Life and Death

bacon said:
then there is no difference between the Agnostic and the Atheist.
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I honestly think there's very few absolute atheist, but with all the different definitions of agnosticism floating around (some claim it means that the person thinks the supernatural is "unknowable", and cannot be approached by science (which I don't believe)), and because of all those people who call themselves agnostics because they either haven't thought about it or think the odds are about equal, it's nice to have a clear-cut and straight-foward title. So yes, there's pretty much no difference between an agnostic who's pretty certain there are no gods and an atheist in the colloquial meaning of the words.
 
"Agnostic" is pretty much a catch-all term constituting:

- People who do not care (me)
- People who believe it could go either way
- People who believe it is unknowable
- People who haven't thought about it that much

et cetera.
 
bacon said:
Once again, people misunderstand the Agnostic viewpoint. Nobody is claiming to believe in any of these things, but just accept them as vague possibilities. Given that a Unicorn under my bed magically appearing and disappearing pretty much violates our understanding of physics, we can reason that the chances of it being there are very small. You said yourself that science is a branch of knowledge that can never truly prove anything, so to deny something completely on the basis of scientific reasoning is foolish.

I don't get what you mean by the term "impact", so please elaborate on that.

If you mean how does this affect our scientific understanding of the world, then there is no difference between the Agnostic and the Atheist. Again,

bacon said:
The agnostic doesn't believe in those things though. He just accepts that it's impossible to rationally speculate on the existence of something which cannot (currently) be empirically or analytically verified.
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Science is based on analytical and empirical reasoning, so here there is no difference between the Agnostic and Atheist schools of thought. So that being said, if you say "Why would we?", then I can equally ask "Why favor Atheism over Agnosticism?".
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Well with impact I meant 'effect' in the way of 'would we achieve something?'. Sorry I wasn't very clear.

But there is a difference between Atheist and Agnost. An Atheist refers to a person who doesn't believe in a god/higher being. While an Agnost refers to someone who doesn't know what to believe, possibly also not caring to know, but at least someone who either gives the existence a chance of being true or thinks it is unknowable.

For me, somebody or something controlling the universe, and even created it, is just pure fantasy. So I think this makes me an Atheist then. Science hasn't been able to give valuable explanations for everything yet, although there are many good and widely accepted theories, but that doesn't mean we can go out speculating and guessing what the things we don't know yet might be. Again, just because science doesn't everything, it doesn't mean we can fill in the gaps with fantasy.

Why would you accept or believe something with no evidence at all? In this case the existence of a god.
 
your mom is pure fantasy

in bed

ooooooooooh

THERE IS A RELIGIOUS DEBATE ON A POKEMON FORUM AND IT IS MAKING ME SAD. I thought that this was supposed to be a life/death debate thing.
 
^ That was uncalled for. Also this is not really life/death. It is around the idea of death. As the OP asks what do you think will happen. Now obviously he intended to do that. Otherwise we wouldn't get a debate since death is a major component of religion and Atheism.
 
It's called for because religious debates are silly and boring and it's a Pokemon forum and RELIGIOUS DEBATES ON POKEMON FORUMS ARE SRS BDNSS AMIRITE.

(I had a bowl of mean flakes for breakfast today~)
 
Zenith said:
your mom is pure fantasy

in bed

ooooooooooh

THERE IS A RELIGIOUS DEBATE ON A POKEMON FORUM AND IT IS MAKING ME SAD. I thought that this was supposed to be a life/death debate thing.
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It's very hard to discuss about alot of things without involving religion. And why would it be such a problem to debate about religion, every time it appears religion can't be or is hard to avoid. So it must be of some value for some people. I think it is not wrong to face it, or is it you are afraid of the truth? Or at least, discussing it?
 
If you haven't noticed, this part of the forums is dedicated to non-pokemon releated discussions. Is a religious debate non-pokemon? Thats what I thought.
 
Zenith, stop it. Your comment was very, very rude and immature. Life and death pertain to religion, obviously, so I think it's fine that the conversation drifted towards it. And besides, it's not like intelligent conversation ever hurt anyone.
 
