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[Fooloso4]

Eduk:

2. How do your actions change, with practical examples, if you are agnostic.

If one is agnostic about the God(s) of monotheism does one keep kosher just in case? And not drink wine and pray during the prayer times just in case? And get baptized, take communion, and go to confession just in case? Are both Saturday and Sunday the sabbath? The problem is complicated by the fact that within each of these three religions there are differences with regard to what one must and must not do.

If one separates God from religion then your actions may not change at all. You might do what you do not because of a God who may or may not exist but because you believe that this is the proper way to live, that your behavior is guided by what you believe to be good and just, and God would approve.This was Socrates solution to the problem of death - if it is the end then he lived well, but if it is not the end then he had no fear of punishment because he lived well.

[Eduk]

So f4 there is no difference between atheism and agnosticism regarding actions one may take?

[Alias]

And Alias you don't sound agnostic. Sounds like you know God isn't real?

I'm an atheist. I said as much in my first post. The agnostic journey, for me, was quite short, once I started reading the bible.
This is only one perspective. I am aware of many others.

Also you perhaps grew up in a religious area?

What is a religious area? The whole of western civilization is informed, imbued, saturated, riddled, infected, contaminated, illuminated, uplifted - whatever way you see it - by Christianity in its various forms. It is also quite widely influenced by Judaism and Islam, with, here and there, tiny blips of eastern mysticism, early European pagan folklore, American native animism, and a plethora of modern mumbo-jumbo. Superstition in some form is inescapable: it's in our annual celebrations, legal documents, political inaugurations, music, literature and cinema, even our mundane language is full of religious references. The people of some geographical regions are more liberal in their attitude; tolerant of odd practices or no practice; others are suffocating in public displays of religiosity and overtly oppressive in policy.

have met many people who grew up without religious parents who would probably describe themselves as agnostic (as their parents might also).

Granted, there are a few lucky escapees from religious indoctrination. The post-war generation under USSR domination might be such a group - even though their elders were still Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox when the national policy was secularism. Most of those people didn't need to assume any stance regarding the supernatural, until the "communist" regime collapsed and the churches had their triumphant resurgence.
They describe themselves only to differentiate their position from some prevailing belief system, or to emphasize their non-atheism. If not taking sides were the norm, they wouldn't need to label themselves at all.

[Fooloso4]

Eduk:

So f4 there is no difference between atheism and agnosticism regarding actions one may take?

With regard to their actions an atheist an agnostic and a theist may be indistinguishable. That is not to say all atheists, agnostics, and theists, but rather that from their actions you may not be able to identify some people as either atheist, agnostic, or theist.

I cannot think of any actions that would distinguish an atheist and an agnostic except in cases where an atheist has made it their mission to do battle with theists, and even in those cases it may be merely a war of words rather than actions, although there are exceptions.

There probably are some agnostics who refrain from doing some things just in case, but there are also theists who do things they believe they are prohibited by God from doing.

[Fanman]

Eduk,

1. Which God? By which I mean various religious claim to know specific mutually exclusive Gods. Which God are you being agnostic about and does it matter?

I've been agnostic for around 3 years now and I don't believe that any God or gods exist. Which makes me sound like an atheist, but I do not rule out the possibility that God or gods could exist. So I choose to call myself agnostic because I don't know for certain.

2. How do your actions change, with practical examples, if you are agnostic.

In relation to?

3. If you are agnostic, as defined above, then is it exactly 50/50 whether or not God exists. And does that matter?

I wouldn't quantify the degree to which I believe it is possible that God or gods could exist, but I think that the probability that it/they exists is very small.

[Alias]

There is that scale again:
theism >> uncertainty of gods' existence >> ------------ agnosticism ------------>> uncertainty in gods' non-existence>> atheism
It rarely goes the other way. There are plenty of atheists in foxholes; indeed, probably more atheists are made there than converts.

[Eduk]

Fanman, you didn't really answer question 1. Which God/Gods are you agnostic about? All of them?
8. Where do you draw the line between God/Gods and other things which you don't 'know' don't exist. For example are you agnostic about Santa Claus, and if not why not?
2. I don't think it needs to be in relation to anything. A theist might go to church. They may say they believe gay people are evil. They may pray etc etc. An atheist would do something else other than go to church, they can of course still hate gay people but they can't say it is for religious reasons. As f4 says if you are judging purely by action there may well be next to no difference between atheist, agnostic and theist. Actually my suspicion is that on the whole there is no difference (if judging by action) but that is a different conversation, I am responding to claims other people have made. I myself do not claim agnostics act differently, but I am interested in those who claim that they do.

[Eduk]

Alias I don't have access to the numbers, do you? Certainly I have heard of atheists who become theists and vice versa. I have no idea no idea what the proportions are, I've always assumed it was basically even, but I have put no thought into the matter.

[Sy Borg]

Thanks for the long answer Greta. It seems to me that the God you are agnostic about is not necessarily a God any theist believes in?

I'm not sure, maybe there's some commonalities and differences. Generally I have more time for far Eastern than Abrahamic ideas. It seems that those cultures had a superior analytical approach to their existential situation and the Islamic golden age was still 1,000 years away.

4. In your opinion is your God and say Christian God the same God?

... "your God" I'll take that as shorthand for "the larger consciousness that you don't disbelieve".

