No, and no one wants to watch your stupid youtube video.

Agnosticism is a belief that knowledge of god or no god is impossible. It's a belief on the status of knowledge of god. If it weren't a belief and only a state of knowledge then other atheists who aren't agnostic couldn't claim to be pure atheists, like myself.

my dad has a belt buckle exactly like that, his uncle who served for the US army in WWII gave it to him


I guess you could call it a war trophy..


but now that we're talking about war and religion I will say this... religion is relatively harmless when it is separated from authority


without a power of authority religion is unable to declare war, so the problem in my opinion is NOT the religion itself, but the authority... government coalition, whether it be corporations or churches are an open gate for corruption... churches can cause wars the same way corporations can


it is all about self interest incentives, even the most religious wars are about territory.. they all have political sides to them


the wars between the Catholic church and the Turks was a battle for territory, the conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis is a battle for territory.. the conflicts between Israel and Islam are also a conflict of territory.

it is just like how a corporation can start a war for the interest of oil... it is not the organisation by itself that starts the war, it is the self interest. The rest is just manipulation (they're a threat to our security/ they're an abomination to god's word)


"All warfare is based on deception" - Sun Tzu (author of The Art Of War)

This post was edited by TCassa89 on Apr 21 2012 03:03pm

Agnostics don't believe in 'god'. They just don't know. There could be a higher being out there, but I wouldn't call it 'god'. You're using the term very loosely. Generally when one refers to someone as 'agnostic', they mean borderline atheist.

Off topic: The camera angles are really fucking annoying in that video

On topic: That guy is generalizing way too much. I'll stick to calling myself agnostic

And what he's saying changes the meaning of atheist. He's saying that as an atheist, you don't rule out the possibility of there being a god, which is wrong

This post was edited by tim226 on Apr 21 2012 05:59pm

He never claimed that agnostics believed in god.

with that description you could call yourself Diest or Epicurust.. which would be more accurate than just saying your belief is agnostic, agnosticism is not a belief... the word agnostic in referring to god was made popular by Thomas Huxley, who's often referred to as "Darwin's bulldog" The man was an open atheist though, agnostic was what he used as a more light hearted answer to his atheism. What he was saying was "I'm not stating the non-existence of god as an irrefutable fact, but I personally do not believe in god"

since then people have commonly misused the word, and they try making it into their own definition, but no matter how you define it, knowledge does not equal belief... there's no over generalizing because the word literally means "not knowing"


and what do you mean it's wrong to call yourself atheist if you don't rule out the possibility of there being a god?

of course you'd still be atheist, because atheism is not a state of know, it simply means you believe there is no god.

again you can be an agnostic atheist, an agnostic Christian, an agnostic Muslim, ect

basically anyone who accepts their belief as only a belief and not an ultimate fact is agnostic.. but in reality we are all still agnostic whether we are willing to admit it or not, because no one truly knows the absolute truth, period

This post was edited by TCassa89 on Apr 21 2012 09:02pm

Agnostic is not an objectively based state of knowledge, it is a belief about knowledge. Therefore, it is a belief.

you're completely rewriting the definition, as well as the intent in which Huxley used the word


again it cannot be a belief system by itself because it is not a belief


anyone (whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Atheist) who accepts their belief as being only a belief is agnostic

the proper answer for one to answer what their beliefs are would be "I am an agnostic atheist" NOT "I am an agnostic"


by doing so you're only answering a small characteristic of how you see your beliefs, while not really answering what it is you believe...

This post was edited by TCassa89 on Apr 21 2012 09:39pm

it's something like this


I ask you whether you believe there are self aware extraterrestrial lifeforms in our universe, and you answer "I don't know" or "I believe that I do not know"


that is not properly answering the question you were asked... and that is what simply answering "agnostic" is.


it's one thing to say "I believe there are, but I do not know for sure" and simply stating that you do not know.....


if you believe there is no god then you are an atheist, it doesn't matter how sure you are of your belief, because belief and knowledge are not one in the same. If I ask you what you believe, and then you tell me what you don't know, then you are not answering the question properly

If it weren't a belief and rather a state of knowledge then everyone would have to follow the same thing. Everyone would have to say "I'm an agnostic (insert atheist, theist, etc.)" It's a belief because not everyone has to follow this criteria for existence. I can be an atheist without being agnostic exactly because agnosticism is not a state of knowledge, which knowledge thereof is derived from the physical world, but rather a belief about knowledge.

I'm not re-writing any definitions, I'm clarifying what has already been stated. Sure, agnosticism is a position on the matter of whether or not god, or even the notion of god, is graspable. But it's not a state of knowledge, otherwise it would be a fact and not a philosophical position.

This post was edited by AEtheric on Apr 22 2012 01:13am

The correct way to say it would be "I believe there are, but I believe I cannot know for sure."

Sure, you can parade around agnosticism as an -ism that has objective meaning, but don't expect us to believe you when you say so.

This post was edited by AEtheric on Apr 22 2012 01:12am