You spent several posts arguing that there is only theism and atheism, then suddenly say that you’re agnostic?! 
Jeez, baconeggs you didn’t read any of what he wrote did you?
He’s an agnostic ATHEIST. Agnostic being an ADJECTIVE.
:facepalm:
When speaking about belief, there’s only theism and atheism. When speaking about knowledge, there’s only gnosticism and agnosticism.
I am an agnostic. I am an atheist. I am male. I have a beard. I have brown hair. All these things can be simultaneously true because each reference different things.
Read the post you responded to! I already explained this. Sheesh.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t trying to argue, that God exists either by my statement. Christianity justs looks stupid when it uses pseudo-science to “prove” the existence of God. In fact I thought the whole process was about faith, which is about as far away from science as you can get. I just wish both sides would stop using science to prove or disprove God.
RyviusRan, sorry I misunderstood your point about the fish/no fish at first. (And then I wes in bed when you clarified). Fair point bro.
Apologies. However your argument seemed to indicate that you considered agnosticism nonexistent in terms of faith, and instead put forward that there are only two possible extremes.
Considering agnosticism refers to knowledge and not belief, agnosticism IS nonexistent in terms of faith. Trying to shoehorn agnosticism as somewhere between “on” and “off” (what you term “two possible extremes”) is plain and simple miscategorization.
It’s not two extremes. It’s an either/or. As Miracle Max said: “It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.” If you’re ‘mostly’ dead, you’re still alive (even if only slightly). There’s no third state between “dead” and “alive”.
I can see where you’re coming from, but to me you seem to be confusing belief with states. Belief is an opinion held by someone, not an state such as being dead. Therefore it is open to variation and grey areas.
There are many gradations in belief, that’s for sure. But you either believe in something or you don’t. There are many variations if you believe in something, but if you don’t believe in that something at all…
Once more, if the answer to “Do you believe in God?” is anything other than “Yes”, you’re an atheist. I’m sorry, but you either believe or you don’t. It really IS a state.
Since you do not beleive in God, what, in your opinion, set off the big bang?
Do you beleive in an alternate theory to the creation of the universe?
Currently, there is a hypothesis that says that even in so-called “empty” space (that is, something without any particles whatsoever–a perfect vacuum), there is quantum fluctuation in energy. And these quantum fluctuations can create the conditions through which the Big Bang MUST occur.
It’s still a hypothesis, of course, so let’s leave it at something definite here:
I don’t know.
Careful about word usage here. “Theory” is a statement that explains observable facts. Do you mean “hypothesis” or “conjecture”?
Currently, I don’t have another hypothesis or conjecture on the creation of the universe (if the word “creation” is even the right word). It’s simply where the facts and observations are currently leading us.
I’m quite comfortable with “I don’t know”, though.
Those are evidence, they just aren’t credible - mostly because gospels originated in the same source/lore, so they aren’t independent.
Then why bother mentioning them? Also, why does it matter where they came from? It doesn’t matter who said it, where they said it and how their account was recorded, there’d never be a way to back it up.
So how do we know that, for example, Julius Caesar was the emperor of the Rome, had a love-affair with Egyptian queen Cleopatra, and was assassinated in 44 BC? These are accepted as facts, but according to your reasoning there is no evidence for that. And why do I mentioned the gospels? Because of you folks who are arguing that believing in God is the same thing as believing in fairy tales and as for now the main argument against Theists was that there is completely no evidence for God’s existence. This argument can be easily rejected, because there are some evidences, whether you like it or not. Acceptance of those evidences can be a point at issue, especially for Christians.
Contemporary evidence?
Say what?
What “evidences” are there?
I’m just a whole heap of confused right now.
Also, Caesar wasn’t an emperor. The title emperor or kaiser was derived from his name, but that’s it.
Maybe Caesar wasn’t called an emperor, but he sure did do a lot of emperor things.
How about all the remnant physical evidence supporting the claims like temples, statues, buildings, tombs, cultural shifts, other effected societies, and recovered remains. Also, the written evidence doesn’t preclude any worldly examples of such events. We can’t even really give credence to the shroud of Turin because of the improper preservation methods used by the church. It’s about the closest damned thing christians got to physical evidence and even if everything they say about the fuckin’ thing is true it still doesn’t prove anything…
Without any real evidence, I don’t really see a meaningful difference.
Such as…?
The shroud has undergone multiple tests since the late 1980s and they all say the same thing:
The shroud is from about the late 12th to early 13th century…oddly enough, when the shroud first appeared. It appears to be a shroud that had been covering a bas-relief sculpture of Jesus.
If it had been covering an actual human being, the image on the shroud would’ve been distorted in much the same way that texture maps on 3D computer models look today. That is:
There is no such distortion.
The only way that it could’ve been done is to cover a bas-relief sculpture. You can find bas-relief on your coins today. That would produce no such “3D distortion” and, using methods from that time period, could produce a nearly identical image to what is on and in the shroud.
It’s an important piece of history. It’s not, however, evidence of Jesus.
It’s definitely not evidence of anyone specific. However there is a lot of debate about it’s true age. The samples taken from the shroud were taken from an area that was later found to be partially one material and partially repaired material. This skewed the results of date testing. The head researcher died before being able to get another chance at testing a totally original section of the shroud. Recently the church placed the shroud in a treated box that has tainted any further studies that can be performed.
There was stuff about why the facial impression might be misshapen as to what we would expect, but I can’t recall…it was a history channel special I watched a short while ago. At any rate, it proves nothing even if ALL claims about the oddities about the shroud were true. They aren’t even evidence of anyone specifically. At least nothing that could be considered any way viable.