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Aaron
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Age : 37
Joined : 24 Jan 2007
Posts : 1096
Location: : Connecticut
|  Subject: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC  Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:22 pm | |
| I just came acrossed this essay and thought I'd share it here.
| Quote: | A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC
Recently I met a young man who called himself an agnostic. He said, "I am completely disinterested in God. I have no proof that a God exists, and the idea of some super-Being watching over me and the world is somehow rather ludicrous in light of the world situation. "Besides that," he continued, "the blatant hypocrisy of 'religious men' is enough to turn my stomach."
This statement rather sums up the opinions of many frustrated people, young and old alike. "And another thing," he added, "how can anything ever be understood when even the oldest religious leaders, with years of study behind them, are at loggerheads with one another and apparently unable to solve the world's problems? All these things suggest to me that God is the invention of frustrated people wishing for something above and beyond themselves to solve all their problems."
Many hold these ideas in this day and time. The ranks of the disillusioned are growing in number, and they come especially from the disenchanted within the religious organizations of the world. People are wondering increasingly about the correctness of their particular brands of religion. Old ideas once accepted as fact seem foolish and superstitious in light of the world's new technological dimension. The break with old theological concepts seems, to these people, to be a break with God. The arguments against old practices become their arguments against the existence of what they term 'God'. . . It must be pointed out that these are not valid arguments against the existence of God but are, rather, arguments against old concepts of God, old ideas about God and old practices that pervade all organized religions today.
I am yet to meet an agnostic or atheist who cannot accept the existence and presence of God once we agree on just what Reality is.
Usually, atheists deny and agnostics doubt the actuality of God as they understand and define God. They are quite right, because God as they define Him could not possibly exist. But God as God is, is neither doubted nor denied by a single person on this earth and never has been. God, as God is, is accepted without question, even without resistance, by everyone because God is the very basis of being, the fact of real existence.Why, God is Life itself. Show me an atheist who will deny he is alive! .
The doubters and deniers are invariably throwing rocks at their own misconceptions of God, at the usual definitions of God, or at the generally accepted idea of what God can do.
I am quick to agree that the popular idea of God is incorrect and that such a God does not exist--and never has. But God, as God is, does exist as a very present Reality and as undeniable basis of Existence.
Truth, Reality, Fact exists. This is all that really does exist right here, right now. |
I think the author does a good job of describing what we deists have to deal with quite a bit.
The rest of the essay can be found here...
http://www.williamsamuel.com/agnosticsa.htm
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|   | | Aaron
Admin
Age : 37
Joined : 24 Jan 2007
Posts : 1096
Location: : Connecticut
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:24 pm | |
| P.S. I thought you'd appreciate that last line Stew. 
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| | | | The Paineful Truth
Joined : 19 Sep 2007
Posts : 356
Location: : Arizona
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:22 pm | |
| | Aaron wrote: | | P.S. I thought you'd appreciate that last line Stew. |
Yes, I did. But the definition of agnosticism with which he argues is bogus: "I am completely disinterested in God. I have no proof that a God exists, and the idea of some super-Being watching over me and the world is somehow rather ludicrous in light of the world situation."
He's entitled to his opinion, but it's illogical. Why would God create the universe and then walk away? In any case I think he's a closet atheist. |
| | | | Aaron
Admin
Age : 37
Joined : 24 Jan 2007
Posts : 1096
Location: : Connecticut
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:49 am | |
| I think he was quoting the words of an Agnostic (large A) that he's had discussions with.
| Quote: | | He's entitled to his opinion, but it's illogical. Why would God create the universe and then walk away? In any case I think he's a closet atheist. |
I don't know where you got that impression from? I don't think that was what he was arguing at all. 
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| | | | Uriah
Age : 34
Joined : 11 Oct 2007
Posts : 265
Location: : Tucson, AZ
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sat Nov 10, 2007 1:03 pm | |
| If God didn't walk away then where is it? It obviously has no interests in the lives of human beings - we are still at the whim of chance in the universe.
Besides, why would an omnipotent being create a universe that required constant attention and maintenance to function properly? Here on earth nature is full symbiotic systems, ecosystems are based around their ability to find balance, wouldn't the universe - on a grand scale - be much the same?
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“It’s time, we gave something back to the natural systems of order that have supported us, some care and tenderness, which is the most operative notion, I think – tenderness. Our isolations are gone, in the West and everywhere. We need to give some time to the arts of cherishing things we adore, before they simply vanish. Maybe it will be like learning a skill: how to live in paradise” ~ William Kittredge |
| | | | Helium
Joined : 14 Sep 2007
Posts : 422
Location: : Toronto
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sat Nov 10, 2007 1:46 pm | |
| | Quote: | | If God didn't walk away then where is it? |
Well Uriah, you can't logically conclude that because God walked away he abandoned us.
I mean I also can't prove he didn't abandon us.
But he may have walked away for a reason.
