Am I really undecided or just haven't decided?
I haven't found any evidence of god.
On the other hand I can't prove that there's no god.
But then I can't prove that there are no fairy folk.
In fact I can't prove or disprove anything.
Naturally I daren't gadabout admitting that I don't know if fairy folk exist.
That would be silly.
Everyone knows that fairies don't exist.
After all there's no evidence of fairies.
I'm definitely undecided and decidedly prolix.
Are you undecided too?
You are like the person who canβt decide what to order when faced with a large menu. The paralysis through analysis is debilitating. You can debate this shit until the end of time and be no closer to absolute answers. Just pick a path and move on. There is no right or wrong answer, only what is right or wrong to you. And if you find it is wrong, simply change it. Nobody is keeping score, however, you can earn points for style.
You are neither undecided or haven't decided, you are just playing with yourself.
"In fact I can't prove or disprove anything."
Well hold on there...one can prove a lot of things.
One can prove that objects fall. That they accelerate during their fall at roughly 9.8 m/s^2. That all objects regardless of how heavy they are have the exact same acceleration if air resistance was accounted for. That this acceleration is due to an attractive force proportional to the masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. And so on through observation and experiment.
Proving absolutes only occur rarely. One doesn't have to prove absolutes, instead one can deal with likelihoods.
What is the likelihood that gods and fairies exist?
Although I'm agnostic in the absolute, the likelihood results are undeniably atheistic to a very high degree.
In terms of being undecided, it must be understood that one is being "undecided" about an infinitesimally small chance of something existing.
A bit of a catchphrase in my circles these days is "Strong opinions loosely held"
Which means don't dither and take no action just because you can't be certain. Make your best guess, go with it but don't be afraid to be proven wrong.
As a skeptic i learned about a hierarchy of evidence. You start at a point where you doubt everything but you don't stay there. You look at what evidence there is and assess how confident you can be in that evidence. Although you can doubt anything, not all doubt is equal, the doubt about a second hand story is generally greater than over a video. It may be equally possible for both to be misleading, but not equally probable.
I don't know there isn't a God, which is why I'm agnostic
But I believe that a godless universe is more likely than any given alternative and choose to live accordingly. That make me an atheist too. (Yes, contrary to popular usage these words can be understood to have overlapping meanings)
I may not be certain, but I won't waste any more energy being undecided.
@DangerDave Thanks
nope. i agree with isaac asimov, and here is what he said about it:
βI am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.β
g
I think you should just have a nice cup of tea and stop all that thinking, very bad for you.
Perhaps I could pop in and you could infuse a pot.
@waitingforgodo Yes, come around. I have some nice cookies.
Yes, because I donβt care. Being a very lazy philosopher Iβll wait for death to test the theories and live while Iβm alive
Other things I try not to waste time worrying about are: what other people have for breakfast
what the weather was like yesterday
*how I will die
But I did think about it for a while in my teens and early 20βs. I didnβt feel any affiliation to a religion then. Buddist ideology has grown on my in later life, but itβs not a belief in god.
Think of it in this way,
God exists, says the Believer.
How are you so certain God exists, you ask, can you see God, can you touch God?
No, says the Believer, but I know God must exist because the Pastor/Priest/Minister at our Church tells us that God exists repeatedly.
And how does he/she know this, you ask.
Because he believes in God, says the Believer, because he was taught to believe in God.
But exactly which God is the God that you must believe in, you ask.
Why, the God I was taught to believe in, the Believer replies, is there another God?
Well Yes, you reply, there are over 300,000 Gods/Goddesses worshiped in Hinduism alone and an estimated ten times that number have been worshiped by Humans for thousands and thousands of years before that as well, so I ask you again WHICH GOD.
You can't prove there's a god bcuz no evidence exists to support that position. You don't have to prove there isn't a god bcuz no one is obligated to prove a negative position. If there were a god there'd be evidence to support it, if there isn't a god then there'd likely be no evidence... and there isn't.
Seems pretty simple how to interpret all that.
@DangerDave I do understand it; it says something must be true or false because it hasn't been proven not to be true or false. It's an appeal to ignorance. Not the argument I made. A fallacy hinges on the point at which the logic collapses. Demonstrate where the logic collapses in my argument.
@DangerDave I'm going to give you one last chance to back up your initial post. At what point does the logic in my argument collapse? Either demonstrate it or we're done.
@DangerDave I gave you a fair chance to prove yourself. Buh bye.
I really do not give a rats ass about that Bull Shit!!!
Grow the Fuck up!!!
Everyone has an asshole maybe that is why you are so hung on shit you can not see or touch!!!
"In fact I can't prove or disprove anything."
You can't prove or disprove ANYTHING?
You cannot possibly believe that.
Try this. Affirm the existence only of things that are proven.
Assert that those who make claims need to prove them.
Assert that you would review the existence of things only on the basis of new evidence.
Apply these principles equally to all things: to Gods, fairies, unicorns, what have you.
Feel comfortable that people may hate you, criticise you, or attack you, but you are consistent in the way you approach the world.
Re "In fact I can't prove or disprove anything": perhaps he is unaware of proof in mathematics? (Or is my pedantry clouding my judgment?)
@anglophone no, I think it was shorthand, meaning you can't prove or disprove supernatural phenomena, which is why it is supernatural, so I wasn't reproaching but pointing out, like you did, that this isn't literally true. I'm sure the poster knows this too.
@David1955 I like your analysis.
No, Iβm sure our culture is just like a bacterial culture in a Petri dish in a lab, but with us itβs anywhere on the planet where we can breath. Both consume every resource and inevitably die of being poisoned by their own waste.
