[ SECRET POST #2554 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2554 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Hobbit movies, Silmarillion]


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03.
[Ripper Street]


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04.
[Avengers]


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05.
[Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi]


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06.
[Game of Thrones]


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07.
[Sherlock Holmes/Star Trek: The Next Generation]


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08.
[Soukyuu no Fafner]


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09.
[Attack on Titan]


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10.
[Goo Goo Dolls]
















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 050 secrets from Secret Submission Post #364.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not a fan of the term 'agnostic.'

It connotes not merely being neutral or undecided, but a commitment to being undecided. It's a principle of being unprincipled.

If I don't believe in a thing, then I'm content to say I don't believe in it - whether that thing is something patently absurd (a pink unicorn floating in orbit around Pluto) or something that isn't patently absurd but temporarily or permanently unproveable given human understanding (string theory, time before the big bang, particles smaller than a Planck length).

To which my handy straw-agnostic* responds, "What if the existence of God is not merely unknown, but also unknowable; analogous to time before the big bang (a first cause) or phenomena outside the boundaries of the observable physical universe?"

* He's on my desk. He's USB powered, about three inches tall, and he's a huge fan of What the Bleep Do We Know?

That assumes a certain model (or, more accurately, anti-model) of God, one that is admittedly popular, that God is some nonphysical noninterventionist floating consciousness that we cannot perceive while alive and may or may not perceive when we're dead and may or may not judge our actions while alive and may or may not be responsible for the creation of the Universe.

That's not a definition of terms - that's a stubborn refusal to define what you think God is, while simultaneously asserting that this thing the agnostic hasn't defined is unknowable. It's only unknowable as far as the definition is unfathomable, and it is only unfathomable because it is vague. That's not merely a principle of being unprincipled, that's a principle of evasiveness.

It's a negation, an erasure, of other definitions of God. What about the cultures, modern and historical, that consider God to be anthropomorphic (either regularly or just when he wants to visit us), interventionist, moralizing, knowable?

When I push a little button hidden in his hat, my USB-powered straw-agnostic says, "I'm going to wrap myself up in a veil of diplomatic neutrality. I'm not going to assert whether the (for example) Mormon personification of God is right or wrong. I'm simply going to ignore their concept and substitute my own. Man, it's hard work being so open-minded."

I'm relatively confident that most definitions of God based on religious scripture are mythology, so I'm happy to call myself an atheist. (Though, more commonly, I will simply say "I don't believe in God" to avoid the association of the term 'atheist' with famously argumentative atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens.) I cannot prove or disprove the existence of a fuzzy amorphous "spiritual but not religious" postmodern sort of God, but that's a theory of God that so lacks specificity and explanatory power that the adherent might as well not be saying anything at all.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[comradesmiler]

I'm agnostic based on the fact that I was formerly christian, but had a crisis of faith that broke my belief in the existence of a god.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

Fucking fencesitters, amirite? /s

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

holy tl;dr

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[ill_omened]

...

It's like fourteen sentences.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

I have no issue with someone asserting that it's impossible to know whether or not a god exists because right now, that's true. No one can say for sure that one does but no one can say for sure that it doesn't, either. What annoys me is when someone uses it as their sole label because it says nothing about what they personally believe (or don't believe). No, I don't think anyone knows for sure whether there's a god so I guess you could say I'm agnostic in that sense. But with the evidence available, I don't believe there is one, so I call myself an atheist.

In general I think a lot of people attach all these negative (and erroneous) assumptions to the word "atheist" and that's why they're reluctant to call themselves one, so they go with "agnostic" instead even if it isn't necessarily accurate.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

Well, why does someone have to tell you anything about their beliefs?

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

No, I don't agree, I think the position you're criticizing is basically valid. If you think that the existence or non-existence of God in the abstract is not knowable, it's reasonable to call yourself an atheist. The concept of the divine includes the deist god and the logical non-physical god just as much as the physical immanent Christian god. If you think that the abstract concept god cannot be proven wrong, it's perfectly legitimate to call yourself an agnostic.

There's not really any reason why an agnostic should be required to narrow down their definition of God from the concept of God as such; in fact, I would argue that it's against the very nature of the argument for them to do so. If you're going to talk, from a theoretical, abstract, epistemological or theological point of view about the divine, I think it ultimately makes much more sense to talk about the concept of the divine in a broad way, rather than to stick to the specifics of a creed. You can still critique existing religions when you're talking on that level; I don't think there's anything conflicting between the approaches.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

"the physical immanent Christian *koff*Abrahamic*koff* god"

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know who you have been talking to but you have the wrong idea of agnosticism. Agnostics believe in a supreme being (or beings) but do not subscribe to religion. End of.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

No. No, they do not. It's you that has the wrong definition. What you're describing is generally referred to as a deist.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

That was tl;dr but personally, I said I was agnostic when I was at a stage in life of actively questioning myself over whether or not I believed in God. The classic "lies awake at night and ponders" stuff, I did that. Other people I know say it to mean they don't know and don't care. It doesn't always mean your deeeeeep, philosophical definition.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[thezmage]

I honestly don't see why I should have to provide any more of an answer to a question that I think is worthless than "I think that question is worthless and so I don't have an answer to that." It's like being asked what my opinion is on who's going to win the Super Bowl, or what my favorite episode of Doctor Who is: I don't care. I'm not trying to be "progressive" by not choosing a side, I'm not choosing a side because I really don't care. And sometimes I don't see why anybody should.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[siofrabunnies]

I'm am agnostic. I was raised Christian and bounced between churches depending on who my friends were. I eventually decided that I don't really believe in the Judeo-Christian god, in any of that diety's forms. I find it difficult to believe in an omnicient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent being. (I also agree with the Problem of Evil; it's why I don't believe specifically in the omni-everything type of god.)

