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This is the stupidest thing you've ever posted and you should be ashamed of yourself. There are plenty of other sites where you can wallow in junior-high level discussion and polls about off topic subjects. These types of posts encourage stupid people to comment, contain no useful or interesting information, and bring out the worst in smart people. The religion and "meta" discussions of late have polluted the /newcom…
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Religion has been part of society since the days of pre-human hominids. It does not exist solely because of belief. I am willing to bet that few Greeks literally believed that a god carried the sun across the sky in a chariot. Rather, religion fulfills many cultural and social functions that our increasingly secular world has not yet found good substitutes for. I went to church on Christmas to hear some carols, and I…
"The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society" Religious people do not have a monopoly on kindness. If you compare social programs in religious vs non secular societies(e.g europe vs USA) you will find the exact opposite of what you say.
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Agnostics are shy atheists. If the answer is either yes or no, and you say "maybe", you say "no", substantially. Why? Because every "no" is simply a refuted "yes" (philosophically speaking).
How about no? I don't say "maybe", I say it is impossible to prove or disprove. Frankly reducing it to a "yes or no" question is really reductive, and pretty much a christian way to put things, if you will. Q: "Do you believe in god?" A: "I cannot know whether a god exists or not."
And this is exactly the definition of "God".
I have a (simple) question to all atheists: If you didn't create yourself (and you didn't , otherwise you would know/remember/etc.), and (consequently) some other one did , how do you call it ?
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How about no? I don't say "maybe", I say it is impossible to prove or disprove. Frankly reducing it to a "yes or no" question is really reductive, and pretty much a christian way to put things, if you will. Q: "Do you believe in god?" A: "I cannot know whether a god exists or not."
If you say: "I cannot know whether a god exists or not.", you already say that you are not cause of yourself (otherwise you would know ), and, consequently, there must be another cause outside yourself : And this is exactly the definition of "God".
I am agnostic, so I can't vote, apparently.
Agnostics are shy atheists. If the answer is either yes or no, and you say "maybe", you say "no", substantially. Why? Because every "no" is simply a refuted "yes" (philosophically speaking).
Agnostics are mathematicians. Or at lest very close to being mathematicians.
There's the old joke of a biologist, a physicist and a mathematician on a train in Scotland.
They see a black sheep and the biologist says: Hey Scotland is full of black sheep!
The Physicist responds with we have evidence of one black sheep in Scotland.
And the mathematician concludes, there exists at least one sheep, at least one of whose sides is black, in Scotland.
So when agnostics say you can't disprove anything, we mean it. We mean it in the literal mathematical sense of negatives not being provable.
Oh but you don't live your life according to such extreme ideological purity, if somethings darn close to a duck you call it a duck.
That's great if it works for you, but my mind is much stricter then that.
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If you say: "I cannot know whether a god exists or not.", you already say that you are not cause of yourself (otherwise you would know ), and, consequently, there must be another cause outside yourself : And this is exactly the definition of "God".
You are probably missing the point that agnosticism is about knowledge and not beliefs (sp?)... and frankly I am tired of keep on hearing people telling me I am an atheis, shy atheis or whatever -- so I am giving up.
Unless we're hacking gods, or the Large Hadron Collider poked one in the eye and there's a scientific study detailing the result, why in the hell is this even posted on HN. This place is turning into Digg before my eyes.
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Agnostics are shy atheists. If the answer is either yes or no, and you say "maybe", you say "no", substantially. Why? Because every "no" is simply a refuted "yes" (philosophically speaking).
There's nothing shy about me, trust me. Agnostics are mathematicians. Or at lest very close to being mathematicians. There's the old joke of a biologist, a physicist and a mathematician on a train in Scotland. They see a black sheep and the biologist says: Hey Scotland is full of black sheep! The Physicist responds with we have evidence of one black sheep in Scotland. And the mathematician concludes, there exists at…
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You are probably missing the point that agnosticism is about knowledge and not beliefs (sp?)... and frankly I am tired of keep on hearing people telling me I am an atheis, shy atheis or whatever -- so I am giving up.
I only explained the basic principles of logic...