SolidShark wrote...
Please_don't_ban_me wrote...
With the exception of Freaky's type of Gnosticism, agnosticismis not a stance on the God hypothesis, I just want to get that out there, agnosticism runs perpendicular to theism, at least by the definition of the word. Gnostic means "knowing", but as theists haven't proven that a God can exist, and the idea of proving that something doesn't exist is preposterous, there is no "knowing". Both sides can say that there is a conclusion which can be drawn from the evidence given, but until evidence appears it is speculation at best. I can say with confidence that, given the information available to me that there probably isn't a God, and a deist can say that there might be a "God" (although probably the physicist's "God" which rules out an interventionary God) and the pantheist can say perhaps there are many Gods, as well as the theist who claims that there is a God, however with no actual evidence an act or profession of "knowing" is a mockery of the word. You can be a theist, pantheist, deist or an atheist and you are necessarily agnostic because you can never know with 100% certainty that there is no God, and outside of meeting the burden of proof and presenting a well thought out case for a God to exist, you cannot claim to be 100% certain of it either. Everyone alive is agnostic on the hypothesis necessarily and by definition (again, not the religious version of being gnostic). As for my conclusions I see the hypothesis cut away by Ockham's razor, a God isn't necessary for the phenomenon we observe to exist and adding unnecessary elements to the theory doesn't make sense.
Sorry, I just had to say... You can go back to not reading this...
Had to read it again to understand. Still saved me the trouble of checking a long, boring, and complex article at wikipedia.
From what I understood (correct me if I'm wrong), to be agnostic on religion is technically to not state that a deity exists/ doesn't exist, but to state one's comment as an opinion based upon one's reasoning, not a fact/statement.
That the weird thing about the five forms of Gnosticism. We all encouraged to find that happy place. Traditional theism is based on their is a god(s) so don't question it... We don't. We can have several ideas or leaps of faith on is "god" a being or nature or just the spark that created life from the goo that was left of the swamp. Shit there people who believe that the current god killed the creator god.
Personally I don't know if a god exist. I believe in science but faith is just that a leap. Gnost is knowledge not knowing... no one can know there something after dead. One atheist said it the best... you can't prove there a god and I can't prove there not one. We he comes to me and prove he exist then I'll worship him. I paraphrase his wording.
To the point of the thread on fasting.... it just a will thing. Seeing if faith stronger then the flesh. We don't have to fast. Some just do it for ones personal faith with god. Jesus isn't perfect either... at least we think so... you can see why the church of popist had a decreed of death for all the Heretics. Meh all religion is harmful has a organization it just a few are helpful as social welfare side.... but I'm getting off the topic so I leave it to that.