Agnosticism is the Correct Religious Stance

Thank you for the gracious greeting! I look forward to a lively debate… Now on to the good stuff. Opening: While I agree with pro on the assertion that Webster’s leaves out the philosophical definitions on either word, I consider this a good thing. Philosophy is great and can give much to ponder in regards to life, but it cannot answer questions of a scientific nature, of which I believe the question of god resides. (Since you have made the assertion that we may know whether god exists in the future, science will need to play a role in that since philosophy and metaphysics don’t provide anything close to the extraordinary proof necessary.) Therefore I avoid philosophy for this very reason and as an atheist expect that with extraordinary claims comes the burden of extraordinary proof. Now pro may disagree and say that philosophy and metaphysics are the only valid way to argue for the existence of god, and to him I say you may be right… However, the fact remains that in order to prove the existence of god; the proof must be tangible and testable in a lab in order to “Prove” anything and therefore such evidence is not forthcoming it is my assertion that One must have the atheistic outlook until such time as the evidence arises. As a person, I live by the rule that anything that has a question can have an answer, and as such I make it a habit to say that if I don’t know something I will find the answer. With god, this I believe is easier than people make it sound, and I will explain. Rebuttals: Before I get into the rest of my argument I would like to debunk a couple arguments you made: 1. The assertion that atheists make assumptions about anything is clearly wrong. You seem to be confusing the claim atheists make (Your assertion about the math equation and atheists “Assuming” the equation is zero shows me this) and I believe you should refer back to the previous definitions that you and I both posted at the beginning. Atheism is the Lack of or disbelief in the existence of god. Nowhere in there does it say that we can disprove anything, we just find the evidence underwhelming in light of the claim and therefore call the notion false until such time as more evidence arises. 2. I would like to address your assertions in paragraph 10 where you say that atheists assume the world is real, science is foolproof, and the existence of god is disproved, which I will address in order below. 3. First, we all say the world is real, and unless you want to go down the slippery slope of saying that we can’t know for sure whether we are here truly or not, then I believe we can safely say that our experience and those of us who are also in the world tell us the world is real. 4. Second, the assertion that science is foolproof is just flat out wrong, as evidenced from the scientific method, the whole concept of which is centered on proving your fellow scientist wrong. Science is not even close to being infallible or “Foolproof” but it has proven that it can tell us useful things about the world very reliably and has done a good job of debunking much of the superstition of the world that use to be centered in the religious camp. 5. Again, your assertion that we feel we can disprove the existence of god is wrong. We assert that the current data and evidence do not support the claim and therefore find the evidence wanting. With that out of the way, I will now get into the argument for why I believe gods do not exist, at least the current idea of god and my reasoning behind it The Theistic God: Suppose you have for the sake of argument the notion that there is a supreme being that watches over us and cares about us, answers prayers, and demands worship in return. Now suppose that this Supreme Being decided that he needs to manifest his will to us some time ago in the distance past and decides to do this to a prophet, medium, or his son. He further decides that his will must be manifest for the whole world and decides that his wisdom must be written down to preserve this legacy. He chooses the prophet/medium or people around his son to write his words down for posterity. Simple logic can kick in and say that there is many fallacy’s in the previous paragraph if you want to make a compelling argument for the existence of a “Theistic” god. First, if you really wanted for people to know you as a supreme being, why be shy about it? You are a god after all and are not subject to human emotion, and as an omniscient god you would know that humans are skeptical of other people claiming things without evidence. Second, why would you pick ONE human to tell your story? If this being was all knowing he would see that humans have a tendency to abuse power (Absolute power derived from divine authority in this case) and again are skeptical of other people making claims and would have told many people. Not only that, but the fact that most of the authors of Holy Books are anonymous and deceased with no clear way for us to know who they exactly where is clearly convenient for those arguing in favor since they can pick whoever they want (The gospels in the bible are a perfect example of this example). Third, even if you were able to somehow prove that the authors of the book existed and wrote exactly what we see as holy books today (Plagiarism and revision NEVER happens when people are editing and rewriting books right?) You would still have to prove that these people actually had a revelation. Now since we see that this whole thing is most likely man made, we can deduce that the notion of a theistic god is very, very improbable. Impossible? Absolutely not, but since 100% of the world’s religions fall into the category above (Unless pro can name any that he feels would not meet the criteria above) I believe we can safely deduce that the notion of a theistic god is manmade and false. The Deistic God: Here is where we get into murky waters since the idea of a Deistic god is more philosophical and logical than scientific. The idea is that since the universe had a beginning and we have no clue how that happened (The big bang only answers the question of how it happened, it does not answer the question of why) then there must have been a “prime mover” or uncaused cause that started the whole thing up. This idea, while quaint explains nothing really and does us no good in the long run, since the notion of a deistic god is one of cold indifference to the rest of its “Creation.” The deistic god does not answer prayers, does not care whether we live or die, and therefore is completely useless and a way for people who have no belief in theistic gods to explain what to them seems impossible by natural means. To put it another way, when Pierre Laplace demonstrated his working model of the universe to Napoleon, and I’m paraphrasing, he was asked “I see you have no room for god in this equation” and Pierre said “yes your majesty, because it operates without that assumption.” So does our universe operate on the assumption that there is no god, and it is my contention that we need not fluff the argument by giving it a superfluous answer such as the deistic god who answers none of the important questions we have about topics normally associated with such a question. Closing: We have seen that the theistic god is highly unlikely and most likely man made and therefore a position with very little evidence to support it (Remember extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof). We have also seen that the deistic god offers nothing to us other that an explanation to something that, when answered does nothing to add to the discussion and therefore in my opinion can be dismissed. And we have also debunked pros assertions that atheists make assumption which we clearly know is not true based on the total lack of any kind of belief in anything. I leave this to my opponent who I’m sure will have much to say to this. En garde!