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HappySqurriel said:
First off, not believing you have adequate proof that god exists puts you in the agnostic camp ...
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Hmm... my beliefs are my beliefs, whatever label is attached; the label doesn't matter so much to me. That said, I don't consider myself agnostic--I consider myself an atheist.
I feel about God the way I feel about Bigfoot or leprechauns. I don't believe in any of the three, because I don't think that there's sufficient evidence to believe in any of them. But I wouldn't describe myself as Bigfoot-agnostic. I don't believe that Bigfoot exists.
Agnosticism to me implies being equally open to the possibility of a thing existing or not existing. Decades ago, I considered myself agnostic. I took it upon myself to investigate religion and people's claims about it--read the Bible, etc. And after that study, it seemed to me that the arguments people make for God are not convincing, and that the evidence that they present isn't sufficient.
Now, I said that I haven't reached any inassailable conclusions about God, and that's true, just like it is for Bigfoot. If Bigfoot were captured tomorrow and put on display in the zoo, I'd have to revise my beliefs, just as if I died and woke up in Hell, I'd have to reconsider things there.
But as of now, based on the evidence I've seen, I think that won't happen. I think that there is no God. Not because I've "proven" it, but because those who claim that God exists (or Bigfoot exists) haven't done a good enough job in presenting their evidence.
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Secondly, the gravitational constant of the earth is not perfect because it is a particular number of because of what it means for us in this point in space ... it is perfect because it demonstrates that gravity relates in an exactly rational and uniform fashion across our universe as we know it. If gravity simply didn't work in Utah for some irrational reason that would demonstrate that gravity was imperfect.
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Again, though, "perfect" by whose standards? I suspect that we're drawn to what we describe as "rational" because we live in a rational universe. I mean, why is "uniformity" better than "non-uniformity"? Also, assuming that "rational" here has its standard associations and meanings, how does the number Pi fit in here?
And, if and when we subscribe to any particular religion, don't they all exist on certain phenomena that are themselves irrational and non-uniform? (I.e. miracles?) Why would the rationality and uniformity of the universe lead us to believe that there must be things that aren't either? Shouldn't it in fact dissuade us from allowing for the non-rational or non-uniform?
