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The Sydney Humanists & Humanitarians Message Board › Would you say you are Agnostic or Atheist?

Would you say you are Agnostic or Atheist?

A former member
Posted Jul 10, 2007 8:48 PM
Post #: 49
Bertrand Russell put it eloquently:

"I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
Ian Woolf
Posted Jul 12, 2007 1:19 PM
iwoolf
Sydney, AU
Post #: 4
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Or any Gods from any mythology? I used to wrestle with this and call myself a transcendental agnostic. However once when explaining why agnosticism was the higher path, I simultaneously convinced my friend, and unconvinced myself. Any Gods that any mythology can define can be disproved. Its only the vague abstract "God" of philosophical Deists that can't be refuted because it can't be defined.
At some point I may compile a list of Gods of mythologies around the world and their disproofs.

Of course you really have to define what a God is. What is the minimum requirement? Most mythologies have pantheons where not all of the Gods are involved in creating the Universe, and not all of them are all-knowing or all-powerful. So what is the difference between a God and a Wizard? They both wield magic and power.
Humans now wield many of the magics of mythology. We heal the sick and lame, we can fly, we can bring some people back from recent death, we can perform many wonders. We are exploring new worlds and learning to expand our consciousness. Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Perhaps there may be Gods in the future?
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