"an agnostic has to begin with the dogma "it is more reasonable
when faced with conflicting information to withhold commitment"."

Thats not dogma Martin, thats common sense. Anything else is jumping to
conclusions. I use the term as Huxley used it when he coined the term,
stating that the religious should provide some evidence for their claims, not
just claim to know.

" Commitment is freeing. the
intellect like the mouth prefers to close around something solid."

To put it another way, belief can help the brains chemistry to achieve
homeostasis or balance, to quell anxiety etc. Yup. That makes you feel better.
Thats less about intellect, more about emotional circuits and subconcious brain
activity.

"Yet you
attack Christians for not providing you with 'scientific' facts."

Well its you making the claim for god, making all sorts of claims, then using
politics to affect our lives, based on those claims. So provide evidence.
I don't attack Hare Krishnas or Buddhists, they don't try to change the rules by
which I am forced to live. If religion turns political, as the Catholic Church
does, then it is open to ricidule and criticism, as is any political party. Any
court of law relies on evidence to make decisons. So provide
evidence.

I am fully aware of what Islam is about. I just think that Christianity is not
much better, there are other solutions for society, based on our ability to
reason. So I point out Christianity's foibles :)

"Wouldn't belief in God,
if God is real, have positive effects on social relations and human dignity."

There are better ways to affect social relations and human dignity, then
religious addiction. The problem with religion, is that it can't show that God
is real, except for them, in their minds. No 10 commandments written on the
moon etc, so far just power for the clergy.

" Isn't
something true when it leads to the flourishing of human life?"

Mass delusion can lead to a flourishing of human life, that does not
mean that what is claimed is true.

Martin and Coach,

Coach wrote on Agnostics "we forget that non-Christians cannot philosophise, scientifise, rationalise, etc. their way around a truth they have no affinity with.”

I don’t think affinity is a precondition to think ontologically about belief. Remember billions of humans have lived for thousands of years across the world without the Christian god but still developed a sense of their own religious transcendentalism. Agnosticism is not anti-Christian or a self fulfilling nihilism. This I assume must be very hard for Christians to comprehend.

I personally respect that you have belief in your God and can see that this belief is good for you and others. I do believe in a god like entity or spirit but not the one you guys know so well from your bible and the ways you were taught to believe and proselytise.

So this juncture between belief and action is interesting to me.

For example, the philosopher Friedrick Nietzsche once insististed that with the decay of organised religion (the "death of God") will require us to responsibility for setting its own moral standards.

Bearing this in mind, does taking a Christian epistemological position incur a responsibility to taking a diametrically oppositional stance to Islam, Buddhism, and other non-Christians and is this a symptom that relates to the death of your god? (ontologically speaking)

With respect, I’ve always wanted to get one answer to this to mull over.

Looking forward to your responses

Well, if some want to maintain any credibility, they better find out who “Salman Pak” was and his slot in the Islamic cake, considering he was Persian and not an Arab.
That’s why this name forms part of the secret Islamic buisiness. Some truths not post modern fantasy.
Some have been beyond medication stage and for some for some time, Mr. Man, Steve M and a hand full of others, but see how you go with this link.
In advanced Attila warfare I would opt for the real intelligence and not your medicated state of mind thank you very much.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm

Ranier,
Congratulations, I can help.
With Philosophers, it is imperative you have an understanding of their Biography that gives you a better understanding of the Psyche of their perspectives.
F N in child hood was a very happy lad, until his father died suddenly, the onset of Post Traumatic Stress set in and developed worse later in age. At 19 years of age, an ill fated sexual encounter with a loose woman, he contracted syphilis. Realize the connotations of that and sanity later in life.
His Philosophical Perspective was Zarathustra spoke through him.
See this link: PDF.
http://www.solargeneral.com/library/ThusSpakeZarathustra.pdf
That is the link for Religion and Aryan. (Iran) and the beginnings of the first Prophet Zarathustra and Monotheism. Something Akhenaton could not sustain and achieve after his reign. Egyptian Pharaoh.
See Professor Revlo P Oliver History of Christianity here.
http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/RPO_NewChrist/toc_ol.htm

There are some floors, but the perspective is there.
You to Steve M and Mr Man, you will love this: Right up your ally.

Rainier,

I must repeat my point on TRUTH: if something is right it cannot also be wrong. E.g. the sun is “hot” cannot also mean “cold”. There are degrees of hotness but the fact (truth) is the sun is hot.

If the universe we live in was designed and created by “God” therefore all the evidence- physical, spiritual, biological…- must follow their maker and originator (a bit like the chicken and the egg) and point back to Him.

To the Israelites the progressive revelation of God through historical, physical, spiritual, prophetic,… facts and events transformed what could have been a chain of haphazard coincidences into a beyond doubt “conviction” that defies any scrutiny. That God is: Truth. (like the sun is hot or the earth is spherical).

Christianity is just the last chapter in the series of progressive revelations.

Nothing has proven christianity wrong, though many critics have tried and will continue to try to no avail, WHY? Because it is TRUTH, it always points back to God... supported by countless proofs and witnesses over many centuries.

Other beliefs, religions … no matter how sincere, scientific, ancient, or how many followers they may have; co-exist with “the truth” but they cannot claim to be true also; they simply fade away in comparison. In other words they are sincerely wrong and have been wrong for however long, and will continue to be wrong.

Today, there is no excuse to hang on to those beliefs because the truth has been revealed.

This is not an elitist self indulgent stance – even though it has all the making of being one – it is purely that light cannot co-exist with darkness.

Today it would be ridiculous to have people arguing that the earth is still flat.

Similarly to say: who needs God when we control life anyway... is equivalent to saying who needs the sun when it is day time anyway?

I am no philosopher, theologian, anthropologist, nor that one needs to be anything like that to have FAITH in ‘the truth’ and TRUST in the God that keeps all His promises.

"Nothing has proven christianity wrong, though many critics have tried and will
continue to try to no avail, WHY? Because it is TRUTH, it always points back to
God... supported by countless proofs and witnesses over many centuries."

Coach, at some point you are going to have to accept that Christianity is not the truth, but your perceived truth, no more.

Fact is, that you can't prove that the tooth fairy or Santa don't exist! Proving a negative is not possible, that does not mean that the claims are true either.

What we do know from holy books is that they are all full of mistakes and contradictions, so were written by people, forget the godly input.

No substantiated evidence either, that Chritianity is right and the other 3000 religions are wrong. You make claims like all the others, none verified.

We also today know that when people walk in the desert and hear voices, perhaps its not actually god, just another case of schizophrenia, which affects about 1% of the population.

The Catholics still have a department dealing with being possessed by "demons". Today we understand epilepsy pretty well.

Luckily science is around to make sense of the world for you :)