To steal Paineful's line (I can see the lawyer's letter for plagarizing already) perhaps to allow us free will! |
| | | | The Paineful Truth
Joined : 19 Sep 2007
Posts : 356
Location: : Arizona
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:07 am | |
| | Uriah wrote: | | If God didn't walk away then where is it? It obviously has no interests in the lives of human beings - we are still at the whim of chance in the universe. |
You're thinking in terms brought on by revealed religions. Just because He (It?) doesn't interfere by no means implies that He has no interest in us, just the opposite. "If you love something set it free." Any intervention, as Helium so correctly points out, would override our free will. Yes we are at the mercy of chance, but that's the price we must pay for our freedom in a reasonable environment. And in the big scheme of things, what's threescore and ten against all eternity? Every case of seemingly "senseless" death or suffering is a monument to God's commitment to our free will. The revealed religions still cannot answer that question without a lot of tap dancing.
| Quote: | | Besides, why would an omnipotent being create a universe that required constant attention and maintenance to function properly? Here on earth nature is full symbiotic systems, ecosystems are based around their ability to find balance, wouldn't the universe - on a grand scale - be much the same? |
Who suggested that the universe required constant attention? Certainly the revealed religions could subscribe to such a version of Intelligent Design, but how could a deist? God may subsume it, but I don't see any reason or evidence that He would have to make any adjustments. |
| | | | Helium
Joined : 14 Sep 2007
Posts : 422
Location: : Toronto
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 11:45 am | |
| | Quote: | | The revealed religions still cannot answer that question without a lot of tap dancing. |
And indeed, those unsavoury fundy televangelist types really, really have a lot of explaining to do. To me it's a fundamental position of why I am deist.
The logic behind god healing someone in an auditorium.
I mean if you talked to the televangelist, he would probably agree that
A) God knows everything (which by the way I don't, but that's antoher discussion we've had and could have again)
So surely God didn't need anyone to tell him about an audience members "sickness"
And then what can we logically derive from a God that somehow needs prayers to go into action. I mean he knows the person is sick. NOt only that but he knows how "good" the sick person is.
And so what is the always "ambiguous" role of the televangelist other than reaping in alot of money and living in a big house on the hill. He's somehow a channel or conduit to God?
So let's take 9-11 which is so iconic.
How come he couldn't help anyone on the top floors even though they had cell phones to say goodbye to their families, and even though they were good people and even though they had a whole lot of people praying for them. HOw come he couldn't help them? How come he seems to specialize in miracles (i.e. of the medical kind) that are ambiguous, undocumentable, perpetrated by shady figures who end up with a lot of money, end up sinning like the rest or us, then saying, 'the devil made me do it.'
And what does it say if someone comes to a televangelist with, say, troubles breathing and receives help, in whatever mysterious way. But say the person has smoked all their life. Well God can't change that fact.
Anyway, I guess this whole ramble is preaching to the converted in a deist forum. Oh well that's never stopped me before.  |
| | | | Gnomon
Joined : 30 Sep 2007
Posts : 221
Location: : Birmingham, Alabama
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:56 pm | |
| | Quote: | | If God didn't walk away then where is it? |
I called myself an Agnostic for about 30 years. I was generally familiar with the absentee-Creator concept commonly attributed to Deism, but that semi-existentialist rationale never made any sense to me. Only when I realized that the Creator might have good reasons for being invisible-but-omni-present did I conclude that Deism might possibly be a sensible worldview.
If the deadbeat-Dad image of G*d was the best I could come up with, I'd have to remain an Agnostic. My current Deity-definition is closer to an unwed-Mother metaphor. But even that is a weak caricature of a wholistic phenomenon that pushes the envelope of fragmented human understanding.
In answer to the question: G*d is everywhere.
Last edited by on Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
| | | | Gnomon
Joined : 30 Sep 2007
Posts : 221
Location: : Birmingham, Alabama
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:03 pm | |
| | Quote: | | we are still at the whim of chance in the universe. |
On the other hand, Chance is the mechanism that gives us the opportunity to exercise our whims. No Chance, no change. No change, no options. No options, no choice. No choice, no freewill. |
| | | | Helium
Joined : 14 Sep 2007
Posts : 422
Location: : Toronto
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:57 pm | |
| | Quote: | | If the deadbeat-Dad image of G*d was the best I could come up with ... |
Again I still have a hard time with this logic.
We do not document the work of the supernatural in the universe.
Therefore
God has "abandoned" us.
If I were a lawyer I would argue that "abandoned" is a perjorative remark!
It might very well be that he lost interest in his creation and abandoned it. It might be that he has very good reasons for the way it's set up.
Then again, maybe you and Aaron are correct, and in the panendeistic model god hasn't gone anywhere 'cause he's everywhere.
Unfortunaty I think there's only one way to find out, and I'm not looking forward to it.  |
| | | | The Paineful Truth
Joined : 19 Sep 2007
Posts : 356
Location: : Arizona
| | Subject: Re: A WORD TO THE AGNOSTIC Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:18 pm | |
| | Helium wrote: | | Quote: | | If the deadbeat-Dad image of G*d was the best I could come up with ... |
Unfortunaty I think there's only one way to find out, and I'm not looking forward to it. |
I sort of am. Either I'll know for sure, or I won't know that this is all just pointless and will never know the difference. |
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