Agnostics' view of religious believers

[mitchymo]

I shall consider myself a pantheistic agnostic, i do not agree with religion. I do not disrespect anyone who conforms to a specific belief but like them of me i am simply tolerant!

 

[FuzzyKen]

An agnostic simply believes in keeping an open mind to all belief systems untl proof is shown that one system is in fact correct and others should be discounted as incorrect.

Most religious zealots tend to pick and choose parts of the Bible while totally igoring others as they are convenient. The rehearsed speeches of some of them are really quite intersting when you get them into an area that will not fill a collection plate.

Sadly, what we now have is no longer religion. What we have is "God, Inc." which is nothing more than a series of for profit Corporations masquerading as churches in order to avoid taxation and derive monumental billion dollar profits with little control and few limitations.

Athiesm on the other hand rejects all religion period, it does not descriminate it rejects all religious belief systems equally.

If one looks at what religion is or was supposed to be it can be a great thing. Sadly, it has been so very polluted with individuals seeking self promotion and financial rewards that it no longer has any resemblence to what was intended.

 

[Dave NoCal]

It's my view that the majority of religious people, but far from all, feel entitled if not morally obligated to dictate other people's lives and choices based on their supernatural belief system. They'll try to dress it up differently but that's the bottom line. I consider such people to be a danger to my family and myself and regard them with fear and suspicion.
Dave

 

[LongandBigSub]

I believe in God, but I also think everyone has a right to believe in what they believe. And an agnostic or an atheist can think what they want. I just don't agree with their beliefs, and they don't agree with mine, but we can just learn to accept each other.

There are a lot of other things to talk about then religious preference.

 

[mako shark]

FuzzyKen this is the most accurate definition of an agnostic yet. After having religion forced down my throat for the first 17 years of my life and each time I asked anyone for an answer I got that pathetic response "you must have faith" I realized that it was hopeless. In my line of work everything is black and white and there is ALWAYS an answer or I can find you one! I say prove it and I will be your best ally...

An agnostic simply believes in keeping an open mind to all belief systems untl proof is shown that one system is in fact correct and others should be discounted as incorrect.

 

[Florida Boy]

<The point of my post is that religious people believe things that can only exist in their imagination, it goes beyond belief in God. They reject reality, lose self responsibilty and sometimes allow themselves to be manipulated by religious leaders who don't always have selfless agendas. This is why I have started to doubt their intelligence.>

I certainly doubt the intelligence of an individual who does the things you just cited. However, you seem to believe all those who might refer to themselves as Christian or religious fall into that category. that, as I am certain you will agree cannot be possible. Within any religious group or group that calls themselves back you will find examples of what you describe. It is not typical, in my belief. The blatant examples of such, are just that "blatant."

 

[Calboner]

An agnostic simply believes in keeping an open mind to all belief systems untl proof is shown that one system is in fact correct and others should be discounted as incorrect.

Whether this is correct depends on what you mean by "keeping an open mind." If you mean suspending judgment, then this is wrong. An agnostic believes in keeping an open mind only in the sense of proportioning the strength of his beliefs to the strength of the evidence for them. (This is, I think, what Huxley meant by the term.) That does not mean withholding judgment pending proof. For example, if a van is parked across the street from me and I have no way of observing what is inside it, then the hypothesis that there are penguins inside and the hypothesis that there are no penguins inside are equally without proof, within my knowledge. But I do not need proof in order to be justified in believing that there is no penguin in there: I have sufficient prior knowledge of the contents of vans and the whereabouts of penguins to accept that conclusion; indeed, as an agnostic, I must accept that conclusion and reject the alternative hypothesis that there are penguins inside unless I have some reason to believe otherwise (e.g., if I have heard of a penguin-smuggling ring that operates around here using vans). I "keep an open mind" with respect to the penguin hypothesis only in the sense that I am prepared to accept it if I receive sufficient evidence for it. But I don't withhold judgment pending proof if I already have sufficient reason to reject it.

