Regardless if a person is unwilling to , or refuses to commit ....the fact remains that there is doubt, and it is this doubt that forms the agnostic nature of one's stance as apposed to a genuine belief in God

If we are talking along the statistical improbabilty of Gods existence then being agnostic has more to do with "keeping up appearances" as apposed to stating a pure disbelief because it is the statistical improbabilty of Gods existence that is the source of the original doubt creating the agnostic.

In most cases of Nontheism or Atheism it is this statistical improbability of Gods existence that has created this Awakening Conscience of a disbelief.

Is Agnosticism a rung on the ladder to this awareness?.......Are agnostics on the path to a committed disbelief in a God via this Awakening Conscience?

In my case it was the opposite, I was an Atheist until around the age of 25 and then some personal events took place that brought me into the realm of the agnostics. After further investigation and study and a few challenges to God I became a Christian.

God is a statistical improbability? What determines statistical probability?

I see what your saying , that it was those "personal events" that brought you to actually believing in God, i have to ask though , what was the religious content of your upbringing , prior to these "personal events".

Being in the "realm" of agnosticism is a little less the awakening conscience to which I'm speculating.

Lets define the actual point of a disbelief in a God being at birth , and work that way.

I can not go into great detail into the events other than at that time I worked with some severely disabled children. I was having a personal crisis in understanding why they were the way they were and my anger was directed at an imaginary God like many atheists do.
To my surprise one of the kids gave me the answer I needed to hear, and about a year later I handed God a challenge that nobody to this day knows and that was part of my agreement to Him. He answered I listened and have been on this road for 25 years without any doubt whatsoever.
Irish

Just to clear this point up first.....true atheists don't direct anger to an imaginary God......to do so qualifies as a belief in a God.

Not to get into your personal life Irish, I can see how a lack of understanding of genetics, biology and nature in general can ,with certain people, lead to such an awe inspiring belief in a God.

Fact remains that there is quantified facts as to why people including children have a disability.

I do appreciate your experience Irish


Lets define the actual point of a disbelief in a God being at birth , and work that way. I'm sure most can concede that at birth there is no belief in God....right?

Well perhaps I was agnostic before my time
On a side note: According to the doctors the child that told me the answer did not have the ability of speech along with a lot of other disabilities

I'm sure most can concede that at birth there is no belief in God....right?

Not at all.
I say newborns are closer to God than any, And the older they get the more about spirituality gets shunned by the whome society tells them its a bad thing to see spirits and talk to God

God puts the babys sirit in the womb at conception, THe baby knows God, but lacks the experience to tell what it knows in words..

Why does every baby cry at birth???

Because God wispers in their Ear, I love you unconditionally.

Love Omnaka

I dig what your saying Omnaka......your saying that human beings are born, via coitus, with an innate belief in a God?



Ya know Omnaka I'ved queried this very thought.

Turns out that babies cry at birth because they are all of a sudden breathing air....actually they don't cry till they breath air.

Omnaka have you ever cried when someone dunked ya in the pool?

No I can hold my breath a long Time.

I did cry once when My dad was teaching me to swim, and he kept backing up, instead of cathching me.

Love Omnaka

I dunno, maybe as a gal I know these things... but I know what it feels like to give birth to a 7+lb football... it doesn't feel particularly wonderful... I'm fairly certian the bambino is feeling pretty beat up too... probably banged up enough to cry. LOL

However, do babies know of God? Hard to say... they can't communicate to us to tell us, and once they're old enough to communicate, they don't remember. Odd isn't it?

When I was roughly 4 years old, I made my dad write down a "prayer" on a piece of pape;, it mentioned God and my family, but the odd thing was, I was never taught about God or even exposed to religion. We had no TV, no radio, my family was at that time fairly insular and didn't have a ton of friends... I have no idea where my notion of a "prayer" came from. I was FOUR. At 40, I can't even remember being 4. My mother cross stitched the prayer onto a sampler, I wonder if she still has it.

But what are you basing this claim on? What convinced you that babies are closer to God? Or even know what God is to begin with. I bet if you take a kid that never heard of the concept of God and explain it to him for the first time, he will not be familiar with the concept.

I bet if you take any autistic child, or child with Down syndrome, or a child out of touch with society,They all know what goodness and love is, with no Outside influence. Because They know God, Father and Mother creator of their eternal spirit.

They know no hate, THis is learned behavior. and can recognise evil at a glance.They can comune with spirit.

Father and Mother(GOD) is spirit.And were with these Children before their birth evenm if you do not believe Me.

There are reports of children talking and seeing Father and Mother.
Iam one Of God's children who remembers The love and Care Father and mother treated me with before My spirit was sent down. Most children do also, but lack the vocabulary and experience to express them selves, and adults saying what they feel and see are not normal sets the stage for forgetting and denieng The love a child once felt from the creator of theire eternal spirit.

You do not have to believe me, Father is sending down special kids as we speak, times is a changing and your disbelief can not change the love Of god twards all those who believe, especially the children who will soon be the adults.