I am also pagan. I am most comfortable with many diverse gods, and I chose the sets that my ancestors had; I'm of Irish and German descent, so I stick with Irish gods. (I would feel odd aligning myself with gods I have no ancestral connection to. I have no real idea why.) I'm not a heavy practitioner, but I do watch the ravens, and I meditate on the old tales to see if I can learn from them. Of course, I think you can learn from almost any source, but I feel a strong connection with this pantheon.

Scientifically, I have no real proof of any god's existence. But, whether because of the way I was raised, something in my brain chemistry, or because there's actually something out there, I still feel the pull. I shouldn't believe in the divine, but I still do, against all my reasoning. I can't let go of catching myself praying, or making an offering. It's rather like I both do and do not believe.

So, yeah, don't tell me who I am. I know myself and my reasons better than you.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

Well, this is a random post.

Anyway, as an agnostic, every time in your post you said something along the lines that agnosticism is a 'stubborn refusal to define what you think God is', my basic response was 'duh'.

I am an agnostic because I believe that irrefutably stating that human knowledge is complete enough to know, absolutely, that there is no power that could be interpreted as divine, or spiritual, or supernatural in the universe is unsupportable. Just as unsupportable as, say, claiming that a book about which we have reams of historical and scientific evidence showing that much of it was either edited for political reasons or is untrue is not only a definitive description of God but also the only means of communication with such a being.

That doesn't mean spiritual agnostics don't have an idea of God or what God might be. It also doesn't mean that by saying that God in unknowable they are somehow 'negating' other interpretations of God. It just means they do no assert that their idea of God is definitively the only one.

I personally do not see how you as an atheist can respect* someone arbitrarily ascribing to an accepted version of God that you yourself describe as mythology more than an agnostic. For instance, as an agnostic leaning towards atheism our main quibble seems just to be over what we see as the extent of current human knowledge.

This is not to say I disrespect religious people. I'm actually of the school of thought that a lot of modern, Dawkins-fuelled atheist zealotry is throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to rejecting religion and culture.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

The only problem I have with self-described agnostics are the ones who think it's some sort of third position in between atheism and religious belief. It's not. It's a statement about knowledge, not belief. An agnostic claims not to know whether or not gods exist; good for them, but most atheists and many sensible religious believers will admit the same. So you're agnostic, but agnostic what?

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[starphotographs]

I think I get what you're saying, yeah.

I don't really have a problem with most people who claim to be agnostic, because it can be an easy way to say "I don't care" and end the conversation when people are demanding a definitive answer of some kind. But then there's the subset that do it with this gross veneer of "tee hee, I'm much kinder and gentler and fluffier than those closed-minded religious people and those meanie killjoy atheists!" Ugh, gag me with a spoon. You don't get a cookie for trying to spare every goddamn person's feelings by being intentionally wishy-washy.

The "I'm an atheist, but..." crowd annoys me for similar reasons. You know, the ones who go around preaching about how any atheist that dares to mention that there is no proof that god exists, or even just conducts themselves as though they personally don't believe that god exists, is somehow "making the rest of us look bad." I just... How is saying things an atheist would say making us "look bad?" WTF do non-atheists think we do?

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

tl;dr but ayy that's fine (the gist of your post I mean). some people don't believe in pansexuals either.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a Christian, and I have a "Live and let live" belief on this matter.

I am happy to let people believe God is totally unknowable and unprovable. I am happy to let people believe there is no God. What gets me unhappy is when those people start telling me I am foolish and an idiot for believing in God.

I hate Dawkins because he's exactly that sort of atheist, the sort who says people are stupid for believing in a religion and supernatural powers.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

You sound euphoric.

GO BACK TO R/ATHEISM

[chardmonster]

You faux-intellectual pissant. Yes I realize your atheism is the one thing with which you can shield yourself against the overwheming banality of your exisence but do you need to keep bothering us about it?

You are not special. The fact that you are atheist does not change this.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

What if you just...don't know. Throwing out the whole debate of "it's about knowledge not belief," since your beef is with people avoiding the question of belief, what if they really don't lean one way or the other? They don't know if God exists. If they find proof that God does exist, then they will believe, and if they find proof that God doesn't exist, then they won't. In the meantime, they just don't know. What do you call those people?

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, gods come from religion. There have been hundreds of thousands of gods created, and I honestly can't believe that every single one of them existed. I think it's far more plausible that this universe is so damn confusing and complicated, and that we'll never know everything there is to know. And honestly, it doesn't matter. Our entire exists goes poof once the universe dies anyway. So if someone is happy being agnostic, all the more power to them.

Re: 'I'm agnostic'

[darkmanifest]

It seems like you're confusing knowledge and belief. Some - though not all - atheists and theists claim to know divinity does or doesn't exist in whatever capacity; if their claims had room for reasonable doubt, they probably wouldn't be screaming at each other all the time about how wrong the other is. Agnostics simply claim that they don't know either way; they don't call anybody wrong, because they don't claim to know the truth in the first place. What they believe is a different question from what they know for sure. Hence why you have terms like "agnostic atheist" and "agnostic theist" - they don't know there's divinity, but they do or don't believe there is.