So where religious beliefs are concerned, an agnostic must be prepared in principle to accept one of them if sufficient evidence of its truth becomes available. But an agnostic may also be confident to an extremely high degree that no such evidence ever will become available; and in that case, he is rationally bound to conclude that such beliefs as false. He is certainly not bound to withhold judgment.

 

[deleted213967]

If one looks at what religion is or was supposed to be it can be a great thing. Sadly, it has been so very polluted with individuals seeking self promotion and financial rewards that it no longer has any resemblence to what was intended.

[/QUOTE]

What, whose religion "was supposed to be a great thing"? You can't peremptorily mix vastly disparate and often mutually exclusive belief systems into one conveniently "great thing"?

Would it be King Fahd's Islam? Or that other Church known for its screamingly Holy Inquisition? Perhaps the Reformation Church of that Martin Luther who wrote: "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has..." .

 

[ActionBuddy]

If you have faith in God, Allah, Buddah etc. what is your view of agnostics and atheists?

Hey... it's all good... Hopefully, their "view" is that they cam2cam so we can have fun enjoying our cocks!

A very "religious" experience...

Onan

 

[Phil Ayesho]

now I find myself thinking that religious people are gullible or stupid to believe stuff that is closer to fairy tales than reality.

There is a difference between being delusional, and being stupid.

To prevent yourself from feeling too superior to the religious, you have to consider a few key truths.

FEAR FIRST
People fear the unknown because the unknown has the potential of hiding a threat to your survival to which you are blind, and therefore, vulnerable.

People fear death.

This has nothing to do with intelligence... It is an evolved response because animals that don't fear death don't do well in the natural selection game.

HUMANS SURVIVE BY MODELING REALITY
Humans are not big, nor armored, nor even well armed... what we got thru evolution was the ability to symbolize reality in our minds as a complex model that is based upon comprehension of cause and effect. This ability to identify causes, and create a 'theory' of how things work that enables up to imagine a variety of future results based upon a variety of our actions has turned out to be a very powerful survival tool.
Everything we have built, as humans, was built by employing this faculty.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE SERVE THE SAME PURPOSE
Throughout history, human beings have been confronted with unknowns they could not decipher. Early on, we had not even written language nor math apply to these problems, from pestilence to birth... to the lights in the sky... we had no idea what caused them, and no way of finding out.
And as stated above, the unknown is something of which we are afraid.

Someone came up with the trick of simply making up an explanation... be it spirits or god, to cover all those things that we found threatening, but that we could not actually figure out.

And, evolutionarily... it turns out that BELIEVING you understand a threat that you have no real power to mitigate is actually a better survival strategy than curling into a ball and refusing to risk venturing out.

Sacrificing a cow to try and alleviate a drought will not work, but it might give your people the feeling that they are proactively addressing the threat.

So religious societies thrived because religion offered people the feeling that they had SOME control of events beyond their control.
You didn't have to just 'take it'... you could pray... and if nearly everyone is praying, then nearly all the survivors will be folks who prayed... and that seems to verify their beliefs.


Science serves the exact same purpose, it seeks to give us explanations for the unknown, to dispel our fear of it and make us feel we have some control over it.
Science actually does a much better hob, because it actually does find out why things happen, rather than merely inventing a comforting belief.

But Science, itself, was not even possible until the advent of computational math, and the ability to write down everything that each individual discovered and measured...
Science is complicates and requires this form of meta-mind to solve astonishingly nuanced problems.

And Science does require one very hard thing... facing up to not knowing about the unknown... the open and honest acknowledgment of what you do not know, yet.

Both science and religion try to address our fears of the unknown... one simply is a lot harder to pull off than the other.

SCIENCE IS A RELIGION

But the real hard part is that science is so arcane and so removed from ordinary life and experience that most people have no real understanding of it.
For most of us, the pronouncements of scientists are indistinguishable from papal encyclicals. That is, they are both things for which the lay person has no direct proof or understanding... both situations where an 'authority' is asking you to 'trust' what they are telling you.

