Hey, like I said - if I hear jingle bells, I'll look up. I'm just not sure how useful a designation like 'agnostic' really is since, as you say, technically we should consider ourselves agnostic towards everything (we don't know anything for sure, even whether or not we really exist). I think if you consider yourself agnostic with regards to religion, you are effectively an atheist - one who does not believe in a god. That doesn't mean that you're adamantly opposed to the notion, just that you don't happen to hold that particular belief - as you say, it's not currently a useful assumption to make. I guess declaring oneself atheist feels too much like one is taking a position on the matter - there's no word for someone who doesn't believe in Santa, for example.
Generally, an agnostic would answer the question "Does god exist?" with "I don't know". An atheist as you define it would answer "No". I, and I suspect many self-described atheists, would answer "I think not". There's a difference; I'm equally agnostic with regards to Santa as I am towards God - that is , I don't *know* that Santa doesn't exist, but I have no reason to suppose that he does. That doesn't mean I live by some creed of Santa-denial, where I stick my fingers in my ears at the sound of jingle bells overhead. However, if I were to actually declare myself as agnostic towards Santa, I suspect I'd be regarded at best as excessively open-minded. For the same reason, many "non-theists" hesitate to label themselves as agnostics, and given the choice, prefer to go with atheist. Since you linked to wikipedia, let me quote from their article on atheism:
"However, others--including most atheistic philosophers and groups--define atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities (cf. nontheism)".
Makes sense - after all, if someone's apolitical, they don't deny politics, they just don't participate.
Why didn't he create heaven on earth to start with? I think this might have been the original question the Adam and Eve allegory was supposed to answer - if god exists, why are we stuck here on our own? I think the story is supposed to explain that our free will is what makes us human - it depicts us living alongside but in thrall to god, just like all the other creatures. But, the story tells us, we're not just any old animal - we're made in god's image, and I guess that includes free will. For better or worse, we need to do things for ourselves, we thirst for and pursue knowledge; we crave this more than we crave eternal contentment. So we eat from the tree of knowledge in the story, and leave the garden of eden, but I don't think this is supposed to be a form of punishment for disobedience. The idea of this amounting to some kind of 'original sin' just doesn't seem to fit with the story. I think this slant has been added over time, along with the evil satanic snake etc, and the intent of the story has become twisted as a result. Otherwise, the moral appears to be a bit muddled - if we're simply being punished for disobeying an order, what's the significance of the tree being the tree of knowledge? There are simpler ways of saying 'do as you're told, or else'.
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Hey, like I said - if I hear jingle bells, I'll look up. I'm just not sure how useful a designation like 'agnostic' really is since, as you say, technically we should consider ourselves agnostic towards everything (we don't know anything for sure, even whether or not we really exist). I think if you consider yourself agnostic with regards to religion, you are effectively an atheist - one who does not believe in a god. That doesn't mean that you're adamantly opposed to the notion, just that you don't happen to hold that particular belief - as you say, it's not currently a useful assumption to make. I guess declaring oneself atheist feels too much like one is taking a position on the matter - there's no word for someone who doesn't believe in Santa, for example.
Generally, an agnostic would answer the question "Does god exist?" with "I don't know". An atheist as you define it would answer "No". I, and I suspect many self-described atheists, would answer "I think not". There's a difference; I'm equally agnostic with regards to Santa as I am towards God - that is , I don't *know* that Santa doesn't exist, but I have no reason to suppose that he does. That doesn't mean I live by some creed of Santa-denial, where I stick my fingers in my ears at the sound of jingle bells overhead. However, if I were to actually declare myself as agnostic towards Santa, I suspect I'd be regarded at best as excessively open-minded. For the same reason, many "non-theists" hesitate to label themselves as agnostics, and given the choice, prefer to go with atheist. Since you linked to wikipedia, let me quote from their article on atheism:
"However, others--including most atheistic philosophers and groups--define atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities (cf. nontheism)".
Makes sense - after all, if someone's apolitical, they don't deny politics, they just don't participate.
Why didn't he create heaven on earth to start with? I think this might have been the original question the Adam and Eve allegory was supposed to answer - if god exists, why are we stuck here on our own? I think the story is supposed to explain that our free will is what makes us human - it depicts us living alongside but in thrall to god, just like all the other creatures. But, the story tells us, we're not just any old animal - we're made in god's image, and I guess that includes free will. For better or worse, we need to do things for ourselves, we thirst for and pursue knowledge; we crave this more than we crave eternal contentment. So we eat from the tree of knowledge in the story, and leave the garden of eden, but I don't think this is supposed to be a form of punishment for disobedience. The idea of this amounting to some kind of 'original sin' just doesn't seem to fit with the story. I think this slant has been added over time, along with the evil satanic snake etc, and the intent of the story has become twisted as a result. Otherwise, the moral appears to be a bit muddled - if we're simply being punished for disobeying an order, what's the significance of the tree being the tree of knowledge? There are simpler ways of saying 'do as you're told, or else'.