, 2019
2

I thin we have a HUGE bias on this answer XD...
Yes it is possible to be intellectually honest, every religion has millenniums of philosophers writing about it. And a lot of them are amazing, with heavy flaws mainly due to wrong interpretations of nature that there was no way to know at the time.

Plus the argument that most old societies needed religion to keep people together.
Before sec XVII and XIX nationalisms, it would be impossible to have countries or empires without the religion.

After centuries and milenias we can pinpoint the mistakes and their theory crumble, but at the time they were doing as good as they could, and they are amazing, read St. Augustin for example.

And I don't have knowledge of modern thinkers of the big religions to say if they say something good today.

@OwlInASack I agree. Maybe the old thinkers were not doing it because well... lack of knowledge and scientific method. But the moder ones don't have this free pass anymore

2

You don't know WHAT you don't know.

Take that as you will.

2

A higher reality? Does not conform to the scientific method of corroboration? The only basis for knowledge? WTF are you talking about? Where the fuck did you get these illogical and ridiculous ideas that you espouse as if they were true?

2

I call myself an atheist because I’m trying to be as honest as possible. I have no belief in a deity, so I’m an atheist. Do I know 100 percent for certain there couldn’t be some kind of other world spirit? Of course not, but if there is one, it’s so well hidden that it doesn’t affect me.

2

I have seen enough evidence to conclude that religion is a scam based on mythology. I have also sought evidence that might confirm religion, but I have always found a lack of evidence and arguments that are illogical. Therefore, I am sure enough that religion is false to call myself an atheist rather than an agnostic. However, the skeptical nature of my mind admits the possibility (not probability) that I may have missed some evidence that might convince me that there is some truth in religion. But until such evidence comes to my attention, I remain an atheist.

I do admit that religion has some good in it. Fellowship is good. Morality is good, though religions tend to base morality on blind faith rather than good ethics. Many churches have wonderful architecture, music and other arts. Charitable activities are good. But all these good things can be had without religion, and are even better without religion.

This is my intellectually honest position, and I am an atheist.

Which religion?

@Metahuman I was born and raised a Moron (Mormon), and when I disproved it, I started to study Xianity in general, and disproved it as well.

2

I have often wondered why we need religion in any shape or form...The belief in something higher than yourself, that is better than you, loving, deadly, but I am right and everything else is wrong and if you tell me I am wrong then I will basically kill you...what we need more is this elusive thing called common sense not tracts from a book to keep the masses down..

2

nope, atheism doesn’t close off any possibilities inherently. you could make the argument that gnostic atheism does, just like gnostic theism. understand the terms you’re using though. not believing in something because there isn’t any evidence for its existence does not equal claiming that it’s impossible and could never be proven.

1

Make sure you're not mixing your terminology, though. An agnostic-atheist does not deny the possibility of some god, somewhere, existing: they only lack the evidence to believe in such a being. Whereas gnostic-atheists, like gnostic-theists, believe what they believe (although the atheist believes there is no god; the opposite of a theist, but with the exact same amount of evidence).

As an agnostic-atheist, I think I'm intellectually honest about the issue, and if a god or goddess manifests to me, I'll change my outlook- after a battery of brain scans and psych evaluations, of course, as well as checking for trickery on the part of anyone trying to set me up, that sort of thing. (Clarke's Third Law- sufficiently advanced technology could have been mistaken for magic.)

1

After 20 years of Catholicism I chose agnosticism because I lacked knowledge of the alternatives. For the next 52 years I liked my life and ignored higher and lower realities.

Ten years ago, with about 15 people I knew and who knew me, I was asked what atheists think about what happens after death. Realizing that for 52 years no lightning had struck nearby, I answered the question with “After I die I will become a few chemicals in the ground.”

For ten years an atheist, I’ve have liked my life and no lightning has struck nearby.

In short, if you like your life you won’t need higher or lower realities.

1

I think you can be intellectually honest while also being an atheist.
People like to compare atheists and theists as two sides of the same coin, but when religious leaders make big predictions/prophecies with a set date and nothing happens, theists respond by believing harder.
Atheists, as far as I know, would consider their position the second there was a reason to do so. The foundation for people's lack of belief is the consistent failure of the theists to make even a single argument in favor their truth claims. it is not intellectually dishonest to draw a conclusion to a hypothesis that fails every time it is put to the test.

1

The absence of expected evidence is evidence of absence.

Since every religious claim I have ever heard describes not only the nature of god, but the function of that god in the world, and those claims about interaction with the world do not produce the expected evidence of that interaction, I do not find atheism to be "intellectually dishonest". To the degree I find atheists who are individually less intellectually honest than they could be, I still find them far more honest than religious people.

agnosticism and ignosticism seem the most honest positions, but then, there is always a quibble of definitions that I personally find pointless.

taken in the purest sense, "I believe but do not know" is the most honest position materialistically, but materialism is itself subject to agnostic criticism, so...

“Since every religious claim I have ever heard describes not only the nature of god, but the function of that god in the world”

Maybe you should listen to more ‘religious claims’ then. Buddhists certainly don’t.

@Geoffrey51 I still have a hard time with the "philosophy religions". buddhism is dear to my heart, since one can follow every precept as an atheist.

I see this as a distinction between "theism" and "religion" in comparing western and eastern concepts of the words.

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