Just felt the need to repost it here before the other one falls.[
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Originally posted by Yorick:
I see atheism as a remarkably arrogant position. It presumes that a mere human who inhabits a few decades on a small planet in the corner of the universe can extend their knowledge throughout the entirety of space and time and declare with certainty that there is no God. In the process completely overriding the reality of other humans who will die rather than refute their knowledge of God.
As I have said before, all you can say is "I have not experienced this" not "this does not exist". In saying "I know God" I am not devalidating your statement "I do not know God".
I find agnosticism a much more open minded and reasonable position.
I am agnostic concerning the existence of alien life for example. I find no compelling evidence that allows me to believe they do exist, but I'm not so arrogant as to extend my experience of reality into parts of the universe I have no knowledge of.
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I disagree, Yorick. I do not consider it arrogant to believe there is no god. It is not because I can extend my knowledge throughout space and time that I believe this. In fact, it is because I can't that I believe this. I believe there are possibilities that I cannot fathom, and occurrences I cannot explain. However, I do realize my own cosmic insignificance -- which you hint at with the "few decades in my corner of the univers" -- and this leads me to determine I am no better than other creatures and, as such, I will simply cease to exist at some point, as the evidence tells me all things do.
While I recognize things exist beyond my comprehension, I think it would be arrogant for me to believe those things hint at some larger consciousness that gives a crap about me or reserves a special place for some inner "soul." Just because there may be other, greater things, it does not give me license to personify those things or think I have any place in their scheme of the universe. In fact, I find it a metaphysical conceit (which it is) to even suppose a scheme exists at all -- especially one my puny brain can attempt to comprehend.
And, let's be frank, your religion, and most religions, do believe you can "know" god. That I find to be the more arrogant position.
In the end, I think there are two problems we may have communicating regarding this. One is your definition of aetheist vs. agnostic. While I do not suppose I can know or prove the absence of something, I do not even have the little bit of arrogance in me to think I can possibly ever "know" these unexplainable things (such as "god"), and I therefore shun the notion that I would leave room open to one day "know" these things. Please don't go getting definitions, as I don't want to get into a "my definition is better than yours" debate. Especially because, in the end, my fallback position would be that my religious/non-religious beliefs about the cosmos are mine own to define, and someone else's definition carries little weight with me.
Second, you and I disagree about what is arrogant about religion, as this post may point out. You say
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As for a charge that it's egotistical to expect the creator of the universe would come down as a human and die for me personally... well that's the beauty of it. God can do what he wants. The idea is at once humbling and esteem building at the same time.
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As I may have pointed out, it is not the notion that your idea of your station vis-a-vis god that makes me think religion arrogant. I realize you find the power/awe/knowledge of your god humbling. What I find arrogant is the basic notion that you can "know" this uber-entity to even define it enough to find beauty in it/him, or think it/him has a personality that includes such banal notions as "want," or to think it/him even realizes you exist for a brief few winks of the eternal eye, and especially to think it/him has a place reserved for you and your fellow homo sapiens.