Religion
Related: About this forumIn light of some recent postings and articles, it's time to revisit this...again.
Get it? Got it? Good.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)humblebum
(5,881 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)You can direct the witless sarcasm toward them.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Unsure just what it is? Then have a look at your posts. or use your "other" ways of knowing. Or reply with more and strengthen my point.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)of your responses to me, and voila!
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Now you know what you need to do to improve the witless stuff you provide, and while entertaining, it's pretty sophomoric and boring.
Glad I could help. Have a great day.
10 bucks says you are unable to resist the urge to respond and provide us with yet another witless, sophomoric, and boorish post.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)put the ten bucks on my tab.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)I'm happy to oblige.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)msongs
(67,441 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)This has nothing to do with any particular religion. Its about belief and knowledge.
saras
(6,670 posts)What appear to be the four corners of the square divided into four by the cross (upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right) - are actually the same point.
How is an agnostic atheist like a gnostic theist? (sounds like a joke setup, but can't think of the punchline).
A socratic buddhist or pyrrhonian skeptic (kenoma) and neoplatonist mystic (pleroma) do meet at same point, even though arriving from opposite directions.
And instead of a ball, it would be nice if I cound visualize a hypersphere or n-ball...
edhopper
(33,615 posts)Gnostic axis refers to the certitude with which you hold your position. If i am 99% sure that there is no God(s), I would be a Gnostic Atheist. Do I have that right?
Your point being that Agnostics are not just somewhere between Believers and Atheists.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Theism is belief (Atheism is lack of belief)
Gnosticism is knowledge (Agnosticism is lack of knowledge)
The point is that one has nothing to do with the other, and it is a common misconception that agnosticism is the middle ground between Theism and Atheism.
Both are Binary points, meaning that your either believe or do not believe, and you know or you do not know.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Theism is belief (Atheism is lack of belief)
Gnosticism is knowledge (Agnosticism is lack of knowledge)
The point is that one has nothing to do with the other, and it is a common misconception that agnosticism is the middle ground between Theism and Atheism.
Both are binary points, meaning that your either believe or do not believe, and you know or you do not know.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that nearly all theists AND atheists are Agnostic in respect to their position.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)Both in the philosophical and linguistic sense, after Plato at least (and since the word agnostic was invented in 1869 that's a long way after Plato).
Gnosis refers to knowledge yes, but specifically knowledge via mystically revealed certainty. If you do a series of experiments to find the boiling point of sulphur and find it to be 455 degrees or so, that's not gnosis in the agnostic sense. Gnosis from about 200 BCE has meant knowledge gotten from divine or spiritual revelation outside empirical means.
So agnostic means there is no way we can get knowledge via revelation or spiritual certainty.
Your main point of course is absolutely true. Agnmosticism and atheism answer two completely separate questions and refer to two completely separate mental processes. I am 100% both, and not schizophrenic (as far as we know )
for making the point that came also to my mind.
In Gnostic Christianity (and Neoplatonism, Hermeticism etc.) 'gnosis' is very close to the Hindu, Buddhist etc. idea of 'unveiling of truth', awakening from ignorance', 'enlightment' etc.
In Aristotle's classification of 'ways of knowing' (Nicomachean Ethics), gnosis is the mostly undefinable foundation that rest of ways of knowing - praxis, tekhne, episteme, fronesis, theoria and philosophia - build on and depend from.
tama
(9,137 posts)It's as incorrect to call the 1-dimensional analysis incorrect and 2-dimensional analysis correct, as it is incorrect to say that Newton's theory is incorrect and Einstein's theory correct.
Newtonian mechanics is still valid theory in its own narrow context, allthough non-euclidean spacetime has wider and deeper exlanatory power.
rug
(82,333 posts)dmallind
(10,437 posts)The "I don't care" answerer is still either a theist or an atheist depending on whether he believes a god exist or doesn't. I truly don't care at all if the local kids' basketball team wins this tournament thingy they always have in March. I hear enough talk at the bar and see enough rankings cross the screen to not have any positive belief that they will though. I am an "IU-tournament-win-atheist" no matter how little I care. And even here, it's far easier to be completely opinionless on kids' basketball than it is to be on gods.
Other than that, a minor quibble that logically it's very possible to be a gnostic theist with a non-loving god (but in modern US practice, I would guess extremely rare), I think this expanded version is a good addition. Did you make it or find it may I ask?
rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)Needless to say, other than those at the very extremes, I think most people move around within the quadrants over the course of their lives (or even the course of a day).