Well, you will not hear that from me. You are who you are. Tell us what that means and we can run with that.

 

Consider where I am at. I am a pretty hard core conservative republican. And I am also a hard core (Dawkins level 7) atheist. Basically I consider that the beginning of thought should be total nihilism. Nothing exists until you can prove it. If you have no proof, then your point is not valid as far as I can tell.

 

As far as what I see from you here, I see nothing in your postings that says you are not an atheist. But you have insisted that you are in the “other than atheist” category. So tell us how you feel.

I think, and I may be wrong here, that when someone says of another "you might as well be an Atheist" they are referring exclusively to those of the population who, despite stating that they believe in god and possibly more specifically might say they are a christian, example no real demonstrative habits or actions indicative of this belief.

IE; this would be descriptive of the 'christians' who don't go to church, don't pay attention to doctrine, don't read the bible, don't pray, don't say grace, effectively, those who come closest to associating anything they might do with god only when they might stub their toe.

Effectively, the only reason one might think they believe in god is because they state it as such, therefore it leaves one to wonder whether they do and, more importantly, since god could be effectively removed from their lives in entirety with no visible changes to their demeanor, behavior, or personality, no matter how inconsequential, that this god might as well be removed as it is apparently nothing more than a useless facet of their existence, doing no more than cluttering the stage.

Deists would generally fall under this category, likely hence why the statement is supplied so often to you.

All of the above is, naturally, just my thoughts, with no data to support it whatsoever.

Furthermore, you will likely not have cause to see me stating anything similar to this.
Unless I do of course.

 

I think this gets at the meat of it. Theists like Cpt Pineapple fail to apply Occam's Razor to their beliefs.

If we observe that masses are attracted to each other according to a particular mathematical formula, as the theory of gravity does, then it makes no sense to say, "Yes, it's gravity... PLUS magical elves pulling the strings." Why not just ditch the elves and go with the simpler theory.

If your perceptions and behaviours are identical to an atheist's except for the fact that you say, "Yes, it's reality... PLUS a magical god pulling the strings." Then why not just ditch the god and go with atheism?

If you've got evidence for this god, then provide it. If not, then why bother staying with the god concept? It's a failure to apply Occam's Razor. That's all.

This might be distracting from the conversation, but this is interesting. Are you just a hard core republican for economic issues? Or are you a conservative when it comes to social issues as well?

I beleive it was in The God Delusion that Dawkins talked about rating atheists on a scale.

This goes against the idea that a/gnosticism is an adjective to a/theism. BTW, is it possible to be a gnostic atheist? And what would that mean?

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thats interesting. Youre applying gnostic to your certainty to atheism. I was thinking that it would mean I believe it should be possible to know of God but I dont think he exists. After looking at the scale I think this would be closer to a 50 if it was possible. I dont know too many 50s. This would be someone who is searching for proof that God exists maybe. Also, I kind of disagree with the dawkins scale.

 I like the idea of probabilities but now I'm thinking the word "agnostic" adds nothing to the conversation because then we just argue about what "knowledge" means to you/me. Facts may turn out to be false. Its about justification really. And that can always be argued about. Its obviously different for believers and non believers. We all agree God is unknowable in the classic scientific defn of knowledge. I would think the probs of God go more like this:

100 is "knowledge of God" - though technically impossible, even   though I may have said it myself at times
90-99.9999 is a strong believer like myself
10-89 is the average religious person
.1-9 is the typical atheist
.000001 -.1 is the strong atheist, largely because there is no definition for God; the concepts dont make sense, etc.
0 is "knowledge of no God" which is impossible as is 100. But in a sense, we all can expect God to be different than what we think if he exists. So there is a 0% chance that we have it absolutely right; but that is a little different concept.
 

 

The problem I see with your first statement is the theistic tendency to say "God is unknowable so let's stop looking" (not applying this to you unless it fits).

Perhaps ID isn't bad as a philosophy - the problem I see is that it then makes a leap from "intelligent designer" to the God of the Bible. This is not a leap supported by anything including ID.

I'm not sure what you mean by philosophy determines probability - It sounds too much like "If you're determined to find/not find God you will find evidence acceptable to you no matter what. My problem with that is that I want evidence that is obvious to anyone and everyone - theistic beliefs fall very short in my opinion.

Treating any question as  a 'philosophic' question does not give it any more status, you are still ultimately treating it as a purely speculative concept, with no particular claim to be taken seriously. It just means you are playing around with the idea in a particular way.

"Agnostic atheist" seems to make sense - someone who simply thinks there no evidence for a God, or at least is unaware of any, but still allows for some finite possibility that God may exist.

"Gnostic Atheist" doesn't sound right, because "gnostic" is not a commonly used term in the same way that "agnostic" is, and has different connotations that just being a the opposite of "agnostic".

Word usages and understandings typically do not follow the meaning you might derive from analysing the structure of the word, especially if the word is in common usage.

 

I am a gnostic atheist.  I don't believe in god, and I believe that the existence of god is a verifiable/falsifiable question (falsifiable from my stance).  I would say that god does not exist and that such a fact is provable.

A better-defined concept of God is most helpful when dealing with questions about said god.  I tend to go with the Judeo-Christian god because that one is what most people think of when you say "god."

 

I'd say that once one reaches atheism, the logical progression is towards a lower P(God), which depending on your definition of gnosticism/agnosticism might be a treand towards gnosticism (but will never be a trend towards agnosticism).  The idea is that there is almost never any supporting evidence towards the god hypothesis.  Most things that people claim as evidence towards god is really just evidence against science, and they rely on a false dichotomy (Science or God, no alternative answers).  Thus I find it difficult for one's P(God) to logically increase through observation.