snood wrote:"...perhaps you will tell us who you know who KNOWS there is a God -- or who KNOWS there are no gods."
That's the rub. If I tell you I "know" in my heart - just like someone "knows" they love someone, your reply would probably press for something more concrete. Nothing wrong with your saying we can't know - and I can understand why you're so adamant eveyone is really a member of the agnostic camp whether they admit it or not.
If you told me you "know in your heart" -- I would treat it the same way I would if you told me you "know it in your kidney."
We know things in our brain -- and when someone says they "know" something in their heart -- they are acknowledging in a round about way that they do not know it -- but suspect it, estimate it, guess it, or something else like that.
Quote:In any disagreement between reasonable, mature adults, I think one common trait is that at some point, when their 'facts' simply won't reconcile, they can agree to disagree. What I find particularly hard to swallow about your whole line and attitude is that you're saying everyone agrees with you, and its just up to them whether they admit it or not. I find that especially snide.
I have ended dozens -- perhaps hundreds of conversations here and in Abuzz with the words "we will simply have to agree to disagree."
But if someone is pressing the point with me -- I have no problem continuing to present my opinion.
Your rewording of what I had to say about agnosticism is jaded -- and I reject it. If you go back to my words, I will stand by them completely. And if I read you here and elsewhere correctly, you agree with my position.
You do seem to be bothered by the fact that I present my arguments without the sugar coating. I feel my way of doing things is the more ethical way of dealing with these kinds of things. I'm sorry my honesty bothers you so much. I like what you have to say -- but I think you are off base on your assessment of me.
Quote:If I told you that the way some soldiers or clergy or physicians or police or firemen or parents get through their daily routine is by relying on a power greater than themselves, I think it would be perfectly fine if you thought that was quaint, but ignorant. What I wouldn't find easy to take would be if you found you had the need to tell those people that they were just deceiving themselves. Because if you found you had that need, then my friend your desire to enlighten the world to your self-labeled 'only real right way of looking at things' becomes something far less than attractive, to put it kindly.
I don't go looking to push my agenda on anyone -- unless it is in a forum like this or Abuzz -- where opinions are expected.
My mother, now dead, was a devote Christian -- who attended church every day!!! I have no problem with people who are religious -- and have many MANY religious friends. But when someone talks about what they KNOW here in a forum designed for debate, I think the proper thing to do is to debate the issue.
That is what I am doing.
Sorry I'm not doing it the way you -- or some of the others -- want me to do it, but I am doing it out-front. And without all the smiley stuff.
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