First I’ll list some definitions of words, if you disagree please say what do you disagree with. I know the terms Gnostic/Agnostic can have a much wider meaning but I’m using this specific definition to fit the religious context of the subject at hand.
Atheist - A person who doesn’t believe in any god.
Theist - A person who believes in a personal god.
Agnostic - A person who claims no knowledge of god’s state of existence (can be both, theist and atheist).
Gnostic - A person who claims knowledge about god’s state of existence (also can be both).
God (theistic) - A personal god present and active in the governance and organization of the world and universe.
Some basic things: Burden of proof is upon the person making the claim. That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Believing in something without evidence is bad, potentially dangerous and should be avoided.
So, let’s say I’m an agnostic atheist. I’ve never been provided with evidence for the existence of a god, so I don’t believe in god (I’m an atheist) but I also don’t completely exclude the possibility of some sort of god existing, aka I don’t claim knowledge either way (agnostic).
[size=150]My challenge: How does one move from the position of an agnostic atheist to the position of a theist without committing a logical fallacy or falling victim to a psychological bias?[/size]
[size=150] Question: Which arguments/evidence do you personally find to be most convincing and what convinced you of god’s existence?[/size]
That would be an early indoctrination that there’s a living God, that comes into you upon accepting Him as your savior, and being born again of Spirit (the very living God.)
A god ≡ who/whatever incontestably determines what can or cannot be, concerning a particular situation. The God ≡ Who/Whatever incontestably determines All that can or cannot be, concerning any situation.
If you have some other “God”, I submit that your “God” is subject to my God, so how much of a god could yours really be?
James S Saint I already ripped your attempt at an argument for god a new one in my Problem of evil thread. This seems like something new though.
You provided your definition of a god and none others, so I’ll assume you agree with me on other definitions.
So you call the sum total of natural laws “The God”? Well ok, but then you’re not a theist, you’re more of a pantheist.
I realize that it’s easier for theists to just temporarily assume and defend the position of an abstract deistic/pantheistic god cause it’s much easier to defend than the specific, personal theistic god and especially the theistic god of the Bible/Quran.
I didn’t even presume that god exists in this thread. I just gave my definition of a god and you gave yours. And I didn’t even mention science. So what the hell are you talking about?
You didn’t make an argument for me to address, you just provided your definition of a god.
Why would I give an argument against a definition? And a definition which doesn’t even fit the theistic god when the thread is about a theistic god? If you’re not a theist, then this doesn’t apply to you.
If we can have threads like the “Bless God” one then I don’t see why wouldn’t this belong here. The subject is definitely religious and I want to have an insight on to why theists believe what they believe and what is it exactly that they believe and what makes them believe it etc.
So your argument is that you want a theist to be different than me and that my “God” is not the God of the Bible? If you want to debate your assertion, I’ll go for that. I’m afraid that technically I am “a theist” (although I’m more inclined to suspect I am more “The theist”). And I can defend that my “God” is in fact the God of the Bible.
I don’t see any problem with this theme being on this forum, although the content would probably belong in the much disrespected “Sandbox”, but then is there one that wouldn’t?
And if 3sum wants to debate ME concerning whether my “God” is the God of the Bible and/or whether I am a theist, it should be reopened in the Rant forum where the threads are often similar but the moderation is more respectable.
I have radical definitions. So I usually do not discuss these topics with average people very well.
Atheist: Believes in nothingness, “Gods do not exist. (negative)” Strong atheism: “God cannot exist; God is impossible.”
Theist: Believes in somethingness, “Gods do too exist (positive).” Strong theism: “God must exist; God is reality.”
Agnostic: Disconnects human knowledge with divinity, “It maybe impossible to know the existence of divinity.”
Gnostic: Connects human knowledge with divinity, “It maybe possible to know the existence of divinity.”
God(s): Divine entities, far above/superior to human intelligence, perhaps extraterrestrial (aliens) or other paranormal creatures outside human knowledge.
At the very least, if divine entities exist then humans do not have “scientific” knowledge of them. Science cannot accept “outside of human knowledge” as a premise though. So science is unfit to speculate, discuss, describe, or explain divine concepts.
Divinity is within the realm of philosophy and religion, but outside the realm of science. Science demystifies divinity. Divinity is a mystical concept.
Threesome, your OP makes no sense and you state no position of your own based on your own reasoning. That is; your views are not up for debate within philosophical inquiry. It belongs in the sandbox.
A person would go from agnostic atheist to theist in one of three primary ways:
1.They’d be convinced of deism though natural theology arguments like the cosmological, teleological and so on, and then to theism via evidence/argument that some revealed religion described God’s interaction with man accurately.
2.They’d have a personal experience of a religious sort that convinced them that some religion or another was true, or,
3.They participated in a religious community, and were moved by the way that community thrives to a strong enough degree to become convinced that its tenets were true.
Me personally, I’m a 3 and 1 kind of person- the existence of the Church is evidence for the existence of a God made plausible by the arguments of natural theology. Lately I’m becoming more and more of an “inverted three” kind of person- the utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy of anything associated with atheism pushes me to accept theism by default as the only worldview that is actually interested in discovering the truth of things, much less has a chance of finding it.
I’m summarized there what would take a few books to justify, I’m sure, but feel free to criticize/ask about any thing that really stands out. I prefer to start with the bombastic, and work backwards to the minutia.
Muse (threesome), this is a huge statement to make and you now have a huge burden of proof upon you. Can you prove this claim logically and scientifically and by referring to evidence.
I would like the following three proofs:
Believing in something without evidence:
Oh great, genius me. Was writing a long post and looking at facebook at the same time so this site automatically logged me off and all that I wrote is now lost . So I’ll be much shorter now.
Simms - A person believes in the existence of a demon who requires a child sacrifice a day or he’ll kill that person. That person has killed hundreds of children during his life.
Do you think that kind of belief is 1, 2 and 3?
Also, I don’t state my own position and explain the reasoning that got me there? That’s precisely what I did between listing definitions and giving challenge and questions.
insightfoul Your definitions are useless and biased,
Really?
Uccisore
Cosmological and theological arguments are both logically flawed (provide me with the version of argument you believe is sound and I’ll show you problems with it) and they are a result of the psychological bias of humans known as “agency detection”.
Hallucination. You’d be surprised how many common things can cause hallucinations, from migraine to depression.
Basically argument ad populum and argument from authority logical fallacies.
If you’re saying that atheism doesn’t provide you with a moral code, then you’re right. It doesn’t. But that’s like blaming a clothes store for not selling bread and milk. Atheism is a single position on a single issue, and that is existence of a deity. Atheists get their morality elsewhere, I myself mostly ascribe to secular humanism.
But how do you find atheism to be intellectually bankrupt when you moved from agnostic atheism to theism by committing logical fallacies and falling victim to psychological biases?
A book can’t be evidence of something. A book can contain theory explaining the evidence, but it can’t be evidence itself, at least not when you’re talking about extraordinary things like god. F.e. Darwin’s Origin of Species isn’t evidence of evolution - fossils are.
I know about that, but I have a video exactly below the button (literally 1mm apart) so I accidentally clicked the video and couldn’t retrieve what I wrote anymore.
. So I’ll be much shorter now.