Logically, any vaguely plausible God is not going to be a "He", but an It. This is a critical and very much underestimated distinction - arguably the most important aspect of the whole discussion. Consider the nature of a God that is definitely not a He or She, but an It. The idea immediately conjures up the naturalistic God of Spinoza, and that's closer to the intuitions that keep me from being an atheist.

I am a longtime fan of the so-called "New Atheists" (a title they reject BTW). I found them to be flawed, but brilliant, and they seemed to perform an equivalent taboo-breaking function as Germaine Greer did in the 70s. Ancient mystics (whose details I've forgotten) would refer to "The Lion Stage", a time when one must be more extreme than usual so as to overcome inertia and effect change. This is how I see GG and Dawkins's crew. Each went too far at times because, if they didn't, people would not have paid attention. There is apparently an equivalent stage in personal growth, where one needs to galvanise, to be more extreme, in order to overcome the inertia of ingrained habits.

There's another angle to all this: imagination. What if imagination is more potent and interesting than we realise, another significantly underestimated phenomenon?

5. Is your God and all/any God the same God? Or are some Gods the same God and some Gods not the same God.

Buggered if I know I note that you wrote "your God" again. I appreciate that you are saving on extra typing and clunkiness but it's jarring to read

6. Is there any God you aren't agnostic towards?

Obviously I don't believe in "Santa God". I suspect that many believers are talking about more or less the same thing, but plenty are as closed minded towards other religions as any atheist, whom Dawkins noted simply disbelieve one more religion than theists do. Yet there has always been a minority of theists who tend towards a more universal, less tribal, line of thought, believing that different creeds are approaching the same reality in their own ways.

7. Can I ask for some clarity on your answer to 3. You are saying there is a 0 percent chance your God exists and a 0 percent chance he doesn't exist? That is logically impossible?

That's because you forgot another possibility (and perhaps my favourite) - that we are all entirely and completely wrong about the nature of reality.

If we are part of a larger, more sentient system, then it would be no surprise if our reports would conflict so often, and seem nonsensical and hard to explain. Imagine chimps giving their impressions of human transactions. They wouldn't have a clue and simply tend towards speculation and guesswork. A freakish genius "scientist ape" might decide to investigate what's going on methodically, without making assumptions. Alas, its ideas would be laughably simplistic, based on a chimp frame of reference. There would be some kind of human chaos theory - maybe hypothesising that humans contain an element of randomness (hence all the inexplicable behaviour). Meanwhile the religious chimps might claim local banana plantations to be Chimp Mecca

Also, if we lived within a sentient system, how would we know? It's the same problem of other minds that we face daily, and that Nagle observed. Whether we live within a conscious or relatively unconscious system, you would still probably expect to see things moving around in a mechanistic fashion. There is weak evidence either way - both in the lack of evidence found by science and mountains of subjective accounts, and none of it is a definitive proof.

[Alias]

http://time.com/4283975/god-belief-religion-americans/
Note 1944-1947, 67-76, and the most recent never-ending war.

[Namelesss]

Nameless you don't sound agnostic, to me. You sound like you know the 'elephant' is real.

Lets just say that to an honest, healthy mind, all Knowledge is tentative.
No, I don't Know that that sugar is sweet, even with a mouthful.
I Know that sweetness is what I perceive, a quality of 'me', not the sugar.
There is always that possibility that as usual, the perceptions fall far short of telling the entire story, thus 'tentative'.
All honest Knowledge is tentative.
Otherwise, we move into religion.
We perceive the elephant, from many Perspectives; it is the only Reality that we Know (albeit tentatively).

[Namelesss]

I've always assumed it was basically even, but I have put no thought into the matter.

Pretty even would be a reasonable assumption since;

"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" - First Law of Soul Dynamics

[Namelesss]

[How do your actions change].

That's like asking if being a black man changed your skin to black!
It was never otherwise.

I have never known this to be the case. All the agnostics I've encountered, in walking life or in print, started out as theists.

Responding to the statement;
"2. How do your actions change... if you are agnostic."
What I was pointing out, rather ineptly and hurriedly, is that being an agnostic is a state of being, Here! Now! We have no option but to manifest Our present state of being. Thus one's perceived 'actions' reflect that state of being, they do not 'change' unless the state of being, also, changes.

It is not a state of being; it is a process of thought.

Thought/ego is a feature of a 'state of being', some might even argue 'essential', for without thought/ego... Consciousness, there would be no Known Being.
States of Being do not necessarily involve 'thought/ego', such as transcendental states, Zen (thoughtless) states, unconditional states, like Love....
All thought/ego is duality, unconditional/transcendental 'transcends' the duality of conditional thought/concepts.

[Alias]

So, like, everything is whatever. Okay.

[Eduk]

Greta what do you mean by santa god?
The reason I say your God is because I don't think it is obvious, at least to me, which God or Gods you are agnostic about and which you are atheist about.
Actually it reminds me of the line about a theist is an atheist with one exception. Of course that is a simplification as many theists believe that other theists believe in the same God as them (even though they say they don't). But I've also heard theists make the same claim as you about santa God.
I personally have never seen atheism as a stance that made sense independent of theism. Without theism I may as well say I am atheist of something I can't define, or invent my own God and be atheist about that. So in that sense I am agnostic about something I can't define.