Recent content by Graustein

Occam's Razor disproves nothing. It states that, all other factors being equal, we should accept the simpler theory. It says absolutely nothing about which theory is the correct one.

Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Neither are theism and agnosticism. Agnosticism is not being undecided, agnosticism is "we don't know for sure". There is absolutely no reason you can't believe in god and not be agnostic, and absolutely no reason you can't NOT believe in god...

That's besides the point. 1.) It's going to cost the government a HUGE amount of money to implement and maintain, during the biggest economic recession in living memory. Money that could be better spent on... pretty much ANYTHING 2.) Who's going to decide what's "inappropriate"? There's no...

A friend directed me to this questionnaire ("When I saw this I thought of you"), I've just filled it in, and I'd be happy to do the interview as well at some point (Although after the HSC would be better if that's not too late)

This lends a whole new meaning to the term "copypasta"

If that's the way you feel about it. I don't consider belief something you have a conscious decision in. Good for you. For me, it's the opposite. I'll never accept the Bible (various reasons, but they all come back to its supposed infallibility), but I'm more than willing to accept the...

Since when did people believe things because they "wanted" to, rather than because it just makes perfect sense to them? I don't think you can "choose" whether or not to believe anything, because surely that defeats the purpose of belief. You can allow yourself to be persuaded, but I don't think...

You can be agnostic and still support either idea. Most agnostics do. Believing in one thing or the other isn't really a conscious choice, you can't look in the face of the evidence and not believe it. You can interpret the evidence in a way that suits you, but that's only where the evidence...

Of course there's no in between. Agnosticism is "God either exists or God doesn't exist, we don't know for sure" Your actual opinion on whether or not God DOES exist or not is not related to whether or not you're agnostic.

Yes.

No, it's not necessary, but some (note: some) atheists are dissilusioned with what they may variously see as a huge delusion, a huge conspiracy, a huge lie - not to mention how many religions, when taken to literal extremes, are not only absurd (Denying evolution for example), but downright...

No, it doesn't. It's far too subjective. "Common sense" can be and is used to argue both sides of the argument (not just this one), and basing your argument on something as abstract and ill-defined as "common sense" just doesn't work.

I stand corrected. Be that as it may, I still stay by my original claim, which is that the majority of us are agnostic, and there are more agnostic theists than there are agnostic atheists.

No, a theist could not say that. Theism is the belief in a god. Atheism, by the very definition of the term, is non-theism, whether it take the form of lack of belief in the presence of God or outright belief in God's absence. Both are atheism. Now, on agnosticism: I would argue that to be...

If there is a God, how do you know it's your God? How do you know there's only one? How do you know the bible or the koran or the torah are true and not some other holy text? What is it that makes your theories about God any more or less valid than anyone else's? Can you in fact support the...