Is Theism arrogant?

Wouldn't that be agnosticism? Just because you're skeptical of God doesn't mean that you're an atheist. Having an atheistic view would imply that you're not open to this possibility, usually because of the belief that omniscience or omnipotence is logically impossible.I prefer this approach because it allows the words atheistic, agnostic, and theistic to be completely independent, meaning that you can't be agnostic and atheistic or agnostic and theistic at the same time. Under this definition, I would argue that atheism and theism are more arrogant than agnosticism because they both require an extra assumption that isn't universally accepted as self-evident.

Basing a conclusion off of an uncertain hypothesis obviously means that your conclusion is uncertain. Note that my concern is that you aren’t keeping agnosticism and atheism completely independent; however, if you can provide a definition to these concepts while keeping them independent, I’ll be happy to hear it. Unless you can provide this definition, I will remain of my earlier persuasion. For atheism it is that God can’t exist, and for theism it’s that he does exist. It’s as simple as that. Granted that we’ve all accepted the axioms of logic, the only way these wouldn’t be assumptions is if you could show that they followed exactly from logic.Agnosticism does NOT take the position that both sides are supported equally, as you mentioned earlier. That would be an assumption. Rather, agnosticism makes no assumptions in saying that we don’t know either way. The assumption here, in my opinion, is traced back not to agnosticism but to logic because logic requires proof unless it is itself a self-evident truth. That we have not already proved or disproved the existence of God seems to be pretty self-evident, and therefore agnosicism makes no assumptions. There is a branch of agnosticism, however, that does make the assumption that atheism and theism can’t be proved (ever), but that is a subset of agnosticism that excludes both me and what I've been trying to argue.

If atheism and agnosticism aren't treated as being completely independent, then I would have to debate atheism as being arrogant any more than agnosticism and theism as being arrogant. In this light, there are branches of each belief system that necessitate arrogance, however, to call the entire system arrogant for this reason would be like defining a zebra as black.Again, assuming these systems as not being completely independent would allow for subsets of each that require arrogance as well as those that don't. Also, since each systems requires arrogance, it would be meaningless to define any (including atheism) as being arrogant.My attempt was to define atheism in such a way as to allow for arrogance. However, given your assumptions (my assumption is that atheism and agnosticism are independent, yours are the opposite), I have no quarrel with the logic that follows.

Actually, I was hesitant as well, but I couldn't find a better word within a reasonable amount of effort. My justification is that upon looking up the three words in the dictionary I found that they all started with: "The belief that...." And I called it a system because it is not an irreducible thought. If you're unhappy with what "belief system" insinuates, I wouldn’t worry about it too much because you’re putting more thought into it than I did when I labeled them. If you feel you have a better word, let me know and I’ll be happy to use it henceforth.

They’re out there. Many very intelligent advocates of this position say that although a supernatural spirit is possible, God as we have defined him can’t logically exist. You’ve probably seen some of their arguments: God is cruel, omniscience is impossible, morality must exist independent of God, etc. No. If you drive your car to work, you can have confidence that you won’t get into an accident along the way. Realizing that you can’t predict the future, however, you can’t know that you won’t. Sure. First, I’d like to note that by a self-evident truth I meant a truth that is essentially universally accepted as self-evident. As far as empiricism, my belief is that empiricism, or just about everything for that matter, builds on top of the pillar that is logic.To get a better understanding of what position I’m arguing from, read the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs of Message 235. After reading this, my previous arguments, and especially the next statement, should make more sense: The number and contestability of assumptions required to explain agnosticism is less than that of atheism and theism. It is for the reason that arrogance is defined as “overbearing self-worth” that the universality (though not necessarily the number) of your assumptions are key to this debate. The assumption I deemed necessary to explain agnosticism is that we haven’t already proved or disproved the existence of God, which seems to be universally accepted and therefore not arrogant. I admit that I was wrong before in saying that the assumption of agnosticism can be traced back to logic, but because the nature of the assumption, my persuasion remains unchanged. I wrote this only because I didn't think that someone could be an agnostic and an atheist at the same time. If you want to argue that they can, then I'll accept it because it's not essential to my argument. Just a quick note: Though the primary definition of agnosticism is used as it applies to God, it is still sometimes applied to other things.

