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Agnosticism
Different from atheists, agnostics doubt the existence of God or gods.
209 Questions
Can you state yourself to be agnostic on a registration form?
Of course, why not. But are you sure that you are an agnostic? For example most deeply religious observant catholics would consider themselves agnostic. Indeed, being an agnostic is an important aspect of being a devout Christian or Jew. So by stating that you are "agnostic" is not saying much.
Is faith a given or a hypothesis?
Faith is a firm belief without logical proof. Thus it is not a 'given'. It is not a theory in the scientific sense, since scientific theories require demonstrable evidence. It is reasonable to say that religious faith is a hypothesis.
What is a good agnostic prayer for a toddler's bedtime?
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, if He exists, my soul to keep,
If I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord, my soul, if there is such a thing as a soul, to take,
That is, assuming there's some place place to take it to.
I don't think you're harming a child by pretending there are gods. After all, children are quite capable of understanding that Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy aren't real, once they are old enough. But why not not just sing a lullaby? These prayers, with their suggestions of dying in your sleep, are a bit morbid anyway.
How is hell fire being seriously taught in light of Matthew 10 28 and Ezekiel 18 4?
In a word, no, you can have a civil ceremony - it is yourwedding after all, it's the one occassion when you can do what you want. A judge can officiate a wedding ceremony or, if you are on the coasts, a captain of a ship can officiate a wedding in international waters.
In other places, a registry office or a wedding celebrant.
Atheism means disbelief in all gods but what word means disbelief in Christ specifically?
Non-Christian would cover the non-belief in the divinity of the Christians' Jesus. This would include about 2/3 of the world's population who either have no faith or believe in faiths other than Christianity. Muslims believe in the Jesus as a prophet, but not as a divine being and could be seen as a separate case. People who disbelieve in the existence of a historic Jesus whether simply on the basis of lack of evidence or as an extension of older myth figures like Horus do not have a specific designation.
Are humanists atheists or theists or agnostics?
Any of the above I would think, but I've met some who were deists.
Are there any celebrity atheists theists or agnostics who will give reasons for their opinions?
Richard Dawkins could be considered a "celebrity atheist". He is Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He wrote The Blind Watchmaker as a defence of science against creationism and wrote The God Delusion as an explanation of his opinion on religion.
Celebrity theists would presumably include television evangelists and perhaps senior clergy. Tune into a religious broadcast and with luck you may find the evangelist's reasons for his beliefs.
I do not know of any celebrity agnostics who would give reasons for an opinion that means "I do not know the answer to the question of whether there is a God.
What is the difference between agnostic and ignostic?
Ignosticism is theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of god and many other theological concepts.
While agnosticism is defined as not a creed (Religion) but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle... Positively the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
The difference is subtle, but the argument is that agnostics consider the argument of god to be inconclusive until further evidence is met. Therefore, he believes in a stagnant idea of "God."
An ignostic would argue that he couldn't form such an opinion, on the basic that there is no singular definition of "God." which would lead to the question of; "If there is infinite definitions of god, then would they not contradict each other?" proceeding to the theory of; "If all gods exist, then no gods would exist." Due to the contradicting definitions of "God." Therefor; making the term "God" is meaningless.
Ignosticism is not to be confused with apatheism, a position of apathy toward the existence of God. An apatheist may see the statement "God exists" as insignificant; yet they may also see it as meaningful, and perhaps even true.
An ignostic maintains that they cannot even say whether he/she is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth. And until a coherent claim comes up, Most/(All) ignostics ignore the question of God.
-Coherent Claim:
"God has a beard"
"He might one."
-Incoherent Claim:
"God has a beard"
"Of course he does"
or
"God has a beard"
"No he doesn't, silly"
So, from there, an ignostic can decide before getting into a debate, and with applying logic unto the beard claim, whether he believes or disbelieves in God (having a beard).
Christianity may be false, but it is not fake in the sense of being an intentional lie, because around 2 billion people sincerely believe in its teachings.
Death is the country from which no traveler has returned to give that answer definitively. But many people believe as this answerer wrote: the soul rises, and leaves an empty shell of the body behind.