Sure, you can always get yourself an education and DO the science and prove the results to yourself... but you know that ain't gonna happen.

So the public is presented with two competing world views.
Science says that you have to get comfortable with the fact that you don't understand most of reality, so that you can accurately understand SOME of reality, and it tells you that in a lot of respects, you are at the mercy of the unknown... just a tiny fleck of matter in an indifferent universe.

Whereas religion is saying that you actually CAN understand the whole world, and that they already have the perfect answer to the unknown. AND religion is trying to tell you that you are not powerless in the face of a vast cosmos, but actually have the option to plead influence on the entire thing thru you own proactive means.


Science offers real, but severely limited personal power.
Religion offers unreal, but psychologically unlimited power.

Science almost nobody can really understand.
Religion is an answer everyone can understand.

And human beings have 100,000 years of evolutionary advantage for shaping our minds to be accepting of the religious solution, contrasted to only two thousand years of science.


When you offer any large group a choice between acceptance of a fearful unknown and your own powerlessness, OR an much easier explanation that is delusional, but offers you complete understanding and the ability to influence the unknown... the majority will naturally choose to feel they understand the world and can act in their own interests.
It literally makes it easier to face their day and sally forth to have a sense of certainty in their own powers.


The religious are not necessarily stupid. They are, like anyone else, looking for answers...
The religious decide they have found them....
The scientific are willing to admit they have not.

 

[TObul]

As a guy from Toronto I must say that it does not suck, but Calgary still does.

Now that that's out of the way, I became an Agnostic in my late teens for precisely the reasons listed here. Raised religious Anglican, my whole family just drifted away. Eventually I decided that I was not Atheist, that I still leave the door open to proof of anything beyond the known, but do require proof, and that causes me to look at decisions completely rationally.

In this way, my behavior is indistinguishable from an Atheist from the outside but for that one lonely spot deep in my mind reserved for Jesus, etc. should he/they ever decide I'm worth having on point to defeat Evil or something, even if it's just an e-mail or text message.

As for the original question, I am pretty annoyed with religious people. I acknowledge that people should be allowed to believe things, but many of them go beyond that and become politically active, pushing agendas that are not based on reason. It's the same reason you might hate a stupid person, it's not even his fault, but when his stupidity negatively affects your existence, you have the right to fight that influence and marginalize incompetent people.

Also,
"Agnostic? Atheist? Isn't it high time we refined the language to allow for nuance?

After all, in the Christianity market sphere alone, there are countless brands and sub-brands, making widely disparate claims about such key values as the road to salvation."

Agnostics should stick together, the United Atheist Alliance alone poses a threat, or worse, we could be overrun by the damn Sea Otters.

Just don't send me a level 2 homing call in a recessed biocave.

 

[cdarro]

Well, Montreal does not suck. Vancouver definitely does not suck. Calgary does suck. And Toronto really sucks. Out loud. And blows, too.

 

[kooperfan]

Are you sure your not athiest? As an agnostic the main belief for me is, show me God and hark, i believed, and it was good.
I used to believe christians where dumb or weak, but then i met christians that made me feel dumb and weak.
i see things in a different way now
in my eyes we are both right until proven right, schrodinger's cat right?

 

[deleted213967]

Agnostics should stick together, the United Atheist Alliance alone poses a threat, or worse, we could be overrun by the damn Sea Otters.

My science! That would suck even more than Calgary, although Canadians should stick together too.


Still, there is a sizable difference between reserving judgment about the existence of an unspecified non-interfering deity, an unspecified interfering deity, and a very specific God and accompanying rule book.

The mere fact that you are mentioning Jesus implies that you are rejecting Judaism and Islam, doesn't it?

 

[B_Hung Jon]

I have to admit I feel that most christians, Jewish people and muslims are ignorant. Even though their beliefs systems seemingly hurt no one, they bring down the general discourse about how religions are simply myths that keep us all in the dark intellectually.

