I've shown that agnosticism by definition can never be the correct stance to take, it is a self-contradictory position.
I am sorry, but this one of the most inaccurate things I've ever heard in the entire discussion of religion. If you think that agnosticism is self-contradictory, then you do not understand the purpose of agnosticism. I am stating that people do not know, and never will know. As it so happens, people do not know... and I'm betting my money that people never will know.
The proposition there is very simply and straight forward, and does not contradict itself. Further more, it is proven at least partly true, in a factual sense, already. The human race will have to end before we can know if all of the assertion is true.
Much of your points about agnosticism being wrong were based on assumed premises, like for instance, that I believe in a dichotomy between the natural spiritual "realm" (and I believe in no such thing). I am pleading ignorance, though. That's not a fallacy. Appealing to ignorance is a fallacy, because you would be concluding something based on what you don't know. But I am, perhpas better put, conceding to ignorance. I have no way of knowing, so I don't know. That's just reasonable. A wise person should know when to say "I don't know".
Agnosticism does not lead to any sort of discovery because it pleads that we'll never know enough to make an educated conclusion. Atleast by taking a Theistic or Atheistic position we can actually learn about the universe because we make an effort to do so, in these positions we try to gather observations and see if they fit or do not fit the idea of God, it is progress towards a conclusion.
Baseless assertion once more. I'm very interested in studdying a lot of things. The particular subject of God however, is an unenlightening waste of time.
Statements like "God exists" are either true or false, they cannot be Neither. Agnosticism holds that the statement "God exists" can neither be true nor false, which is fundamentally the wrong approach.
That's a real bastardization of epistemological thinking, right there. Agnosticism holds no such impliciations. Any agnostic knows that one of the two statements, there is or isn't a God, must be true. However, the main point is that regardless of which one is fact, humans will never, ever, know. That's very important. There is a reality here, but the problem is that it will be known. Is that clear? The word agnostic means "without knowing".
O really? Well last time I checked we're on our way to a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and general relativity, which would be one step closer having a grand-theory of the universe. We're a clever species contrary to popular belief, just not All of us are, but the individuals that are definitely know how to find these kinds of things out and pass the knowledge down to us. Think about how much knowledge has been amassed so recently, and how much more we will obtain in the future.
Questions about creators of the universe, or meaning of life, or crap like that, will not be answered because they are subjects which, by their nature, transcend evidence. That's one of the most important things to consider here. One of the reasons this debate is dumb, is people are arguing about something so fundamental in power, that it defines existence, and therefore defines the idea of what is or isn't relevant reasoning or decent proof. There are some mysteries of the universe that will always be mysteries. The unified theory is probably not one of them, but I think you're very foolish if you think that's really a step to basically
solving existence.
Have you ever heard the theory about how we cannot objectively study the mind? The reason we can never truly do it, is that every human being has to use their mind to study anything. Therefore, we can't understand anything about the mind that require an outside perspective. These questions about the fundamental workings of existence suffer from the same problem.
It is probably the most important source of conflict in the history of the human race, a world without religion is more unified than one divided by religion.
1) That's probably an over-statement of it's importance. And even if it is, my point is that it shouldn't be, and it's not something I just blame on the religious, it is something I blame on the doggedly unreligious as well. Let it go, like me.
Then there'd be no conflict over this.
2) A world without religion would be slightly more unified. So would a world with everyone belieiving one particular religion. Never the less, the world would still be divided by race, culture, ethnicity, language, region, philosophy anf so fourth. Could you possibly get rid of all of those differences? Would you want to?
Reread that and promise never to say it again. Howabout we concede ignorance to Everything? Wouldn't that be great? We don't know how Anything works at all!!! I never thought that I'd see the words Wise and Ignorance used together...
Strawman... I'm hardly telling people to ignore everything. I am telling people to understand that some particular subjects, often by way of the perameters that define them, are hopeless causes. I repeat that I have never advocated a total halt of inquiry. I think you are failing to acknowledge very basic concepts of philosophy here. You are failing to account for plain old fallibalism and unknowability. I've never seen anyone do that before.
So have at it. What happens when an irresistable force collides with an unmovable object? By your philosophy, I expect you to spend a very long time trying to answer this...
