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Author | Topic: Atheists can't hold office in the USA? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
There are British subjects and there are people who are not British subjects - British and aBritish. There are people who understrand binary and people who don't understand binary - binarists and abinarists. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in god. A theist is someone who does believe in god. There is no room in the middle for 'I don't know'. The two concepts are not directly related. Your claim that there is nobody who doesn't understand binary is absurd.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
Not at all. You're conflating things that are not related, knowledge and belief. That was pretty random. The fact is that everybody is agnostic on the subject of gods, no matter what they believe.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
That doesn't make any sense at all. We only believe what we can not know.
... once he says he doesn't know, he also admits to not believing.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Tangle writes:
I don't know whether Bigfoot exists. I believe it does.
RAZD writes:
... You don't believe. So now when I say "I don't know......."
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Tangle writes:
That's like saying if you don't know if you have cancer or not then you don't have cancer. If you don't know if you *believe* or not, then you don't believe. You can believe you have cancer whether you do or not. You can believe you DON'T have cancer whether you do or not. At the moment, many of us don't KNOW whether we have cancer or not. We are agnostic.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Tangle writes:
You're the one who's confusing knowledge with belief when you claim there's no such thing as an agnostic.
You're confusing knowledge with belief. Tangle writes:
Do they?
People know what they believe.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
Neither Huxley nor anybody else has the power to "allow" any such thing.
Sadly, Huxley, says youre not allowed to believe that. Tangle writes:
You may believe that I'll agree, but you don't know whether I will or not. You're agnostic, whether you believe it or not.
Luckily, and I'm sure you'll now agree, he's wrong.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Tangle writes:
If people ARE agnostic about knowledge, you can't say there's no such thing as an agnostic. That's all people are trying to tell you. People are agnostic about knowledge, but not about belief. Being agnostic "about belief" is a nonsensical concept. Nobody is arguing that.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Tangle writes:
You're arguing against a point that nobody is making.
But this is my entire point, which has gone flying over your - and others - heads. Belief and knowledge are not the same thing. You can be agnostic about knowledge - in fact you MUST be, but not belief.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Reminds me of The Little Engine That Could: "I think I am, I think I am." I think im the last one... Descartes thought he was a gnostic about thinking but he was really agnostic.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
Knowledge of the light in the room is external to your mind, i.e. objective; it can be confirmed by other observers. One is external to your mind (could be either condition and you don't know). The other is internal to your mind... Belief in gods is internal to you mind, i.e. subjective. How can you possibly know your own mind with perfect accuracy?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
Most of the time.
Do you love your wife? Tangle writes:
What are the Jets?
Do you support the Jets? Tangle writes:
Sometimes.
Do you like cats? Tangle writes:
See, that's where your premise breaks down. A lot of people in a restaurant will look at the menu and say, "Hmmm.... What do I want?"
Do you want fries with that? Tangle writes:
I don't know.
Do you believe in god?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
I think the problem here is not that "agnostic" is a redundant term. It's that we don't have enough terms to describe the possible states:
Agnostic = "I don't know if I believe in God or not."Atheist = "I do not believe in God." "I believe in the God of the Bible." "I believe in a god." "I don't believe in any specific god(s)." "I believe that no gods exist." "I don't know what to believe." etc. Stile writes:
That doesn't make any sense to me.
We're talking about being agnostic and not being an atheist at the same time.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
Of course there's a don't know. It's always a don't know. Sometimes you're just a little more sure.
In any case, when you do, you do, when you don't you don't. There isn't a don't know. Tangle writes:
So if I don't know God exists, I can't believe in Him? Would you care to think that through again?
ringo writes:
It doesn't matter - if you don't know they exist, you can't believe it them. What are the Jets? Tangle writes:
That isn't the way it is with gods though. If they exist, you get 'em whether you want 'em or not.
Yup, but unless they say yes to fries, they don't get fries. they are afrieist.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dqise1 writes:
Democracy in action.
No, the reason why atheists cannot hold office in the USA is because of ... are you ready? ... what the voters think!
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