I love the dark and occult fashion that causes people to think I believe in something but thatβs their bias.
Something you might ask yourself is, why don't I believe in Santa Clause?
For me, the reason I don't believe in Santa isn't only that I don't have any proof but that I do have proof of people making up Santa. My parents told me Santa was real but I saw them putting the gifts under the tree themselves.
That is my "evidence" that god doesn't exist as well. I see people saying god exists when they don't really know. And then they don't really wait around for god to do all the things they say he will. They don't wait for him to cast out sinners, they take care of that themselves, and so forth.
Basically, though I don't have evidence that god exists, I do have ample evidence of people making up god. That's enough for me to say confidently that I don't believe in god.
You are an agnostic
He is a troll xian wanting sex with an Atheist woman here....he wants no dialogue no comfort from Atheists here in a world dominated by violent insane faiths.... he never attacks the obvious fake dictionaries written by xians against AtheistS.... he supports theocracy without demanding proof exactly what and where these alleged gawd things exist preferring to debate with himself.... we are all born Atheists and only some people are abused by believers raped by priests sexually mutilated by many religions
The believer must prove the assertions they make, not you.
A god is not defined by reality or existence, believers make the assertion that it is, the god makes no assertion whether it exists or not, it is therefore the believer who must then PROVE the assertions they make.
"If I declare that my god is real and that it's scriptures are infallible."/
@DangerDave A person who claims knowledge without evidence is a believer.
@DangerDave if a person claims to have knowledge that they don't have, that makes them a liar.
What "knowledge" are atheists claiming to have?
@DangerDave Atheism is the absence of belief. An atheist doesn't care if a believer says a god exists, because the believer must prove the assertions they make. An atheist doesn't need to make a claim that an unsubstantiated belief is false, the believer must prove that their claims are true.
"If I declare that my god is real and that it's scriptures are infallible."/
@DangerDave You are so wrong. Agnostic: a-gnostic - a - without; gnostic - knowledge = without knowledge
Atheist: a - without; theist - belief in gods = without belief in gods. Atheism is the absence of belief in gods.
You are simply trying to define atheism in your own terms, and actually trying to misconstrue its meaning, so that you can convince yourself you are right.
@DangerDave Just more nonsense to try and justify your beliefs. Simply prove the assertions that you have made. Show us the evidence that billions of people have failed to show through the centuries that a god exists, or even fairies and Bigfoot for that matter, then everyone on this planet can join the conversation.
"Top scientists" that is funny, thank you for that.
@DangerDave What research? Please publish this research, the world awaits with hope and bated breath.
You are simply name-dropping to sidestep the fact that you have no evidence for the assertions you have made.
@DangerDave Blah,blah,blah, you are just blathering on without evidence for the assertions that you have made.
@DangerDave Did you believe in fairies before or after you watched the video?
@DangerDave So, you are now saying that the video is evidence, but you don't believe it, why? And if you don't believe it as evidence then why would you post it trying to convince others to believe it?
Dave, we know the origins of these myths:
Fairies: [fiveminutehistory.com]
Bigfoot: [history.com]
@DangerDave That is laughable, just because you or other believers believe something that doesn't make it true.
Maybe Em the Elf can prescribe medication.
What are these alleged gawd things bandied about ?
Not at all.
There is no such thing as proof in science so anybody who claims to have proof of God's existence (which god?) is merely flaunting their own ignorance.
As @KKGator suggests, all existence claims of all gods must be considered absurd unless and until somebody produces falsifiable evidence to support the existence claim of at least one god.
hmm well, do many ppl worship money or no?
@bbyrd009 What has that got to do with the price of eggs in Harwich?
@anglophone ya, bc that would violate your definitions right
gods have to be personified, personalities, huh
swear to Yah atheists are just exactly the same as believers lol
no diff whatsoever
anyway, nothing wrong with that i guess; what that has to do with the subject is that your definition of "gods" might be more restrictive than is generally intended, Mammon was prolly never meant to be forwarded as some Guy You Could Hold a Convo With, or Has Opinions, or any of the other anthropomorphisations that ppl commonly attribute to "gods?"
@DangerDave hey, what happened to your hat?
Nope. There is NO credible, verifiable evidence of the existence of any gods.
As far as I'm concerned, that means no gods exist. None of them.
If verifiable evidence is ever presented, I'll reconsider my position.
Unless or until that happens, I have absolutely no reason to posit that there are gods.
I really okay with it.
The whole concept of god is silly AF.
I not only think it is silly, I think it is absurd.
wadr that may be because your def of "gods" is not what was meant anyway; do many people "worship" money, or no?
@KKGator "How do you know "what was meant anyway"?
The question was whether god(s) exists?"
i know--or rather suspect--what was meant bc i have learned, or at least started learning, the naive dialectic, in which the Bible was written. And wadr if "existence" implies "objective evidence" then that is prolly the wrong metric anyway? If someone tells you "here He is, over here," don't go looking... could easily be a rabbi-speak way of saying "understand we are using allegory here"
"The OP didn't mention anything about money.
There are lots of things people "worship".
None of them have to have anything to do with "gods"."
ha well so you say, but wadr that is your definition, and may not best rep the reality of a mythology, where "gods" could be just a term used to identify what is being worshipped? Does Mammon "exist" of course not, but do many worship Mammon whether they would admit it or not? Does Moloch "exist" surely not, but did many Jews sacrifice their children to "him" regardless?
so maybe the point is not to anthropomorphize gods, like a believer would, but to see that despite lack of existence they are nonetheless very real in a sense? Believers are waiting for Jesus to return, literally, even though that cannot be Quoted from the Bible, not anywhere. You have rejected that bullshit, havent you? Or no?