Agnostics: Do you believe in god?

No.

Do I believe in a God? If you are referring to a master computer programmer in the sky, definitely not. If, on the other hand, if you are speaking of forces that are NOW beyond our knowledge, well maybe.

Spoken like a true agnostic!

I don't believe in god. I don't believe in any greater power. I don't believe that humans have a soul. I believe that death is the end.

Then I believe you are an atheist.

I've become an agnostic by default. I used to believe as a kid, then I didn't believe as a teenager. Now I don't know, and really couldn't guess either way.

I live what I hope is a good life, treating other people properly etc., and assume that I'll find out one way or the other once I'm dead.

Either way, no God(s) worthy of the name would kick me out of heaven/nirvana/whatever just because I didn't worship them when alive, and if there is no God(s) then it makes no difference because I'll be dead and won't exist to worry about it!

dlowan- I think that hanging around Frank for such a long time has had an effect on me. I had always thought of myself as an atheist, since I couldn't, and still can't, find even the slightest evidence that a God does exist.

As I grow older, I see the advances in the knowledge that people have discovered, just since I was born. As humans become more sophisticated and evolved, (if we don't blow up the earth to smithereens in the meantime) , I think that in the future we will learn a lot more about the nature of the universe. Most theists believe that the "ultimate truths" are unknowable, and supernatural. I do not believe that. For me, it is just a matter of time.

Agnosticism is the recognition that of god/s we know nothing, not even of its existence.

I used to be an agnostic but now I'm not so sure

I don't disbelieve in the general concept of g-d, but I disbelieve in dieties (g-ds said to physically impact the earth which don't impact the earth.)

I am not sure if I qualify as an agnostic.

I have strong suspicion (almost a belief) that there is a god. With my definition of God, she must have a will and have been instrumental in the creation.

There is no evidence of God available to science because god created and works through science. The only evidence available is philosophical-- the beauty and granduer of creation and the miracles that happen in our little part of it.

I call myself an agnostic because I don't subscribe to any specific religion. The faith I have is a belief in the basic beauty of the Universe which is full of wonders and order. The question is what can be attributable to "God". I would say a creator who set up the laws of science that define our universe will qualify as a God-- whether this means a deity, a being, a consciousness or a force.

I call myself an agnostic because I don't believe anything more than whatever was responsible for the Universe and my own existance must be benign.

Yes I do believe there is a supreme being or force. What I do not believe in is organized and contrived religion.

Frank Apisa seems strangely absent in this conversation as A2K's resident agnostic extremist.

If I had to guess based on everything I know today, I would say that the Christian version of God certainly does not exist, and it is highly unlikely that there are any gods who personally intervene in the lives of human beings.

Of course what I would like to believe is that some supernatural being is looking out for me personally, everything happens for a good reason, there is justice in the universe and the good will be rewarded and evildoers punished, and I will spend the rest of eternity in my own version of Paradise.

Logic tells me otherwise.

Some humans like sole very much though, and soul food, even soul music. I'm still not quite sure about "blue-eyed soul", but that's just a matter of personal preference.

Now...I don't believe in a "god" myself, as defined by any religion, but I find myself wrapped around the statement "death is the end." It may very well be, for us, but if we were just thrown in the bush after we died, we would provide life and sustenance to other creatures, and so a cycle does indeed exist, and probably for a reason.

My original thought when I posted this was that most people who say they are agnostic really just don't believe in the existence of a god, which would make them atheists in my mind. I think I fall into that category, although I call myself agnostic sometimes, because I just don't know. The only thing that puts people in the category of agnostic is the "not knowing" part.

People who believe in god actually claim to know for a fact that god exists, and that knowledge supposedly comes from some higher power. Atheists can't claim to know that there is no god in that same way, so what really separates an atheist from an agnostic?

What separates an atheist from an agnostic is the recognition by atheists that all "beliefs" serve some psychological or sociological purpose. This inludes the belief that "objective truth exist". This level of argument is therefore transcendent of that adopted by agnostics who are satisfied with conventional concepts of "evidence" and "objective knowledge".

We have been round this one many times but agnostics usually fail to understand this level shift even though they may acknowledge the "psychological security purpose" served by a "god concept".

I always thought that if you were agnostic you were one of those strange kids who acted funny and sometimes needed to wear helmets to school. One thing I do know....if you are autistic, you're good at dwawing.

Now, to get serious...theists accept that a god exists on faith. Atheists just don't believe in god at all. Agnostics question the existence of god, and on some level, want to believe, but they won't without proof of a deity.

cav

No - atheists have no need for a belief in "god" - thats different !

"Existence" from your viewpoint implies "objectivity" - from mine it does not.