""individual mourning,..when one of his skin cells dies.""

yes egsactly
god KNOWS energy cant be created,,NOR destroyed
he sustains every lifes energy[that we do to the least..we do to him

""the sloppy use of language..has always annoyed me"""

egsactly...what does survival of the fittest
have to do with the one surving all living.

no death honours the good of life[god]/

""Surely the question..should be whether or not
consciousness and sense of identity survive?""

they do...in total
not a skin cell is left from the story that is you
or i or any...[even the least most hated despised...its all needed to bring us to the atonement..[at one meant][that is most surely all good can be..and only one god is]

""Jung's 'collective unconscious'.""

together we are so great
be one with one and other

""but hardly of much use to me..as an individual.""

man is not designed..to spend eternity alone
[i know im still giving it a go]

only one..is truelly alone
[without equal[peer]
[him]..all good
god

i loved..Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land),

i grok

""Again, evidence is distinctly lacking.
No doubt, one day I'll be dying to find out.""

we all do
and the minute we know its all true
some just say lord...thankyou

i know your love grace and mercy
now how can i help..[do as you saw jesus do?]
not as the ursurping church orders..[guilts]...us to do

4 me..its about god
good..to copy the good i do see
even in those decieved and decieving

love good by trying to love neighbour..
not his wife/child/dog..nor asssssssets

Sorry Luciferase, but I haven’t a clue what relevance most of that has to do with what I’ve said, sorry.

In regards to atoms, I believe to a high degree of certainty that atoms exist because their existence has been demonstrated. To any extent that is practical, I guess I could also say that I know they exist.

If the atoms in that question were supposed to be some sort of metaphor used as a comparison or an analogy to a God, then it was a pretty poor example, I’m afraid. Transcendental pixies would have been more appropriate because atoms are part of the naturalistic realm that we live in and can know exists. There are no supernatural claims in regards to atoms.

<<By all means, choose not to believe in God … but do not claim to know He doesn't exist.>>

Again, no idea what the relevance is here. I’ve made no claim to knowledge about the existence or non-existence of any Gods and to the extent that we can’t be absolutely certain, I agree with you, but absolute certainty is useless.

To any extent that it’s practical, however, one could go as far as to say that they know God doesn’t exist because it is reasonable to conclude, after thousands of years of coming-up empty handed, that theists have nothing. Strictly speaking, we can NEVER reach absolute certainty, but that doesn’t mean we can't know anything.

I’m having a hard time keeping up with where you’re really at, Luciferase. You were sounding like a theist before, now you’re starting to sound like one of these elitist “agnostics” who actually think there’s anything useful in stating, “Oh, but we can’t really KNOW”, and whose feelings of superiority over being supposedly open-minded, cloud their ability to see that their attributing of equal credibility to both sides of the argument is erroneous and unbalanced.

<<Your argument around the point of belief vs knowledge is thin indeed and actually not worth getting worked up over, IMO.>>

Well, the difference between theist/atheist and Gnostic/agnostic are very distinct and in my opinion, language matters.

AJ,

As you correctly say, “language matters”, we should choose words with care.

There IS a difference between “knowing” and “believing to a high degree of certainty.” This was the point of my atomistic analogy.

A man believes, to a high degree of certainty that God does not exist.

Ergo, he does not know, absolutely, that God does not exist.

A man may be unconvinced by the by theists’ evidence in support of their belief, remaining a doubter (agnostic).

However, should his position be that he knows, absolutely, that God does not exist then he holds no intrinsic superiority over a theist that claims to know, absolutely, that He does.

You say, and I agree in our context, “Strictly speaking, we can NEVER reach absolute certainty, but that doesn’t mean we can't know anything.”

If you read UOG, you will note he claims absolute knowledge, not belief. His position is as impregnable to science as that man who knows absolutely that a god does not exist. One claims knowledge of a god (is gnostic), the other denies its existence (is atheistic). This is not a tidy either/or dichotomy but is where terminology leads.

If I have posited something with which you disagree then please indicate where and leave value judgements about me like “feelings of superiority” and “elitist” out of it

Luciferase,

Yes, there is a difference between “knowing” and “believing to a high degree of certainty”, and I suspected that that was your point. But I had made no claims to knowledge in the post you were responding to and I had already explained that atheism wasn’t necessarily a claim to certainty or knowledge.

So again, I don’t understand the relevance.

<<A man believes, to a high degree of certainty that God does not exist. Ergo, he does not know, absolutely, that God does not exist.>>

Precisely. And unless he makes a claim to knowledge on the subject, then he is an ‘agnostic-atheist’.

Again, the two are not mutually exclusive as you appear to believe they are.

<<A man may be unconvinced by the by theists’ evidence in support of their belief, remaining a doubter (agnostic).>>

Yes, but he would also be an atheist as he is not yet convinced by the arguments from theists and so he does not *believe* them.

Belief - knowledge;
Knowledge - belief.

Like I said before: theism and atheism go to what you BELIEVE, while gnosticism and agnosticism go to what you KNOW. Agnosticism is not a middle-ground (as so many falsely believe), and while it tells others what one knows and/or doesn’t know, it says nothing about what one actually believes; a rather useless and unhelpful label when you think about it.

While there are theists (most of them, in fact) who claim absolute knowledge of God’s supposed existence, I personally don’t know of any atheists who would do the same about the non-existence. Either way, I’m not sure why you’re still going on about absolute knowledge. I’ve already dismissed it as useless and the way your raising of it is proving to be irrelevant to my points here, is a good demonstration of why.

<<If I have posited something with which you disagree then please indicate where and leave value judgements about me like “feelings of superiority” and “elitist” out of it>>

I only said you sounded like that. And I think you're only sounding like that because you're so confused here.

I'm sorry AJ, but I must beg to differ.
I won't be so patronising as to suggest “you're confused”, but I will say some of your statements are confusing.
“Like I said before: theism and atheism go to what you BELIEVE...” perfectly true.
“Agnosticism is not a middle-ground (as so many falsely believe)” Really?
Agnostic: a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic eg: Socrates was an agnostic on the subject of immortality.
That sounds like middle-ground to me. And rather than being “a rather useless and unhelpful label” it also sounds like a better starting point for a scientific exploration of any subject, rather than having preconceived notions, or 'beliefs'.
It's quite fascinating that you can put a few atheists into a room together and they will argue endlessly about the nature of the belief or non belief of the non existence of a non corporeal being.
Wow.

let 'a' equal anti
anti-thiest= athiest
a-gnostic=anti gnostic

noting there isnt such a lable as a-theo
any truelly anti god...but all anti the messages of the mess-angers

to judge god on his creation negativly
implies ignorance of the true good [love grace mercy charity]
that perveaded all the realms...[heck even demons in hell
love[lust]..after each others passions

so there is love..even in the lower hells
christoffer hitckids could have said it so much better
but didnt..[or if he did..it was edited out]

anyhow im against using lables
i believe in good [god]

but appart from that ..im a thiest too
and a gnostic...and a xtian...and a buddist
a b

b what you want to be an a..eh"
but mostly just b the best u you can b
[b=beta]