Sorry to hear about that, I can fully understand your mixed feelings. This crazy fundamentalist religion can surely bring out the worse of some people. My condolences.
Eden
EdenOne
JoinedPosts by EdenOne
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42
she passed faithful to the end to them!
by jookbeard injust found out (second hand of course) and by someone on here that my faithful jw mum passed away within the last couple of days, dont know the exact day, and what cause, she spent the last few years living with my fanatical sister, she was 65 and survived my father by 10 years, bitter, angry and hateful till the end and never as so much enquired or asked how her 2 grandchildren ever were , they are 5 and 7!
feeling a mixture of emotions right now, they were lousy parents in all honesty, she suffered health wise so maybe its for the best, dont even know when the funeral is!
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
It's been a nice chat, but it's late and I'm no deity and need my beauty sleep, otherwise tomorrow I'll surely need to abuse coffee to get me going.
Nite nite, it was interesting. Keep this discussion going, by all means.
I leave the popcorn bowl behind for you.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Hindus, Aztecs, Native Americans, and many others will have different concepts of their deities, different from the monotheistic religions we're accustomed to. Some religions believe that God is the entire universe; others believe that God encompasses and also transcends the entire universe. Others believe that God is the collective mind of all living forms on earth. We find atheism usually very concerned about discrediting the deity of the monotheistic religions, and then extrapolating and making blanket statements about every other form of beliefs in deities. They may be right in the end, and perhaps no deities exist. But their logic is just as flawed as the theistic view, as atheism cannot provide hard evidence for the non-existence of deities. They can correctly point out the lack of evidence for the existence of God, but then they make the epistemological leap into the absolute claim of the non-existence of God. That's a fallacy of non-sequitur. Followed by numerous examples of strawman fallacy to hide the embarrassing fact that their claim is at least as logically extravagant as the theist claims.
That's why the proposition of absentheism is much more reasonable and the simplest explanation that can be backed up by empirical evidence: "All we can say about God is that its absent".
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
No, I didn't pressuposed the pre-existence of 'something'. I deducted the need for a 'something', and I went and created it. It wasn't there or anywhere before. Absence doesn't pressupose a pre-existence. It may accomodate a pre-existence for sure, but it doesn't require it.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Jonathan Drake,
I'm sure it hasn't escaped you that I'm not being apologetic of theism here; I'm saying that atheism makes a claim at least as extravagant as theism and requires an equal, if not larger, amount of evidence to back up such claim.
Also, why is there a necessity to associate a deity with the beginning, development and sustenance of life on earth? What if a deity is something else that we don't understand yet? As per your illustration from the bank: you cannot compare a bank that never existed with a deity whose existence you cannot verify. Sure, if the bank never existed, the story certainly has at least an element of falsity. But the problem with the deity is that you cannot verify empirically neither its existence NOR its non-existence. So, you can lead your life assuming it doesn't exist, sure - but in the realm of metaphisics, you cannot assert anything but: " All we can safely say about God is the evidence of its absence".
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
If i'm elaborating on a new mathematical equation, and it's not working, I may say: "Something is missing here" in the sense of "something is absent". When I finally crack the equation, the bit that was missing, or absent, had never been there before. And yet, its absence was noticeable. As you can see, for something to be "absent" doesn't have to necessarily be pre-existent.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Fukitol, I gave both the classic and the popular notions of agnosticism. There are others, but I think those will sufffice to illustrate the point. As for definitions, if you find anything unsound with my definition of "absent" other than it can't be found in a popular online dictionary, you're welcome to elaborate.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Let me put it this way: If Joe says: "there is a deity in the universe", and Jack says: "there is no deity in the universe", let me ask you, who has the heaviest burden of proof? Because in order to conclude beyond question that there is no deity in the universe, Jack must scan the entire universe to make good on his claim. As for Joe, if he finds a deity lurking on the nearest planet, his search for evidence is over. Therefore, the heaviest burden of proof falls on atheists, not on theists.
This is not to say that Theists are right and Atheists are wrong. This simply means that the Atheist demand for evidence from Theists is a fallacy because they make the same grandiose claims without providing any evidence to back it up. It's better to be a absentheist, by far.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Agnosticism in its formal aception is that God, if exists, cannot be known. A more modern and prosaic notion is: "I can't decide if God exists or not". Absentheism leaves open the possibility that a deity exists and can be known. Or doesn't exist. Or exists and cannot be known. What is saying simply is this: God's presence can't be attested here and now. (hence, the term "absence" because the possibility of presence also exists), and that's all we can say about deity that can be demonstrated without resorting to grandiose claims about the existence or non-existence of deities.
Eden
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284
I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?
by EdenOne init just dawned on me.
the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.
so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.
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EdenOne
Do you find anything unsound with my definition? Please elaborate. Or is this a case of a fallacy of authority?
Eden