 

[deleted213967]

I have to admit I feel that most christians, Jewish people and muslims are ignorant. Even though their beliefs systems seemingly hurt no one, they bring down the general discourse about how religions are simply myths that keep us all in the dark intellectually.

"seemingly hurt no one"?

That's the understatement of the year, Hung Jon.

Intellectual obscurantism aside, do you think that Islamic law, even as practiced in "moderate" Muslim states, "hurts no one"?

The penalty for mere apostasy in the Koran is crystal clear: death.

Then again, death is prescribed for every other peccadillo in the Old Testament as well. Suffice it to say, Yahweh-approved genocide and rape pass muster.

 

[Calboner]

As a guy from Toronto I must say that it does not suck, but Calgary still does.

Well, Montreal does not suck. Vancouver definitely does not suck. Calgary does suck. And Toronto really sucks. Out loud. And blows, too.

That song seems to cause dissension, but at least you all agree that Calgary sucks.

There's also a song called "Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole," but it is not funny at all, apart from its title.

Are you sure your not athiest?

Athy, athier, athiest?

I give up.

 

[TObul]

Well, Montreal does not suck. Vancouver definitely does not suck. Calgary does suck. And Toronto really sucks. Out loud. And blows, too.

While I must disagree about Toronto sucking, I will admit we do most things loudly. Montreal and Vancouver are cool too.

"Are you sure your not athiest? As an agnostic the main belief for me is, show me God and hark, i believed, and it was good."

Well, yes, I said I'm very close to Atheism in practice, but I maintain if God did show himself to me I would believe. That's Agnosticism to me. My case for using Earthly factors in decision making was echoed by Hung Jon:

"I have to admit I feel that most christians, Jewish people and muslims are ignorant. Even though their beliefs systems seemingly hurt no one, they bring down the general discourse about how religions are simply myths that keep us all in the dark intellectually."


" Still, there is a sizable difference between reserving judgment about the existence of an unspecified non-interfering deity, an unspecified interfering deity, and a very specific God and accompanying rule book.

The mere fact that you are mentioning Jesus implies that you are rejecting Judaism and Islam, doesn't it?"

I said "Jesus, etc." and "he/they", I was generalizing. If Zeus appeared to me, I'd be an Olympian.

As for the unspecified interfering deity Agnostics, you're right, they would make decisions based on anticipating the wishes of Generic Deity(tm), rather than hard evidence. Taking into account there is no definite way of anticipating GD's wishes, the only reasonable assumption is that GD wants humans to be happy, which naturally leads back to a Utilitarian/Atheist Decision Paradigm, the result of Noninterfering-Deity Agnosticism.

This may conflict with the view that GD is a more "activist" god and decisions should take into account it's possible feelings/reactions. Therefore, they are heretics and must be made blood sacrifices to Probably Allmighty Science.

 

[Calboner]

Then again, death is prescribed for every other peccadillo in the Old Testament as well. Suffice it to say, Yahweh-approved genocide and rape pass muster.

This is certainly true; but thousands of years ago, rabbis "interpreted" away most of the prescriptions of capital punishment in the Torah. For the past two thousand years, Jewish law has been based not directly on the Torah but on the Talmud, which is commentary on the Torah (as well as commentary on the commentary; and then there is a rabbinical literature of commentary on that commentary). What generally happens in this process is that the rabbis "discover" that the "real" meaning of some draconian passage is something much less severe. I don't say that the practice is intellectually honest, but the conclusions derived are far more humane than what you find in the original scriptures. I don't know whether there is a parallel development in Islam.

 

[cdarro]

That song seems to cause dissension, but at least you all agree that Calgary sucks.

There's also a song called "Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole," but it is not funny at all, apart from its title.



Athy, athier, athiest?

I give up.

Actually, it is not only the patriotic duty of a Canadian to consider every other part of Canada as sucking, it is a condition of citizenship. Except for Winnipeg. It is, as you point out, properly referred to as a frozen shithole.