"IT" picked you?

That sounds really scary.

You have no will of your own then? Are you Possessed?

i agree with everything you say about einstein but that is not what i see as strong atheism. as i said in an earlier post where i quoted another opinion on the subject, strong atheism, or gnostic atheism, as the auther said it's sometimes referred to, is atheism with a KNOWLEDGE that god does not in fact exist. in all of einstein's quotes i don't see him suggesting he had such knowledge. in fact he's suggested often that nothing can be known absolutely other than what one experiences.

Allow me to ask you this:



not in the least would i consider myself a strong atheist towards anyhing. as i keep saying, such things cannot be known. a stron atheist, if we are to accept the above author's definition, KNOWS that the god of zeus does not existst. i've know such knowledge nore can i ever posses such knowledge. a reasonable possibility? as reasonable a possibility as any god i suppose but a possibility that cannot be known by a human mind.



i'll buy that.

perhaps. but you asked for an opinion other than mine on 'strong atheism. but i don't buy the term, 'agnostic atheism'. irregardless, you now have an opinion other than mine regarding 'strong atheism' or 'gnostic atheism' that i well buy off on. that you may not is of course your perogative. i simply provided what you asked for.





i can see that. guess i can't help with de-confusing you without repeating myself. so best we leave it at that. but i will say this. i think of a belief as knowing something is fact or not a fact and not believing is not knowing something is fact or not fact. once more, as an agnostic i can know nothing absolutely other than what i experience myself. if i know it happened because i saw it happen then i suppose you could say i believe it in fact did happen. so in MY mind, knowledge and belief are very closely related. but as for gods, i've no belief or knowledge. can't.

Interesting thread!

I find the question difficult to answer because no one has really ever defined "God" to my satisfaction. As far as the Biblical creator... no I don't believe in him. If any creator of humankind does exist I think it was probably an advanced alien race tinkering with DNA.

I am a pantheist as I believe that at the core of all living things there dwells an intelligent consciousness that expresses itself through all life.

I have been down several religious paths including Christianity (as a child) which I never really embraced, to a new age Soul Travel religion (Eckankar).

Yoga and deep breathing is the greatest thing to raise consciousness and for health, although I am not religious enough to do it as often as I should. (Like exercise... its great if you do it.)

My first contact with what I would consider "God" is my higher self. That seems to be a part of me that knows more than I do. (Not hard to do.)

I have experienced things that can't be explained "scientifically" but that is not saying that your logical scientist can't come up with what they call a "rational" explanation of their own... simply because they refuse to accept any other alternative.

I know better, so I don't let that bother me. My life has been saved twice by what I call my guardian "higher self." Twice that I know of anyway... there may be more times. My family says that they don't worry too much about me because I seem to have guardian angels keeping me safe at all times.

Here is the first miracle:

I was sitting at the tavern where I worked talking to some people. It was night time. Suddenly I heard my own voice in my head very loud and very clearly say, "There is someone in my car!" This information was so powerful I blurted it out to all the people sitting next to me. They said, "What?" I kept repeating it. I could not actually say anything else. I repeated this about four times.

They asked me how I knew there was someone in my car. I said.. I don't know. Anyway.. I took four men with me to investigate my car which was sitting in the darkness across the street. It did not look like anyone was in it. We all went up to the car and there was no one in the front seat. It was too dark to see the back seat. The men with me said... "See, there is no one in your car." I said "Open it and look in the back." So we did.

There was a man crouched and hiding in the back seat. Everyone, including me, were stunned. They made the guy get out of the car. We were all so stunned we did not even call the police. The guy pretended to be drunk and said he was just looking for a place to sleep. He just wandered off into the darkness.

Later I began to think that since I had gotten such a strong warning from my higher self, that the man had been hiding there with intent to do me harm. This made a believer out of me. I have had faith and trust in my higher self guardian from then on.

The second miracle that saved me and my little brother is even more amazing.

The second miracle:

I was driving my dad's pickup. It was back in the time when you did not have to wear seat belts. My little brother was about 5 years old.

I was on Hwy 50 about to make a left turn across the highway. I glanced in my rear view mirror and I did not see anything.

At that moment I had a vision. It came like a flash. In the vision I was struck by a fast moving vehicle and it was clear that we would not survive the impact. I had that vision at least ten times. It was like ten flashes of the entire vision one after another.

I then seemed have a conversation with myself. I said, "I looked in the rear view mirror, and there was nothing there!" (Was I arguing with my guardian angel?) I heard an answer. It was my own voice. It said, "Would it hurt anything to just look over your shoulder?" I said, "No." I agreed to look over my left shoulder just to be sure.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second or less. Like time had stopped. As soon as I agreed to look over my shoulder, I was returned back to normal time. I looked over my shoulder and that split second it took to do that saved our lives as a truck going very fast zoomed past.

My little brother had no idea how close he came to death. I did.

"Thank you." I said. (I was too young to die.)

What you're basically saying accepting Gnostic atheism, but reject agnostic atheism, because it doesn't fit into your criteria of terminology? Gnosticism is the opposite of agnosticism, but you disregard one over the other, huh, what? Wow.



So lets break this down.

To believe in something:

You believe X is a fact or not a fact:

So you're saying that theist who believe in a God believe this is a fact or not e.i, Gnostic Theist and agnostic theists.

To not believe, is not knowing if x is a fact or not:
Continuing, a person who does not believe in God doesn't know if this is a fact or not e.i, Gnostic atheist and agnostic theists.



Are you saying "not believing is knowing or not knowing something as a fact". I'm assuming this is the same meaning.



So do you believe the universe is expanding? Do you believe dinosaurs existed? Do you believe in evolution? Do you believe there are other planets, etc?



I'm glad you said your mind.




Let's break down the full dictionary use of it:

agnostic
ag·nos·tic 
 
[ag-nos-tik] Show IPA
–noun
1.
a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2.
a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
–adjective
3.
of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
4.
asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.

Not once does it describe a belief, it claims more than once about knowledge.

Now let's use atheists:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

atheist
a·the·ist 
 
[ey-thee-ist] Show IPA
–noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Now, this deliberately states a disbelief. Now lets re-quote what you said:



Get my drift?

Oh for god's sake. If someones says that they are agnostic can't you just accept them on their word?

Are you talking about me? When did i say i don't believe he's not agnostic? The whole issue is he's basically stating there is no such thing as an agnostic atheist and why me going from agnosticism to atheism is wrong in a sense (from what i remember).

it really doesn't matter abra. we simply see things differently and i've no way to better express my position. i'll let it end at that.

hell, jeanie, no two folks here can agree on the definition of atheism and agnosticism. lol.

possessed, no will

you sure read a lot into that sentence

Tell me about it.

The way I figure it, you either make choices or they are made for you. If you don't make your own choices, who makes them for you?

I prefer to make my own choices.

Ok, you have a point. I guess he did kind of pick on you for that.

So you're in defense mode yourself.

Carry on.

Perhaps it was a poor choice of wording on Ladylid's part.

Perhaps she meant so say that it "called to her". Or she felt a "calling toward it"

Would that be the same as being "picked" by something?

You still have the choice of whether or not to answer the call.

Yeh I know. I was just having fun.

I believe in living life on purpose rather than by default. But sometimes our higher self or God guides us without our conscious awareness.

don't see it as a poor choice of words. i think she's right on for the most part. we've little choice in the paths we take. all is random. chaos. no reason to think there is a design.

i read lady's post several times. nowhere did i read that she thought she had no will of her own or that she was possessed.

i thought the poster wrote:




so i guess we should talk about what debate means?