Many others believe that the soul or the mind reincarnates in a new lifetime following death. Others believe that there is no further life after the body dies. You have to make up your own mind according to what your heart tells you, after listening to the opinions of those who have contemplated this deeply.
TSP is the abbreviation for teaspoon (a unit of measure in recipes) and also stands for Thanks, Sorry, and Please. A teaspoon prayer is a simple prayer of thanks, a "sorry" asking forgiveness for what you have done, or a "please" when you ask fo God's blessing.
Are agnostics enemies to Catholics?
An agnostic is someone who doesn't believe that the existence of God can be proven or disproven. People can have differing beliefs and not be enemies. People of both brands must respect the other as fellow humans.
It is also interesting to point out that many Catholics are agnostics; the positions are not mutually exclusive, so it does not make sense to call them enemies or even opposing views.
Funeral rites for agnostic faith?
Agnosis comes from the Greek. gnosis means knowledge. The prefix a means "without". Agnosis means you simply do not KNOW if a God or Supreme Power exists. Faith requires "belief". Belief is about not having proof.
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Pretty much by definition, being agnostic is not a faith. Many humanist societies have developed humanist funeral and wedding ceremonies.
What is the word for religious uncertainty?
The word for neither denying nor accepting the existence of God or another divine power is called Agnostic/Agnosticism.
Is richord branson a theist atheist or a agnostic?
I presume you mean, Richard Branson. He is an atheist.
Why do venders often serve hot choc-late in foam cups?
Because styrofoam cups act as an insulator, keeping the hot chocolate hot longer.
What is the most worshiped culture?
Christianity has the biggest population of followers, adding together all the sects. It is estimated that over 2 billion people are Christian.
Islam is the second biggest religion, with an estimated 1.4 billion followers.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson insists on being called an agnostic because to him, atheism carries an air of certainty (which most people ascribe to antitheism) that there definitely is no god. He is simply not interested in the conversation about the existence of god.
National Geographic's Sir David Attenborough says that it simply "never occurred to me to believe in god", and also describes himself as agnostic.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes and Lost World novels, was certainly agnostic for most of his life, although his descent into belief in fairies and other superstitions toward the end of his life may have placed him in the believers' camp.
Aldous Huxley (aka Darwin's bulldog) is the world's first agnostic in that he invented the word "agnostic".
Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22.
Mark Twain, creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
Noam Chomsky, "smartest person in academia".
David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Locke and Soren Kierkegaard are famous philosophers and agnostic polemicists.
Confucius, who say a lot of thing.
Alexander Graham Bell, who in fact did not invent the telephone but did invent the word "Hello" as it is spelled and used today.
Edward Teller, the most evil and most mad scientist who has ever lived.
Carl Sagan, inventor of the word "Billions".
Stephen Jay Gould, popular biologist, famously quoted as saying that "science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria", i.e. that it's not possible for one to contradict the other.
Albert Einstein
Charles Darwin
It should be noted that the title of atheist also applies to many of the above; even well-known atheists and antitheists have described themselves as agnostic, such as Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell.
What is intellectual captivity?
"Intellectual captivity" is a derogatory term used to point out that a person may be so ingrained in their own belief system or be so trapped in a circular logic, that real "truth" has no room in their minds.
For example, a Christian may say that an atheist suffers from intellectual captivity because the unsatisfied demand for proof of a god's existence makes no room for the idea of the faith necessary to believe in a god. The atheist in turn may say the Christian suffers from intellectual captivity because the Christian points to the Bible which says God exists, and God says the Bible is right, which says that God exists, who says the Bible is right ...
Why do Christian Universalists find it necessary to believe in God if everyone is ultimately saved?
Saved by WHO ? IF by God then you have your answer. If not by anyone, then they are not saved. This is absurd, to write like this.
What does it mean to be fearfully and wonderfully made by God?
