the agnostic position

[phoenixthoth]

i challenge anyone to a debate.

my position is this: the claim "God exists" is provably undecidable. thus, of atheism, theism, and agnosticism, agnosticism is the only one that is, in some sense, justified.

i may be using the words athiesm, theism, or agnosticism "incorrectly." though my usage may not be to your liking, here's what i mean:
the fundamental claim in athiesm is "God does not exist."
the fundamental claim in theism is "n Gods exists where n>0."
the fundamental claim in agnosticism is that the claim "God exists" is undecidable which is equivalent to saying the claim "God does not exist" is undecidable.

having said that, more than one athiest i've talked to has made both of the following statements:
i am an atheist
i'm not 100% sure God does not exist though i may be 99.9999% sure.
to me, these seem to be contradictory statements. thus, those "atheists" are really closer to agnostics in my definition.

i would guess that to argue against this, your position would basically have to be this:
the claim "God exists" is provably decidable.

i would be most interested, personally, in a debate in which someone asserts that claim without making a decision about the claim "God exists." however, i would guess that the easiest way to prove that the claim "God exists" is provably decidable is to actually give a decision on it and prove that decision. this would contradict the statement that it is undecidable. therefore, any athiest or theist would be welcome to this debate. i'm also willing to challenge two people at once, an athiest and a theist, though i don't want them to debate each other if that is the case.

[Nikolai]

I think you will find most atheists on this board fit the agnostic defenition better then the "atheism" you described. You must diferentiate between belif and knowledge . Gnosticism and agnosticism (sp?) describe what your knowledge of the existence of god is while theism and atheism describe belief. Therefore, it is pefrectly logical to be an agnostic atheist- a weak atheist. Are you willing to debate the premise that it is imposible to KNOW if god exists but it is possible to state that it is highly UNLIKELY and therefore irrational to belive?

[phoenixthoth]

it's interesting that you clarify that. i'm actually an agnostic theist: one who believes in God who also believes that one can not prove it through either ANY observation nor ANY logical argument. to be specific and particular, one cannot prove that any being is omnipotent in a finite amount of time by observing a series of increasingly powerful feats. no feat requiring a finite amount of power, no matter how large, implies omnipotence. the same argument applies to immortality. how would you prove a being is immortal through observation?


Are you willing to debate the premise that it is imposible to KNOW if god exists but it is possible to state that it is highly UNLIKELY and therefore irrational to belive?
no. i agree and i'm not in the mood of playing devil's advocate for fun. i also believe that it is impossible to determine the probability that God exists and, hence, the word "unlikely" is not well justified (though it may be quite accurate). since there is no proof that God doesn't exist, either, i also think it's irrational to believe that God doesn't exist. irrational doesn't necessarily mean wrong, just not grounded in logic. i could make a non sequitor error in an argument with a correct conclusion by accident though to believe in the conclusion on the sole basis of the invalid argument is to be irrational, though correct. both athiests and theists are irrational but one of them is right if we actually live in a mutually exclusive, two truth valued universe. whether or not we actually do i'm not sure how to prove.

i'm being pseudo rational in my theism in that i believe God is all that is. all that is may be more than the physical/energetic universe, if any such thing exists. some people refer to this stuff as formlessness. if there is nothing that is formless, then all that is is just the universe. the problem arises if nothing exists. in that case, there is no God. but if one thing exists, at least, then all that is = God exists. another problem is that many people don't think this is what God is though that's not a problem for me.

this may be a straw man of this "argument":
1. God is X
2. X exists
3. therefore, God exists.

you could straw man the hell outta this by suggesting one is free to say X=my dog. i'm saying X=all that is.

the problem with my logic is that logic rests on unprovable assumptions. therefore, i can't KNOW whether or not it has any absolute truth. the best i can say is that it might be VALID. other problems are with 1 and 2. can i prove God is X? can i prove X exists?

some people believe that all that is consists of precisely one thing: God. if there is an omnipotant being, it has the power to give parts of itself limitation while the whole is limitless. this is somewhat like the philosophy of nonduality except in nonduality i don't think there are parts.