Richard Dawkins argued that agnostic is a meaningless term. He said that anyone who is given irrefutable proof of the existence of something and still refuses to believe is a fool and that non-theist is the better term for people that don’t buy into the whole god thing.
Comment on Nuclear Demonology
Saleh@feddit.org 1 week agoAtheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to personal limitations rather than a worldview. Another definition is the view that “human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.”
Aside from that, whether you accept and believe scientific discoveries remains a subjective choice. In social sciences like history or economics it often happens that two contradictory views are equally legitimate. And again the look in the past is valuable. Many scientists were ridiculed, sometimes even persecuted for their ideas to be outside the consensus of their time.
Assuming that what you consider the accepted truth because it is the accepted opinion of our day and age could proof equally fallible like the ancient Greeks and Romans ridiculing the now accepted germ theory, for which we have ample evidence thanks to the development of microscopes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease#Gree…
So your original ridicule is perfectly viable. It just not only applies to the statements of Tucker Carlson, who i probably despise equally as you do.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Cataphract@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
I have loved ones that I very much care for that I have to do these mental dances with. Certain groups or cultures of people may have a bias towards only looking at scientific evidence that promotes their hypothesis, well established institutions can sometimes be “stuck in a rut” but I would include people like graham hancock in that group. Science is a beautiful thing though, new data and experiments doesn’t care what your belief structure is. Your germ theory is a beautiful example where thought was put into a hypothesis and was slowly formed over time with new evidence. Religious and spiritual aspects do not require this with belief. What was the last study done by a religious scholar that a deity exists? What was the last religious text that was changed due to discoveries or experiments that were done?
It’s important to realize that scientific study is a rigorous system and not everyone follows it to the best of their ability. Slamming a label on like “whether you accept and believe scientific discoveries remains a subjective choice” is not a valid statement.
The very fact that you’re using subjective choice to look at scientific data means you’re not actually following the scientific method (explains how something goes from hypothesis-theory-law). It’s ok to have a hypothesis that’s different from mainstream, it’s not ok to declare being subjugated because you aren’t following the method to show your data and claiming it must be a law.
If you’re going to dance around the science/spiritual circles you need to have proper respect for both parties when communicating directly (if you want everyone to understand what you’re talking about). One example is “Energy”, means two very different things when talking to an electrical engineer or a new age “star child”. The distinction needs to be made for sound scientific communication that doesn’t impede someones belief.
I highly suggest checking out “The Hidden Story That Defines Our Modern Era” from Like Stories of Old. This is a prime example of how you can bind modern communication and stepping into the religious/belief structures of our history while maintaining respect for everyone.