Love rules amen.
LOve Omnaka

Well i think that when we are born we are born into sin, as per the original sin, but I think its safe to say as a given, that babies do not know of a God when born......we are not born with this capacity!

So this being said....that we begin life not knowing or caring about religion, god, salvation or damnation....then some begin to believe.....is agnosticism a step along the way to the awakening conscience that i describe.

Actually you'll find love is the result of a hormone as is hate, emotion is hormonal, and if you check out scholar.google.com, you'll find a lot of information on the subject.
Human babies cry, because it is about all they can do when they are born, infact human babies are born with some of the lowest levels of brain development of any animals

Keeping up appearances isn't part of my Agnosticism.

I have some/alot of "unexplained mysteries" in my life that make me agnostic. If i hadn't had theses experiences I would definitely be Atheist.

When i get my scientific explanation of these events,then I may change my indecisive state of mind.

Absolutely. But, I think there will always be some level of doubt, confusion, wonderment as to why things are the way they are. These thoughts or emotions can send us either way, but I think(and hope) the main goal is 'truth', in each path taken. A big part of me loves the idea of God, a supreme being... I'll even talk to this friend on occasion. But, the other part of me realizes 'it' really does not exist (outside myself). Do I believe that my 'conversations' are futile? No. I believe on a certain level that connecting to an outside source (or seemingly outside source) can be beneficial. Many times have I given into my pride and just relaxed and said, "I need guidance, what I'm doing now is not working, give me the peace of mind to be aware and to be ready when circumstances arise." All of this is done with my mind focused on something outside of myself (or seemingly so). Some will call this talking to God, others will call it positive thought. Either way, I believe the ultimate objective is the same. So, with all this being said, do I believe that God exists? Yes and no. God may exist in you, but the God that exists in you is not the same God that exists in that person over there.

In answer to the question of the original post, I don't think agnosticism is a transitional phase for everybody.

For myself, I don't believe in gods. I can't prove this and don't bother trying to convince other people of this. This, to me, is the difference.

On a personal level, I think of myself as an athiest. That said, the majority of self-proclaimed athiests I have known are very evangelical about it.

I don't really care what someone believes, I just want the rights to believe protected. This is no different than my belief that someone shouldn't give me seatbelt tickets for my own good.

I know most people don't really look at the labels this way, but to me saying "I'm Christian" means you believe in the god of the Israelites and are willing to try to convince others to believe - saying "I'm an Athiest" means you don't believe in any gods and you're willing to convince others to believe this.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I see the label "Agnostic" as being a non-evangelical athiest.

Agnostics are just confused, have too much choice and cant deal with it, so they sit on the fence. They dont have the conviction to researcg and evaluate and come to a conclusion.

As a statistician, I find it difficult to fathom how statistics could be applied to the existence or non-existence of God. There are philosophical lines of reasoning that might shed some light on the matter, but they seem to be circular: if one starts with a theistic assumption, one concludes there is a God; if one starts form an atheistic assumption, one concludes there is no God. Same for agnostics. I don't think that either deduction or probability (statistics) is going to help with that question.

As an agnostic, I might well be on my way to atheism. Only way to tell is to wait and see. Stay tuned.
Doug

Quite the opposite. It is the research and analysis that leads to the conclusion that the question of God cannot be resolved through rational processes. The fault is in the processes. Reason simply has not reached a point where it can resolve the question. All else is speculation.
Doug

First devise a simple test. One outcome of the test confirms God, the other outcome refutes God. Then simply count the number of times the God outcome occurs and divide by the total number of observations and that is your probability. This test has only two outcomes, so it follows the binomial distribution.

The difficult part here is devising the test.
Doug

I have to disagree. I am yet to meet an Agnostic who has not looked indepthly at religion and spirituality. In other words most of them have researched and evaluated to the point of conclusion.

My father, rest in peace, died an atheist. My mother, at the age of 83, remains agnostic. I was raised in a family that encouraged choice and finding one's own way. In elementary and high school I read whatever I could about Greek, Roman and Norse Gods, later reading a JPS version of the Hebrew Scriptures. I developed my own Gods as a child, using concepts such as Time and Space. When I read the New Testament as a teenager, it seemed to me to be a pathetic re-write of the story of Hercules, with a lot of unnecessary antisemitic references throughout. I saw no connection between the n.t. and the JPS whatsoever. Later, I studied quite a few religions, especially during my years as an occultist. I never found one that I couls follow completely, nor felt the need for it. I believe very strongly in God, and feel that God has expressed itself to every culture and race that has walked the face of the earth. All Gods are One. I couldn't become a Xian unless I could bring myself to hate the rest of humanity. I have been posting on this website for a while. It took me a long time to understand that spirituality=xians, and skeptics=atheists, as if those were the only two choices. The world is such a beautiful, varied place, that I am apalled that anyone would want to limit themselves to those two choices. Hey, what about Buddhism? Guess what, it is not as atheist as it appears!


I have yet to hear of a single scientist who has even considered this. Why are you guys so closed-minded? I am referring to atheists and xians alike.

ok let me put you to the test, what religions have you studied if any, and what criteria did you set to judge whether they inform us correctly, in accordance with estbalished scientific facts, rational, logic, etc. If you have not done this, then you have speculated.

