Can Atheists and Theists find common ground as Agnostics?

If you put bananas between your toes and try to walk across the room, you can make it over to the big table before one falls out, 3 out of 5 times. Now, that is an example of grasping. Reaching is when I get safely to the table. Obviously, there can’t be an error when you don’t know where or how far you are going in the first place. Any outcome is the expected outcome.

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@CoffeeBean Now, pay close attention, and I will demonstrate how you can successfully engage Cog and send him scurrying back up his modified banana tree. (Oh, and keep in mind, he only PRETENDS to walk upright.)

Cog, ol’ buddy, I would somewhat genuinely LOVE to halfway wholeheartedly agree with you on this subject. Sadly, it is with joyful glee that I must refuse to not acknowledge how MY faith most uncertainly CANNOT allow me to believe in anything that involves the lack of nothingness. For if by faith (or lack thereof) I am allowed to never not believe in ANYTHING, it stands to reason all this ado about nothing is a pertinent moot point. Therefore, I must concede to resist the notion that faith is not enough to sustain any unsubstantiated beliefs. I do hope you understand my muddled lucidity in this matter.

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Well, I suppose that might be true, if there actually was any expectation. I learned many many years ago that disappointment is nearly always a result of unrealized or unfulfilled expectation(s).
Therefore my only expectation is that I will operate and function as usual, without expectation(s)
and my grasp will likely remain as tenuous or as unshakeable as one might not expect, given the lack of evidence of nothing…
Btw…do you still have that brush for existential blue suede shoes?

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So you believe this based on what? Faith?

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Isn’t it nice to so clearly understand the world around you? Desires are not expectations. And what one desires can always be achieved in multiple ways, once one gives up on expectations and engages in delayed gratification. How gratifying to have such conversations. *(But then… I expect nothing less.)

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Of course, statisticians generated a rigorous definition of ‘expectation’ some time ago, which I suspect deviates significantly from the colloquial usage of the word (as tends to be the case in just about every serious academic endeavour and instance of word usage therein)

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Indeed, the colloquial differs widely from the academic or technical.
For a period of my adult life I performed problem analysis and repair of RF systems, and comparing observed conditions with “accepted functional expectations” was the basis of my approach…
Colloquially,
expectations appear to often be no more than what one hopes will happen, many times without any persuasive evidence to support such, or any analysis of the likelihood of a particular outcome.
Thanks for the distinction…

Well, just to be clear, I do have complete faith in my lack of faith. Moreover (and more importantly), I have a complete lack of faith in my faith alone. I’m afraid I cannot make that any more obscure, even if I didn’t try.

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You can certainly have faith in nothing or if you prefer in something just as we can faithfully observe nothing yet faithfully see not something but have faith that it was there to pick you up when you slipped and fell on your ass on your way to the table.

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@Canuk … I see you’ve learned the in house humour quickly :slight_smile:

Hmm…I’m curious as to how you didn’t come to such a non-conclusory commitment to ambiguity in regards to self-identified fealty to non-evidence based assurances of undeniably doubtful certainties…

Edit the answer questions itself

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I am trying not to be a faithless student while faithfully doing my best to stumble not too badly lest my mentors, whom I hold in not low esteem, throw mushy bananas, that may have been carried to the table between Cogs toes, to see whether I can reach the table where I will find the grapefruit of knowledge or not, without grasping at any shiny objects I come across. I worry that without sleep this will make too much nonsense. Cheers

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Expectation: Know more things
Reality: Know less things… more confusion
Expectation: Self Discovery
Reality: Existential Crisis

I have a hunch ‘expectations’ in the field of psychology are quiet different than in other fields. I have spent many years helping people get over their expectations so they can more usefully deal with the world around them.

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Exactly why I never used my psych degree to work anywhere.

The term I used was unrealistic expectations. Defined as things I want them to do that I never did and in fact never will.

A great reason… none of this shit works as expected outside of a very controlled environment. There is a million degrees of difference between someone paying money and walking into an office, and just talking to a family member or a friend. All this shit is best forgotten and left in the office where it belongs, lest I sound like a pedantic ass. LOL… Which I am certainly guilty of doing.

And even when you meet them, they tend to be not what was expected. Isn’t that just life?

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Welcome @CoffeeBean!!

I am a former Christian myself. I would also recommend the book “God is not great” by Christopher Hitchens.

For me I became much more active by coming here and writing my own book after sitting with some of my Christian friends and they were discussing that demons were why pedophiles existed. I asked them how they measured demons and they looked at me like I was the crazy one… At least here in the US, these people are using their fairy tales as justification to try to stuff their crap down our throats. All while falsely claiming that we are doing it through CRT, SEL, etc, which they can’t even define let alone understand. The more fundamentalists we can de-program, the better it will be for society as a whole.

I find Dawkins interesting in his book, “The God Delusion”. I find his explanations and reason to be immensely refreshing and a lot of it made sense and i immediately resonated with him.

Im not as familiar with Hitchens but the book, God is not Great" sounds like a very interesting read as well so im happily putting it on my next book to read.

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