True.
Listen to her, read some books!
Anonymous
Now I want to make a thing clear: for me it’s totally ok if you’re agnostic. For me it’s ok even if you believe in some god. In the discussion before I was just trying to explain why I’m an atheist, but I wasn’t trying to “convert” agnostics to atheism. You feel that you’re uncertain so agnosticism is good for you because it retains a degree of uncertainty that makes you confortable? It’s ok for me.
I’m quite sure that if we could talk I could prove that you either believe or not. My experience is that often agnostics are just “afraid” to admit one or another.
Also, again, you need proof only to believe.
This follows (and hopefully closes), yesterday’s discussion.
@odditiesoflife: I didn’t dismiss your question you mispelled a word, I would be really stupid to do that, because English is not my first language, and it’s evident I don’t know it that well. I dismissed your question because you seemed to assume that the notion of a “collective unconscious” is so evidently real that if I say I think it doesn’t exist, it means I’m so so so wrong. But, I don’t just think it doesn’t exist, I know it doesn’t exist, I don’t even consider it to be an hypothesis that’s worth to take seriously.
You see, if someone comes here and says to me: ” Ah! You’re an atheist? You should be an agnostic!” than he continues arguing that I should believe in the existence of everything I didn’t disprove scientifically (like a mysterious island in the pacific ocean that can’t be detected by any instruments because it has a magnetic field that works like some sort of invisible cloak) and after that he thinks a good argument is “you’re too young to understand”, well, if someone like that comes here, I don’t take him seriously. I just can’t.
@anon#1: No I would not argue the same thing. Anyway, there’s a thing to consider: in your example the question is not if something exists or not. We know for sure life exists. The question is just if it exists somewhere else.
@reiderrabbitt: Thanks.
@anon#2: That’s just atheism.
@flowers-unicorns-rainbows: I really don’t know. It’s complicated. If I were you I’d try to talk with her, even if those things make you unconfortable, because it’s really the only way she can understand you don’t have the same belief.
@consciousperception: Theories can be fascinating, but I like the real world better.
@trixi-b: I’ve heard many times that there are levels of atheism or agnosticism. I don’t think so. You either believe or you don’t believe. There’s nothing like somewhat-not-believing.
Following your example I could call myself: web designer, photographer, film critic, athlete, novelist, philosopher…
I call myself a science enthusiast. Science for me is an hobby, not a career.
Yes, I do think intelligence has a genetic component. But I also think it’s more complicated. Intelligence is difficult to define. For me, if you have a PhD, it just means you have higher education, not necessary higher intelligence (though, I don’t doubt you’re smart). Children of parents with a high education degree could have some genes passed down that may give them a chance of higher intelligence compared to children of less educated parents. But it’s not just genes that are passed down. Psyhological, social, and cultural factors are just as important. Having parents with high education degree give a child advantages and opportunities that are (for me) more important than just plain “genetic intelligence”. This is why I think that, if you want children to be intelligent, you should make them study.
I hope!
I’d like a lot to be a neuroscientist!
I guess you mean “collective unconscious”. But, really? “Collective unconscious”? I thought we were serious…(it was just a moment).
I answered several times to this question, but I will answer again.
You’re obviously wrong when you say that being an atheist cannot be scientifically tested and proven. I guess you meant: “the non-existence of a god cannot be scientifically proven”.
My answer to this is very simple: you cannot disprove the existence of the famous Russel’s teapot or that of the invisible pink unicorn, you can’t even disprove the existence of the Olympus and all the ancient Greek gods. Does it mean you’re agnostic about the invisible pink unicorn? No, you’re an atheist about that, you don’t believe it exists, and you have good reasons to believe that. What are the reasons? There’s no evidence. In the absence of evidence, the most reasonable position is disbelief.
That is true also for scientists.
Imagine someone says: I know of the existence of a mysterious energy that permeates everything, but you have to trust me, because this energy is so mysterious it can’t be detected with any of our instruments. Are you willing to believe in this statement just because you can’t prove this energy doesn’t exist? I hope not. If you claim something exists, you should give me evidence.
If there are no evidence, I choose disbelief, because disbelief is the most reasonable position.