Have they studied all religions of the world....

The type of evalutation i have seen by agnostics, is often to try and find something that suits they own prejudices, if not they reject it, or are not sure. Reall research is going to the sources and studying them and finding the answers there.

If you agnostics have done any research, then tell me, which two religions of the world claims exclusivity, that they are the only way.......?

Try and do this with out the aid of the net, by actually studying religions and their source material.

And you Ozi? Have you measured your beliefs against Science? An Agnostic is someone who believes that Religion/God cannot be proven, this presumably would be using scientific methods.

I myself was raised by a Spiritualist/Bhuddist who was raised Prodestant and an Athiest who was raised strict Catholic. Spent 5 years with Orthodox Catholics. Have learned about ancient religions seperately and in relation to eachother and I just can't seem to work out why somone's sacred Cow is more important to or more Magik than someone elses sacred Orange peel.

To me Agnostiscism is the only logical and Scientific choice.

The question was about how proability would be determined in relation to God. That is how. The process is the same in any test. My whole point was that statistics/probability doesn't apply here. Did you miss that? Doug

I have measured the source of my belief against science, if it claims to be from god, then it should meet a certain criteria, it should be testable, verifiable, by science, logic, and rational. Yes i applied those to me beliefs, did you apply that to those you studied.

Your right how is a cow sacred or a god, we eat the damn thing, or magik for the instance, so your aware of so many religions carrying false gods, so why the agnosticism. i tell you why, its because you have not studied all religions thoroughly or applied the above. There is no religions that can with stand the above stance, infact all religions are not compatible with science. Well there is one only. You see it asks to be disproven, it challenges you so bad, that at the same time it often challenges you, it also claims you will never fulfil it. its wants science to verify what it says and claims, infact it encourages one to go to experts to get verification. name any religion that has this.

Infact name the two i asked about before. You see if one studies correctly, you will realise there is no religion in the world save two, that claims their way or the highway. The rest all say well we could be truth maybe , maybe not, or there are 16 different ways to get to the top of the mountain, i might be the right path etc. No conviction no certainity.




Probability could be applied in some cases, for example, if a book claims to be from god, and hold knowledge which is verifiable by modern science, you use probability to check maybe this was coincedence, but then when the claims of such nature come in the hundred with huge odds, and its keeps gettting it right, then probability of getting something right on that scale become mathamatically impossible. What if such book did exist.

I was baptised Lutheran, raised Methodist and Presbyterian, and became a convinced Quaker. I still fit fairly well with the "silent Friends." My source of logic and rational thought was, ultimately, Principia Mathematica. The problem is simply that logic and reason do not apply to the supernatural. To apply them you must start from underlying assumptions and/or observations. I could not find assumptions I agreed with; thus, rendering rational and logical processes useless. The Principles of Logic (or Reason) are the only tools we have with which to make a rigorous determination and as they don't apply, no conclusions are possible. I don't know; thus, I am an agnostic. Doug

I have considered how one might do something similar with the Bible. One might randomly choose a sample of verses and check to see whether each is literally true. Unfortunately, there are a great many verses which cannot be categorized as either True or False. These keep a determination from being made. The "hundreds" of right answers are offset by wrong ones and in any case, the "Undetermined" category overwhelms the other two. I am using a binomial distribution and would require confidence levels of at least 90% to consider the results reliable. (Even 90% allows a one-in-ten chance of an incorrect result; we can set a tighter, or looser, standard if you like.).

Another detail that has come up in my own Bible study is that many verses that seem preposterous on the surface, are confirmed when the subject is studied in detail. Also, the way in which they are confirmed usually demolishes supernatural explanations in favor of of more down-to-earth ones. An example: the Pillar of Cloud and Pillar of Fire in Exodus turn out to be Egyptian military signalling devices. Pharaoh's army carried a torch on a long pole at the head of the column for nighttime signalling and a smokebox for daytime signalling. The Exodus consisted of a lot of highly-trained Egyptian ex-soldiers. They simply used their training.

If you want to apply science to the Bible, I would prefer to do it as a joint effort. We'll post the results. Are you game?
Doug

I am not trying to be rude, but can you describe the actual scientific tests that you used to achieve this? I realy am just being curious, becasue I cannot see how you can apply that?

I have looked into spirit possibility being probable when looked at using String Theory and I have briefly dabbled in the whole Holographic Universe theory as well. Neither of these can conclusively proove the existance of a sentient God.

A Cow is Sacred if somebody deems it to be Sacred. This is a religion which has developed over time and been studied by many people I am sure. Have you scientific proof that these are false Gods?

I am confused, this one religion is better because it wants you to disproove it and also claims that you will never achieve this, but it is diferent to the other religions which are not verifiable or proovable in someway. Maybe I am not reading that correctly can you please clarify it for me.

Let me guess at, and it is just a guess, Jehovas Witness and Catholiscism. But then I don't believe I own the manual on how to study the religions correctly. So please can you as asked earleir describe the scientific processes you used to achieve measurable results when testing religions.