Heavenly Spoon :F said:
hatedisc, I don't just "disagree" with religion, I honestly think it's silly, which is exactly the word to describe it. I have no respect for the religion itself, but I respect those who believe in it as human beings and whatnot. Again, respect should not protect something from criticism, and my criticism is that it's silly. If that offends you, I honestly think it's the truth hurting. If you are truly convinced of the validity of your religion, my statements should do nothing to undermine or insult it. When you say I can't criticize it because it shows a lack of respect, you are avoiding discussion, which I discussed in my previous post.
But if you want a discussion on the silliness of religion, I'd be more than happy to offer you one :)
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You have no other words to describe it? Somebody's ignorance is showing. ;) You're never going to convince somebody they are wrong by insulting their point of view. Never. Insulting them only draws them further away from listening to you, no matter how rational your argument may be. I never said anything against criticism. Criticism is good; it's what keeps ideas fresh. But you were not criticizing; you were attacking. And the only logical response for someone who is being attacked is to defend. So you have therefore destroyed any chance you ever had of your opponent accepting your point of view.

But I have no interest in continuing to talk to you. I doubt anything I've just said has gotten through to you. And you know what the funny thing is? I don't care.

sillily hating of the disc,
hatedisc

p.s. If you are about to use the argument that I'm being a hypocrite and that my above post was an attack as well, don't bother. I know full well it was an attack. Have a nice day. ;)
 
hatedisc said:
You have no other words to describe it? Somebody's ignorance is showing. ;) You're never going to convince somebody they are wrong by insulting their point of view. Never. Insulting them only draws them further away from listening to you, no matter how rational your argument may be. I never said anything against criticism. Criticism is good; it's what keeps ideas fresh. But you were not criticizing; you were attacking. And the only logical response for someone who is being attacked is to defend. So you have therefore destroyed any chance you ever had of your opponent accepting your point of view.
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The point of a debate is for one side to attack and the other side to defend, and then attack back. When one side is attacking, they're not trying to offend the other side, merely present the facts to make the other side's argument seem less convincing. Even Buddhist monks use this technique of attacking, defending, then re-attacking (who are quite good at debating).

In a debate, the attacker almost never thinks his or her views will be accepted by the opponent. Obviously, if the defender just folds, then you have won. However, in most cases, that won't happen. This is particularly the case with religion, which I doubt anyone's views would change. Religion is based on faith, and is centered around neglecting the heretics of other people. Therefore, no, I don't think Spoon was trying to get you to accept his point of view.
 
silly? i'd say more Ridiculous. I think religion is a quick, unthought out way to say, "hey, this is how our universe began".

If you want to put your faith and your whole life in a fictional story, then be my guest.

And if your so insulted by everyones replys, id say to stay away from this thread. ya know...
 
When you die, you are devoured by a giant octopus from the remains of a dying sun and taken away to a prison camp where you are whipped with candy canes for the rest of eternity. It has to be true. I wrote a book about it.
EDIT: And 2 seconds later, Spoon posts. This thread must be popular.
 
"Your political conviction is silly"
-> "Oh, well, here's why you, your political conviction and your way of life sucks"

"Your religion is silly"
-> "Why are you being so offensive?"

In the many (kinda) debates I've had about both subjects, those 2 replies seem pretty constant. What's up with the purpose of your life being less open for debate than your political conviction, which shouldn't be nearly as important?
I did get called a communist in at least one of these debates for both of these subjects...

I'd have to agree with InfinityFangX, though, ridiculous is a pretty accurate word as well.
 
as an honest question, why should a spirit help society? this society is far to physical for it's own good, in which a righteous slap to the face is said to happen (it's just bs made to make our economy pick up again, like y2k).

um religion is for people who want to believe in it, and just like anything else in life you will always find someone who will ridicule something just because they don't like it, so it's always bound to happen, just like with that willpower vs destiny thread we all have a choice in the matter in which and what we chose to believe in and what we don't. (in which how can you believe the bible when it's been re-edited by the church so many times the story's don't make any sense, I have a 80 year old bible and a 10 year old bible, the story's don't hold any equivalence to eachother, so how could you base it off of what is being said or read in current text's of this book)

there is something's in this world that cannot be detected by scientist's and probably never will, scientist's think that everything in this world, in this universe is science, I don't believe that for one minute, there's somethings that have been proven without science and will alwasy elude it, take folklore and you'll see what I mean. half the class was made up of people who were taking biological/whatever science's and they took folklore for fun, they even agreed that it's just to implausible to figure out where these spirit's and whatnot's come from and do.

in the end all of these statement's have nothing to do with life or death, just belief, in your life if you wanna believe that there is an omnipotent being then go for it, but if you think the whole thing is a joke then whatever, don't go after eachother's throat's and think that your right and there wrong. what is everyone's ideal's on life and death not belief? cya

P.S. religion and politics should never be mixed we all have our different belief's that make us human. also religion was created as a way to gain trust from the people to over power the monarch at the time so yes, they never had time to truly think it all through, and in the end were no better then the people they had taken power from.
 
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