Agnostic.com

11 0

This is my opinion. If you do not agree with mine, please leave yours. I only ask that you do not personalize your comments, in either direction. Here is my thought on my beliefs about being agnostic. Agnostics are unsure of their honest beliefs. Do agnostics believe in an afterlife? If so, are there rewards and punishments for the way life is lived? Where do morality and ethics spring.

MikeB-4398 2 Apr 17
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

11 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

My use/definition of Agnostic is that we Know, we don't Know - we don't know how we came to be in this strange event - what happened before we were born or what will happen after we die -
technically being an Atheist is having a belief too, - the belief that death is the end/nothingness - even tho no one knows.

1

You got it all wrong. Agnostics simply don't ask questions we can't possibly answer. Intellectually speaking, every faith's argument for their belief runs into a wall they try to dodge before eventually claiming faith in place of fact. Agnostics are usually people who see these holes in the stories. We are still moral for the sake of a better world, we just don't need all the other arguments and we don't need a god to make us be moral.

0

I don't believe IN anything, but my OPINION is yes there is an afterlife, and yes a system of reward and punishment would seem to be in place. I think morality and ethics spring from 'natural law' (look it up) and are innate in most people.
I don't consider my self 'insecure,' just think 'belief' is inappropriate when it comes to such matters.
On what do you base your "beliefs?" If nothing concrete and substantial, they are more appropriately called OPINIONS.
Yes I have MANY opinions. They sometimes change from one moment to the next. I have no rigid core 'beliefs' to which I cling and defend. I don't attack others' opinions unless they are doctrinaire and inviolate. This is hubris and often hypocritical...THEIR opinions are unquestionably true, mine are suspect. I object to that attitude.

@Omnedon I've studied case histories of people who claim prior lives and the circumstantial evidence seems valid and convincing.
I only base my opinion concerning morality on that same reincarnation to which I just referred. Karma would be the punishment which leads you back to future lives.
In theory, anyway.
Plus, I just 'feel it in my gut' rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior exist. No proof. I don't need any. It's just my opinion!

0

I’d think that agnostics don’t know if there is an afterlife and make no claims about its nature. IMO it is irrational to have beliefs or disbeliefs about things that you have no way of knowing or understanding.

From a cosmic perspective the question of an afterlife is nothing but meaningless claptrap. Space and time are just parameters that we use to construct our imaginary world. You can not impose your artificial model on ultimate reality—it won’t fit. It would make more sense to ask if there is a current life and if any part of it is real, or if current life is wholly imaginary.

The question about morality and ethics is a separate and unrelated matter IMO. There is nothing profound or divine about behavior patterns. We have evolved to behave in certain ways toward each other, and similar patterns can be seen in the behavior of animals. Ethics and morality are basic nuts and bolts living habits like diet, cleanliness, etc and have no significance from a cosmic perspective. That is my opinion but I am not totally sure.

@OwlInASack Despite having some conservative values, maybe I am not the enemy after all. 🙂

@WilliamFleming About Owl,conservative values based on a limited perspective are therefore of limited value.
And, to me an 'enemy' has surety and conviction based on among other things a lack of humility. I oppose those who oppose my utter refusal to believe what they believe.

1

"Agnostics are unsure of their honest beliefs. Do agnostics believe in an afterlife? If so, are there rewards and punishments for the way life is lived? Where do morality and ethics spring."

Well the first sentence is uncontroversial. Agnosticism is about acknowledging limitations to certainty.

But in what follows you switch to asking what agnostics believe. I wouldn't expect to find much agreement there. It is natural enough for those who acknowledge their limited certainty to nonetheless have hunches or operational beliefs regarding those uncertain matters. Most tend to regard the prospect of an afterlife as they do a god as unlikely. So we live our lives without regard to gods or an afterlife. But Christians too can acknowledge agnosticism. The difference is they choose to live their lives in the hope that what they wish for will be true. They call it faith, a far different thing than the belief of apologetics or mania of the deranged we more often run into. Personally I think a measure of agnosticism just shows you're paying attention.

1

Almost everyone is agnostic about almost everything, so asking what agnostics have to say about X is basically the same asking what people have to say about X. The answer is that they will say countless, widely varied things.

1

On what basis do you claim that agnostics are unsure of their honest beliefs?

