Why don't agnostics pray?

[Animavore]

Praying is the most useless, useless thing ever.

It's not completely useless. It helps the believer feel smug that they've done something to help, when in fact they've done nothing.

So useless in other words.

[Pappa]

Praying is the most useless, useless thing ever.

It's not completely useless. It helps the believer feel smug that they've done something to help, when in fact they've done nothing.

So useless in other words.

Yep.

[Animavore]

I posed the question at RS.

http://www.rational-skepticism.org/gene ... t5425.html

[leo-rcc]

I posed the question at RS.

http://www.rational-skepticism.org/gene ... t5425.html

The Google add underneath your thread there explains it in detail.

[RuleBritannia]

Anyway, people can change their minds in the course of a day and a lifetime. They could wake up an atheist and go to sleep an agnostic.

That's like saying "I woke up rich and went to bed hungry". They're not mutually exclusive, if you're an atheist you have to be either an agnostic or gnostic at the same time. If you're an agnostic you have to be either a theist or atheist at the same time.

"Theist" and "atheist" are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, you can not be in both categories, but you have to be in one of them.

However, belief in ones ability to communicate with the dead does not require belief in a God, and nor does belief in a collective consciousness, or seeing the world as universal non-localised resonant energy. By your definition such belief systems would have to be categorised as "atheist" as they do not acknowledge deities. Are you comfortable and happy for such belief systems to be described as atheist?

The terms "theist" and "atheist" only apply to god but the dichotomies of belief/no belief and knowledge/no knowledge apply to everything.

[Ele]

Anyway, people can change their minds in the course of a day and a lifetime. They could wake up an atheist and go to sleep an agnostic.

That's like saying "I woke up rich and went to bed hungry". They're not mutually exclusive, if you're an atheist you have to be either an agnostic or gnostic at the same time. If you're an agnostic you have to be either a theist or atheist at the same time.

"Theist" and "atheist" are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, you can not be in both categories, but you have to be in one of them.

However, belief in ones ability to communicate with the dead does not require belief in a God, and nor does belief in a collective consciousness, or seeing the world as universal non-localised resonant energy. By your definition such belief systems would have to be categorised as "atheist" as they do not acknowledge deities. Are you comfortable and happy for such belief systems to be described as atheist?

The terms "theist" and "atheist" only apply to god but the dichotomies of belief/no belief and knowledge/no knowledge apply to everything.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

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

Since when does a belief in communion with the dead constitute a belief in a supreme being?

Or are you simply redefining the language so that it suits the meaning you would rather it had?

[RuleBritannia]

Anyway, people can change their minds in the course of a day and a lifetime. They could wake up an atheist and go to sleep an agnostic.

That's like saying "I woke up rich and went to bed hungry". They're not mutually exclusive, if you're an atheist you have to be either an agnostic or gnostic at the same time. If you're an agnostic you have to be either a theist or atheist at the same time.

"Theist" and "atheist" are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, you can not be in both categories, but you have to be in one of them.

However, belief in ones ability to communicate with the dead does not require belief in a God, and nor does belief in a collective consciousness, or seeing the world as universal non-localised resonant energy. By your definition such belief systems would have to be categorised as "atheist" as they do not acknowledge deities. Are you comfortable and happy for such belief systems to be described as atheist?

The terms "theist" and "atheist" only apply to god but the dichotomies of belief/no belief and knowledge/no knowledge apply to everything.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

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

Since when does a belief in communion with the dead constitute a belief in a supreme being?

Or are you simply redefining the language so that it suits the meaning you would rather it had?

I never said that, read it again:

The terms "theist" and "atheist" only apply to god but the dichotomies of belief/no belief and knowledge/no knowledge apply to everything.

[Twiglet]

Anyone and everyone, believers and non-believers are all agnostic when it comes to god, anyone who claims to be a gnostic is a fucking lier.

Agnosticism though says nothing about what you believe. When it comes to what you believe about god (or anything) there are only two options, they are jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive i.e. a dichotomy.

If you can not say "I believe in a god", then you, by default, do not believe. You are an atheist whether you like it or not.

Referring to your above post, the issue is linguistic. The post above imposes an either or choice atheist/not atheist, but logically that would place someone who believes they can communicate with the dead into the atheist camp, as they don't believe in a God.

There are any number of beliefs which invoke the supernatural but do not require a belief in God or Gods. That doesn't fit the definition of theist so if we are to accept your either/or position it must fall under atheism. Either that or the argument you put forward above is wrong. Which is it?

