Knowledge, belief & agnosticism (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Monday, March 10, 2008, 17:13 (5862 days ago) @ clayto

Clayto asks for clarification on some points I raised in my earlier response at 08.48 today. I must apologize for not making it clear that I was trying to raise a general issue about the nature of belief. I did not know if you were asking your original questions from an atheist or agnostic standpoint, and assumed it was atheist so that I could use your questions and comments as a basis. In fact, the issue has now become obscured, and that is my fault. - There is virtually no difference between us on all the things you say. With 2a, my point is that atheists believe in spontaneous generation. If there are "theistic religionists" who also believe in it, that is not relevant to the problem I am trying to deal with (the nature of belief). As regards life elsewhere in the universe, I agree totally. There is no reason at all why the Earth should be unique, but the problem of HOW life originates will remain the same. - "Why can't you wait and see, and what is it that gives you your inner conviction?" Again based on the assumption that you were arguing from an atheist point of view. You say: "I am a totally hard agnostic. I live with uncertainty and at the best probabilities." So do I, and I chose the wrong person to "test". It was your posting that prompted my questions, and that is why I addressed it to you, but I should have switched the whole thing away from you and onto those contributors who do have "inner convictions". At present, these are all atheists. My questions, and the whole preamble, should therefore have been directed towards them and not towards you. - Once again, my apologies.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum