For agnostics: Which God do you have more reservations about?

Question

1) The God of the Bible?

2) The God of the Philosophers.

http://people.uncw.edu/schmidt/201Stuff/201%20Course%20mats/F03mats/Presocratmats/Pluralists/PhilsGod.html

"In reality, the "God of the Philosophers" is not a well-known concept, and so your communication to the group on this site is wanting."

Well, it actually is a well-known concept amongst those interested in topics like intellectual history. While I can dumb things down for those Yahoo Answers users who are functionally illiterate, why bother? Why isn't the burden on the less well educated here to educate themselves? It's not like Americans don't have access to bookstores, libraries and community colleges. It's not like Americans don't have free time and disposible income. And its not like people here aren't very interested in questions about God.

Answer 1

last answer correct.................look up agnostic then re-ask question

Answer 2

Agnostic's a much abused word, so there are people who consider themselves agnostic because they believe in a god but don't know which one in particular. Traditionally, though, the word means, basically, a skeptic. An agnostic is someone who thinks that there's an objective world we can learn empirical facts about but that when we don't have enough information we don't claim to know one way or another. To the agnostic we don't have enough information about whether gods exist or not so we don't claim to know for certain whether or not they do and we won't claim such certianty unless and until there is enough empirical evidence. And there likely never will be for such a supernatural claim as the existence of gods.

That introduction aside- I don't see much evidence that there are any gods. I believe in none of them. I don't even come close to believing in any of them. So for all intents and purposes, I have about the same reservations about all of them.
The more specific the claims about the gods, the more easy it is to doubt them. The vaguer, more amorphous and hard to pin down the assertion the less there is to doubt. So if you tell me that your poodle is God I might be somewhat more skeptical than if you told me that everything is god in some mystical sort of way. The greek and roman gods were rather specific and thus not very credible. But there are a lot of details and inconsistencies in the biblical god too. So I have reservations about both. The biblical god may be described as being unlike humans, but the character's emotional outbursts and strangely human-like motivations and actions make him less abstracted than the general descriptions in the book do.

Answer 3

This question is a step in the right direction, Will, but not really a good articulation of what you mean.

In reality, the "God of the Philosophers" is not a well-known concept, and so your communication to the group on this site is wanting.

And based on my reading of the web site you cited, the only thing that Xenophanes did was push God off into the scientific margins and make it so people would be able to identify emotional experiences as divinely inspired.

And you still haven't identified what you mean by the God of the Bible. Which description?

Answer 4

I may be considered by many to be an agnostic, because I question everything and truly believe only that I would like to learn more. I have no reservations about any god, I find all ideas and perceptions of god equally interesting... as I do about everything else in or about life.

Answer 5

I am confused, but not agnostic. Most agnostics I know state they do not doubt if there is a Supreme Creator, they just don't know who is correct . . . Christianity, Judaism, Muslim, Hindu, etc.

Answer 6

It is not so much a reservation as it is not having a firm belief in a "higher" power of any kind.