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Hal an agnostic?

Silicon

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From this thread:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40066

Hal Bidlack: First, as you know, faith is a non-testable notion. The JREF is only interested, as an organization, in testing that which can be tested. A statement like "I know there is a god" or "I know there isn't a god" are not testable. The mission of the JREF involves those things that are based on logic, evidence, and reason, and which can, to repeat myself, can be tested. Thus, while we can certainly test for things that are claimed to be evidence of faith (e.g., "god gives me the power to, say, bend things"), we can't test for god him/her/they self.
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WAITAMINUTE!!!!

Does that make Hal an agnostic because he believes that God's existence or non-existance is beyond the ken of humans?


After all, the fundamentalist believes there is plenty of proof of God's existence.

If you are any flavor of Christian on the planet, certainly you must believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. If the accounts of Jesus Christ are true in the least, THAT would be incontrovertable evidence of supernatural weight to Jesus's teachings.

If there were any body of predictions or prophecy in the Bible that came true, or any Bible Codes, or any historical or archeological evidence that came to light that could show the events in the Bible to be true, surely THAT WOULD be within the bounds of man to prove.

If a giant boat is found on top of mount ararat, THAT ALONE would go a long way to proving that a worldwide flood existed, and that all animals have common descent from Noah's animals (ha!).

If DNA evidence came up that showed we all had a common ansestor about the time of the supposed flood, that would do.

In short, to be a christian, is there ANY WAY you could hold a belief that god's existence is UN-provable?


Does that make Hal a closet agnostic? Albeit a wishfully-thinking one?
 
By that definition of agnostic, 90% of Christians would probably qualify.

There's a difference between saying "I don't know" and "I believe it even though you can't prove it with evidence".

Then again, I expect most fundamentalists would probably agree with you, for just the reasons you listed...
 
Silicon said:

Does that make Hal an agnostic because he believes that God's existence or non-existance is beyond the ken of humans?
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I believe he was speaking of the JREF's beliefs, not his own. Regardless, knowing that "God" is untestable has very little relevance in one's faith that "God" exists. In fact, one could argue that they are mutually exclusive. :D
After all, the fundamentalist believes there is plenty of proof of God's existence.
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I'd say that a good goal for a skeptic-based website would be to point out the difference between belief and proof.
If you are any flavor of Christian on the planet, certainly you must believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
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Total aside from the topic, but until the Council of Nicea, there was great debate about whether Jesus was actually devine or a prophet. As I understand it, it was a close race and the council almost went with Jesus just being a prophet of the non-devine variety.
In short, to be a christian, is there ANY WAY you could hold a belief that god's existence is UN-provable?
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Yes, I think so.
 
My question is:

Isn't Jesus evidence?

Is there an end to all evidence about God? Do we absolutely know that God will never reveal Himself (again?). Do we absolutely know that science will not uncover or prove any of the Biblical evidence to be fact? Do we know that Hubble will never take a photograph of the words "I am that I am" within the background radiation of the big bang? Do we know that our DNA will never ever be discovered to have had a common ancestor in Noah?

And if you've resigned yourself to the idea that NONE of that can ever, ever happen... aren't you an agnostic (albeit perhaps one who attends church and doesn't think about the contradiction)?
 
Sorry, but to me, it takes faith to predict that God will never ever be proven.

As a skeptical agnostic/atheist, I do not hold to the idea that there can never be a proof for God.

If God existed, He could show Himself any time He wanted.

I do not know if He ever will or not. The evidence for He showing Himself is very very weak so far.

But Hal seems to think He won't, AND HE NEVER DID, at least insofar as historical, archeological, palentological, geological, etc sciences could possibly show.
 
Silicon said:

If DNA evidence came up that showed we all had a common ansestor about the time of the supposed flood, that would do.
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That is rather a low standard of proof in my opion.
 
Silicon said:
But Hal seems to think He won't, AND HE NEVER DID, at least insofar as historical, archeological, palentological, geological, etc sciences could possibly show. [/B]
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It sounds to me like Hal is a deist.
 
I can not understand how anyone who claims to be a critical thinker can believe in a God or Gods.

How is this any different from believing in fairies who dance around at the end of your garden?

I genuinely do not understand this point of view. I don't mean to cause offence to anyone by posting this.
 
Here's a question:

Is it possible that the Bible could have ANY evidence in it of supernatural events? Say there WAS an actual prophecy in it that absolutely came true. Or some bit of supernatural history like Noah that modern genetics was able to confirm, like all animals on the earth having only 2 common ancestors from about 4000 BC. (A laugh, I know.)

But is there any way that we can say that nothing supernatural in the bible can ever be confirmed by science?



Here's the deal. Religion MAKES A CLAIM.


Religion CLAIMS that the Bible is a souce of divine wisdom.

Is that a testable claim? Yes it is.

Because we can test the following things (among tons of others):


Its accuracy in regard to facts we know about the history of the universe.

Its historical accuracy.

The text's changes over time.

Any internal contradictions.

Historical manipulations of the text.

Historical information about the creation of the text, and whether accounts purporting to be eyewitness accounts actually were written by eyewitnesses.

Etc.
 
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