Morality and ethics are ultimately driven by evolution.

2

Personally, my honest belief is that there is no god. However, I don't feel like I can prove there isn't, so Agnostic seems like the more logical choice over Atheism.

I do not believe there is an afterlife, but there are rewards and punishments for living life a certain way. If you break laws your punishment is guilt, fines, jail time, etc. If you do drugs, your punishment is addiction, dependence, money issues, etc. Alternatively, if you are kind and caring towards others, your reward can be feeling good, friendship, love, etc. If you help animals or do volunteer work, you're often rewarded with pride, support, accomplishment, etc.

For me, morality and ethics spring from within. It is as simple as it feels good to do good, it feels bad to do bad.

I am atheist about the God of the Bible and the God of the Torah, this because it is trivial to demonstrate the non-existence of both. I am technically agnostic about all other gods, this because nobody has ever produced any falsifiable evidence to support the existence claim of any other god or gods in the last 5,000 years, but in practical terms I am atheist about those gods also.

3

Can’t speak for anyone else but the existence of a god or not is irrelevant to me. Life after death, don’t know but will find out at some point, Moralities are socially implanted, ethics are internal

2

No Agnostics are not unsure, most agnostics are just sure that there is no value in belief or faith either way, that is all. And in any case, perhaps most people on this site, are happy to call themselves atheists, either instead of or as well as.

But I would strongly recommend against starting a debate about definitions of the words atheist and agnostic, since it is an area of debate which comes up nearly every week, and most members are bored with it, even sick of it. If you want to read about that use a search and look at old posts.

@desertastronomer I have posted this before, but it may amuse if you did not see it the first time.
ABOUT MUFFINS. I see that the issue of Atheist/Agnostic has been rearing its head again, as it does every few days, so since some people find this a bit tiresome, I thought that a post on muffins would be more interesting.

Suppose for a minute, and for the sake of argument only, that there is a god, an afterlife, including a heaven and a hell; and that the god chooses whether people go to heaven, or if some go to hell, in fact the whole theist deal. Not only that, but the criterion on which the god makes the choice is based on the type of muffins they eat. ( Note: “eat” not prefer, this is not about free will or anything like that.) People who eat lemon muffins go to heaven and people who eat chocolate muffins go to hell, with limbo for those who don't eat muffins at all, of course.

Would that make a difference to your life ? Would you give up your chocolate muffins for an eternity of joy, and all the lemon buns after death you could ever eat ? Perhaps you would. But there is one vital thing that I forgot to mention, which is that, this particular god, does not tell you about the muffins, or how they affect your afterlife, in fact it keeps the whole thing a big secret just to itself, so that you have no way of knowing which muffins to eat.

Then in that case, of course, you could not make the appropriate changes to your life, or save your soul anyway. In fact muffins, gods preferences and even that god, would not impact on your life at all.

The point is this. That a gods, souls, the afterlife etc. have no effect on anything, unless that god, or someone, tells you about it, and you therefore have some knowledge of god's cake prejudices. Making this the big difference between religion, which pretends to offer knowledge of god the afterlife etc., and none belief which does not. Which is why the difference between atheists, humanists, agnostics and even deists, is so small and unimportant by comparison, because none claim any knowledge of gods preferences, and it is the pretence of fake knowledge which makes all the big difference.

@desertastronomer
I owe you an apology after quoting you over the Harris comment. I actually agree with Harris on this point and yours was a good comment, but I was too wrapped up explaining the same thing over and over to Omnedon. My bad.

Although I should blame your quip for starting my flame war with Omnedon, lol.

@desertastronomer
Then you should come join our group No Holds Barred. You'd fit right in ;D

1

I imagine that agnostics are as sure or unsure of their beliefs as any other person. Some are quite sure that the truth cannot be known for certain, others suppose that it can but isn't yet, and still others think that they already know it.

This distribution of certainty is, by the way, about the same among the religious...but it's the agnostics, not the religious, who will say so out loud.

@Macanudo How does that contradict anything that I just said?

@AmyTheBruce
That was not a reply to you but the OP. I'm used to reply buttons being BELOW the comments. Here they are above so I replied to the wrong person.

@Macanudo Ah. Thank you for clarifying.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:485716
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.