Mmm, okey... I suppose I am struggling a bit with these definitions.

How would you define someone that admits there's 'no knowledge' or at least 'not enough' to really jump to a conclusion, but still is convinced that 'God' isn't an answer for sure? An agnostic atheist?

I mean it's one thing to say we don't have enough knowledge to know (for sure) and another to say you think 'God' could be one of many possibilities.

I'm obviously talking about opinions here as you can't exclude anything on beforehand when it comes to theory.

But then again we all know the 'spaghetti monster'-argument and where that leads to...

Cheers

My wife is in labour...
Please pray for her

I will be back with some new insights soon.

There are, by the way, agnostic atheists, and agnostic theists. That's what I am. It centers around the idea that God cannot be proven or disproven, but we're taking our chances on God.

I hope all goes well! Let us know how it goes and, of course, if it is a boy or a girl!



From that definition, I would think the person was an agnostic. Again, the agnostic simply thinks they don't have enough knowledge to actually KNOW that there is a or is not a god or which one. The atheist ("a" = no and "theist" = god and, therefore "no god") says that there is not a god at all under any certain terms.



Lukas, couldn't that logic be turned around? Couldn't someone say, "So long as the existence of go isn't dis-proven, we cannot assume that he does not exist"?

No, because then we also had to assume that the invisible pink uncorn exists, that the flying spaghetti monster created the world and that you are guilty (no offense).

I think, for me any ways, it is more in a belief that it is possible that there is a god out there beyond science's grasp. Am I still trying to cling on in some way? Perhaps.

I guess Aliens would be a good analogy. You can't say they exist, but you can't say for sure that they don't.

Well, it's really not quite the same, but yeah to some extent it's good analogy. Still the chance that we will find aliens, in whatever shape or form, is immensely bigger than finding an invisible God that according to some can not even be defined as a 'being'. Searches for a tangible God being will fail on beforehand.


You know, we actually have some ideas on where to expect (alien) life in our universe. That can not be said from God.

In my humble opinion God is just a somewhat clever idea from ancient times, designed to be an answer to certain questions, nothing more.

Oh, and what if we find aliens with superhuman powers? Would they qualify as 'Gods'?

Cheers

I suppose that if we ever discover anything supernatural, then one of two things will happen:

1. Science will eventually explain it and then it becomes no longer supernatural. The Sun, for example, was once considered a god and is now known to be a thermonuclear fusion reactor, a main-sequence medium size star made of hydrogen and helium.

2. Science will fail to explain it and the debate will continue, the atheists claiming that science will explain it when other new technologies become available and theists claiming God.

Supernatural;



I take it you're talking about the 2. definition, but really things are only supernatural because of a certain lack of knowledge. It has been proven time and time again that things turned out to be explainable. Why would aliens be any different, even with superhuman powers?

Cheers

The claim has been made that there is a God. That God communicated His will, and influenced entire societies into major changes. I'm speaking particularly of the ancient Israeli civilization, and the more recent Islamic civilization.

Both began with a single man, who made this claim. Now if those men are innocent until proven guilty, let's see your evidence.

With the Old Testament, it's easy to find contradictions and problems. However, these can easily be attributed to people who came afterwords, making changes either deliberately, or not. in fact, later parts of the Bible even state this clearly. That the scribes have made the Torah into a lie (Jeremiah 8:8) and that the Pharisees observe the laws of men, but disobey God, etc...

Why would the Jews, if they had made this book up, call themselves liars, and hypocrites in the same text?

Then Muhammad comes along with the Quran, which proclaims that the Torah and the Gospel were indeed revealed books, but that the Jews and Christians of later times had tampered with the texts. There are a lot more easy ways of starting a religion.

Before you all write back with bad things to say about Muhammad and Jesus and Moses, please remember we're here for science. You should provide evidence for anything you want to say.

Oh yeah... it's a girl!

Congrats!

BTW "Innocent until proven guilty" means that prophets really believed in their God and thus were innocent of lying.

You can feel God in your heart. This is of course no scientific proof and although I believe in God, I am not sure if He can ever be experienced outside our heart in some objective scientific way. I think God is a strictly personal matter.