Answer: Psalm 139:14 declares, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." The context of Psalm 139:14 is the incredible nature of our physical bodies. The human body is unique, the most complex organism in the world, and that complexity and uniqueness speak volumes about the mind of its Creator. Every aspect of the body, down to the tiniest microscopic cell, reveals that it is fearfully and wonderfully made.
Engineers understand how to design strong but lightweight beams by putting the strong material toward the outside edges of a cross section and filling the inside with lighter, weaker material. This is done because the greatest stress occurs on the surfaces of a structure when handling common bending or torsional stresses. A cross section of a human bone reveals that the strong material is on the outside, and the inside is used as a factory for blood cells of various kinds. When you examine a sophisticated SLR camera with its ability to let in more or less light as needed and its ability to focus automatically over a vast range of field, you find repeated imitations of the operation of one of our eyeballs. Yet, having two eyeballs, we also have depth perception, giving an athlete the ability to throw a football to a receiver with precision or for us to judge how far away a car is.
The human brain is also an amazing organ, fearfully and wonderfully made. It has the ability to learn, reason, and control so many automatic functions of the body such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and to maintain balance to walk, run, stand, sit, all while concentrating on something else. Computers can outdo the human brain in raw calculating power, but are primitive when it comes to performing most reasoning tasks. The brain also has an amazing ability to adapt. When people put on glasses that make the world seem upside down, their brains quickly reinterpret the information they are being given to perceive the world as "right-side-up." Or when people are blindfolded for long periods of time, the "vision center" of the brain soon begins to be used for other functions. When people move to a house near a railroad, soon the sound of the trains is filtered out by their brains, and they lose conscious thought of them.
When it comes to miniaturization, the human body is also a marvel fearfully and wonderfully made. For instance, information needed for the replication of an entire human body, with every detail covered, is stored in the double-helix DNA strand found in the nucleus of each of the billions of cells in the human body. And a system of information and control is represented by our nervous system, so compact in comparison to man's clumsy inventions of wires and optical cables. Each cell, once called a "simple" cell, as small as it is, is a tiny factory that is not yet fully understood by man. As microscopes become more and more powerful, able to magnify smaller and smaller fields, the infinite vistas of the human cell begin to come into focus.
Consider the single fertilized cell of a newly conceived human life. From that one cell within the womb of his/her mother, develop all of the different kinds of tissues, organs, and systems, and they all work together at just the right time-amazing! An example is the hole in the septum between the two ventricles in the heart of the newborn infant that closes up at just the right time to allow for the oxygenation of the blood from the lungs (not used in the womb).
Further, the body's immune system is able to fight off so many enemies and restore itself, from the smallest repair (even down to repairing bad portions of DNA) to the largest repair (mending of bones and recovery from major accidents). Yes, there are diseases that will eventually overcome the body as we age because of man's fall into sin and the resulting curse, but we have no idea exactly how many times our immune system has saved us from death that would surely have occurred without it.
The functions of the human body are also incredible. The contrast of being able to handle large, heavy objects and yet to be able to carefully manipulate a delicate object without breaking it is also amazing. We can shoot a bow and arrow, repeatedly hitting a distant target, peck away quickly at a computer keyboard without thinking about the keys, crawl, walk, run, twirl around, climb, swim, do somersaults and flips, and perform "simple" tasks such as unscrewing a light bulb, brushing our teeth, and lacing up our shoes, again without thinking. Indeed, these are "simple" things, but man has yet to design and program a robot that is able to perform such a vast range of tasks and motions.
The function of the digestive tract, the liver and other major organs, the longevity of the heart, the formation and function of nerves and of blood vessels, the function of the lymphatic system, the cleansing of the blood through the kidneys, the ability of the reproductive system to create cells able to mate up with another cell from the opposite gender and produce a cell with twice as many chromosomes, the complexity of the inner and middle ear, the sense of taste and smell, and so many other things we barely understand-each one is a marvel and beyond man's ability to duplicate fully.
Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. How grateful we are to know this God who made us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and to marvel not only at His knowledge but also at His love (Psalm 139:17-18, 23-24).
Recommended Resource: Fearfully & Wonderfully Made by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey.