[leo-rcc]

Referring to your above post, the issue is linguistic. The post above imposes an either or choice atheist/not atheist, but logically that would place someone who believes they can communicate with the dead into the atheist camp, as they don't believe in a God.

That is correct. They are.

There are any number of beliefs which invoke the supernatural but do not require a belief in God or Gods. That doesn't fit the definition of theist so if we are to accept your either/or position it must fall under atheism. Either that or the argument you put forward above is wrong. Which is it?

They are atheist, what is so difficult about that concept?

[Trolldor]

Atheism is singularly the absence of belief in the deity in question. Any other magic, any pretense to reason or logic or (those fucking humanists) humanism is nonsense.

[Twiglet]

Referring to your above post, the issue is linguistic. The post above imposes an either or choice atheist/not atheist, but logically that would place someone who believes they can communicate with the dead into the atheist camp, as they don't believe in a God.

That is correct. They are.

There are any number of beliefs which invoke the supernatural but do not require a belief in God or Gods. That doesn't fit the definition of theist so if we are to accept your either/or position it must fall under atheism. Either that or the argument you put forward above is wrong. Which is it?

They are atheist, what is so difficult about that concept?

The concept is very easy, I'm just not convinced it is correct, because by your definition and Rule Britannias, atheism encompases animism, numerous kinds of spirtual beliefs and all kinds of flavour of what people on this forum lovingly refer to as "Woo".

As opposed to acknoweldging a third possibility of agnosticism as something separate to atheism rather than a pure and wholly contained subset of it:

ag·nos·tic   /ægˈnɒstɪk/ Show Spelled[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.

[RuleBritannia]

Anyone and everyone, believers and non-believers are all agnostic when it comes to god, anyone who claims to be a gnostic is a fucking lier.

Agnosticism though says nothing about what you believe. When it comes to what you believe about god (or anything) there are only two options, they are jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive i.e. a dichotomy.

If you can not say "I believe in a god", then you, by default, do not believe. You are an atheist whether you like it or not.

Referring to your above post, the issue is linguistic. The post above imposes an either or choice atheist/not atheist, but logically that would place someone who believes they can communicate with the dead into the atheist camp, as they don't believe in a God.

There are any number of beliefs which invoke the supernatural but do not require a belief in God or Gods. That doesn't fit the definition of theist so if we are to accept your either/or position it must fall under atheism. Either that or the argument you put forward above is wrong. Which is it?

This post of mine you quoted has nothing to do with communicating with the dead, it was a general comment about how people claim that "agnostic" is between "theist" and "atheist".

If we're only talking about communicating with the dead then the terms "theist" and "atheist" are not relevent as it would be a category error. The dichotomies of belief/no belief and knowledge/no knowledge do apply though (as they apply to everything).

[RuleBritannia]

Referring to your above post, the issue is linguistic. The post above imposes an either or choice atheist/not atheist, but logically that would place someone who believes they can communicate with the dead into the atheist camp, as they don't believe in a God.

That is correct. They are.

There are any number of beliefs which invoke the supernatural but do not require a belief in God or Gods. That doesn't fit the definition of theist so if we are to accept your either/or position it must fall under atheism. Either that or the argument you put forward above is wrong. Which is it?

They are atheist, what is so difficult about that concept?

The concept is very easy, I'm just not convinced it is correct, because by your definition and Rule Britannias, atheism encompases animism, numerous kinds of spirtual beliefs and all kinds of flavour of what people on this forum lovingly refer to as "Woo".

As opposed to acknoweldging a third possibility of agnosticism as something separate to atheism rather than a pure and wholly contained subset of it:

ag·nos·tic   /ægˈnɒstɪk/ Show Spelled[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.

No this is wrong, I never said that "atheism" applies to anything other than a god concept.

[RuleBritannia]

As opposed to acknoweldging a third possibility of agnosticism as something separate to atheism rather than a pure and wholly contained subset of it:

ag·nos·tic   /ægˈnɒstɪk/ Show Spelled[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.

Agnosticism deals with knowledge not belief, as the dictionary clearly says.

As it doesn't deal with belief it cannot be the middle ground between "theist" and "atheist" (belief and disbelief).

[Twiglet]

1) If you can not say "I believe in a god", then you, by default, do not believe. You are an atheist whether you like it or not.
2) If we're only talking about communicating with the dead then the terms "theist" and "atheist" are not relevent as it would be a category error.

I'd say those two positions are directly contradicting each other.

leo-rcc's argument seems at least self consistent to me.