Nah. Despite the paradox in this statement, I think I know what you mean, and I do understand the difference between God and some sort of God-equivalent. There are limitless theories on supernatural powers that atheism doesn't touch - it more or less only refers to the generally accepted definition of God. I think that to deny all possible supernatural existence or purpose borders on nihilism rather than atheism. I completely disagree. If it is possible to know anything at all, then it is possible to know, after the drive is over, whether or not you got into an accident. If you claim to know that you're not going to get into an accident every time you get into the car, chances are that every once in a while you're going to be wrong, even if you are the perfect driver. However, if you already took the drive, you'll never (assuming you're not delusional) be wrong in asserting whether or not you got into an accident on the trip. The belief that both sides are equally probable is nothing more than an infinitesimal subset of uncertainty. No it isn’t! Empiricism can be built solely on the axioms of probability, which itself uses the axioms of logic to expand. The problem is that I said “almost all complex thought builds on the pillar that is logic” because it contributed to my point and I thought it sounded cool. However, in actuality, most complex thought builds on its own assumptions and uses logic to allow for complex and more universal thought. To explain, consider that probability can assert the exact chance of what happened in the past as an indication of what will happen in the future. If you’re new to probability, you might assume that if we are completely uncertain of something that has two possible outcomes, we would say that even after a hundred runs that show one outcome, the 101st run will still be a 50% chance (such as flipping a coin 100 times in a row and getting heads each time). On the contrary, probability asserts that simply by virtue of the test runs, there is a 1 in 2^100 chance that what we have seen was completely random. There is certainly no logical fallacy in saying that what happened in the past is indicative of the future; it would only be a logical fallacy to say that we are 100% certain.And we can never be 100% certain. If we would be certain of anything empirically, it would be that the sun, after rising over a trillion times in the Earth’s history, will always continue to rise. However, anyone who knows about the life expectancy of the Sun will tell you that this can’t be the case. Assuming that it will always continue to rise, then, would be the logical fallacy. Oh my god! No! (note my increasing enthusiasm in disagreeing with you ) Your first statement is absolutely correct. Then you switched the word “assume” with “knowing” to make your conclusion not follow from your hypothesis. Everything that we know begins with these little assumed truths that act like atoms. Logic steps in with it’s power of chemical bonding to build extremely elaborate and complex thought. Patterns like A implies B and C, B implies D and E, and C implies F and G means A implies D, E, F, and G are all we need to make something immeasurably complex. Similarly, a set of only 100 different atomic elements combined with the power of chemical bonding can produce a seemingly limitless set of organisms. With logic, however, we would have to assume D, E, F, and G. This would be like erasing our chemical bonds, allowing for nothing more than a cloud of chaotically interacting atomic particles (people have told me before that my analogies are horrible, but I think that this one should pretty clearly illuminate my understanding of logic).

Try here: God Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Might as well see this too: Atheism Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.comThe primary definitions here are the ones I'm using for the base of my arguments. Also, I said the generally accepted view of god. I certainly don't believe that this excludes all non-Abrahamic religions. Atheism could, however, include certain religions, especially when noting that atheism itself could be considered a religion. This is precisely what I disagree with. If you don't believe in the supernatural, then you are directly implying that you don't believe in a purpose. How could there possibly be a purpose to life if purpose is defined as the "reason for existence?" Maybe you would argue that our purpose was given to us by our creator, nature. However, without the supernatural, nature can certainly not have this or any intention. Sorry to confuse the point. As a computer programmer, I've been trained to break everything down literally because computers don't do what you meant to command. In any situation where I'm not certain of something, if someone asked if I knew I would say "I don't know (either way), but it is probably this...." I understand that certain phrases have connotations or insinuations that derive from it's usage rather than it's definition, but this is precisely what I've been trained to avoid. It might help that if in the future you treated what I said as if a robot rather than a person said it. Fair enough. Actually, after viewing Kant's synthesis, I think I might do just that. For whatever reason the philosophy of science fascinates me. I don't even have to read the rest of this to understand the problem. I believe that we can only make assumptions, and you believe that there can be actual truths. I can't reduce, prove, or disprove either or these assumptions, so it'd be pointless for me to offer a rebuttal. Also, you're right this is going off topic. It's just fun to argue with you because we disagree about so much and you're able to argue logically .

I don't know about this reasoning . Changing one's mind reflects more the open-mindedness or uncertainty of the person than the reasonability of their belief. To say that you'll never change your mind can be called arrogant and stubborn, or confident and self-willed depending on how you look at it, but reasonable? Any persuasion can be reasonable, accepted, and then rejected if you eventually find that it is inconsistent with one of your beliefs if your belief system is evolving.

The purpose I'm talking about is the reason that life was created. Hammers are created for the purpose of hammering, computers are created for the purpose of computing, and so life is created for the purpose of...living? We have a purpose in mind for each tool we make, but what purpose was in mind when life was created? Without a supernatural entity, there couldn't be any purpose because there can't be anything in "mind" so to speak.Obviously we can give ourselves a purpose, just as we could use a hammer for cooking, but the purpose I'm referring to is derived from the intention of the creator. That is what I meant when I referred to the "purpose of life." Unfortunately, our language isn't precise enough to define the difference of these types of purposes, which makes your argument technically correct. However, the purpose I'm referring to is described in many religions and theories, so I thought it’d be relevant. You obviously haven't met my brother (that savant bastard is even worse than I am)...but I'm not sure where this is going. I'll let you have the last word, but I'd like to say a few things:(1)I precisely disagree that languages are spoken first. When a word is introduced (such as fish, cat, and floccinaucinihilipilification :cool, it must be defined as something. As languages evolve, words must change or expand in meaning to evolve with them, which is where I believe the connotations and nuances can take hold. This of course does not happen to all words.(2) To "not know either way" is something that I believe can be traced to its exact logical meaning, regardless of the exact meaning to each word. If you can't say that you "don't know either way," then logically it would imply that you would "know one way or the other." I'm asking nothing more than to take the precise logical definition of my logical ascertains. I would agree that you can't take the precise definition of each word because not every word carries this type of precision, but grammar certainly has a pretty solid structure to it.(3) I'd like to avoid connotation in online discussions whenever possible because connotation is particular to location. This would of course imply that I don't believe that language is entirely connotation.(4) This is just a little irrelevant side-note: I looked at Kant's synthesis of empiricism and rationalism and found that I completely agree with his approach, so I won’t be refuting it in any way. I might, however, start a thread on it because I find it pretty interesting.

No problem there. I've noticed that with every response, another quote has been added and debated making it difficult to keep track of the original point. Furthermore, I don't know about you, but I wasn't even close to being ready to admit any fault in any of my arguments, so this would probably only get worse. I think we should just start over, and I'll try to learn from this so that it doesn't get as bad again. I don't know if you saw my number of posts, but it'll probably be a while before I can completely understand the consequences of taking shortcuts in describing my position.