Agnosticism

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Logic is indeed prior to feelings. That feelings override logic doesn't change the first statement.

A newborn child has feelings, but it does not reason. You are born with the faculty for logical reasoning, the same way you are born with the faculty for language, but you need to learn it. I still say the feelings come first in terms of time and in terms of what is deepest in a person's nature.

Drake

[Draconysius]

Why is it that everyone who uses the Alex avatar turns out to be a pretentious smarter-than-thou dick? Maybe we should remove that one.

[MollyMac]

I wouldn't say that a new born has feelings so much as instincts. Instincts are honed into feelings. Does that make sense?

And Draconysius, no, leave that avatar. It's a warning sign, an indicator that the Ignore function may need to be in use. It's like a sign that reads, as Drake put it in another thread, "Insufferable Fuck".

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

A newborn child has feelings, but it does not reason.

Yes, but only in the sense that animals have feelings. A child indeed has feelings, but feelings so crude and primal that he has no necessity to create a god to fill that necessity.
It is not until you begin to reason that logic must precede feelings (sentiments would be a better word)
And kids actually do have a relatively good logical reasoning. Kids believe 'clouds are for raining' not 'clouds are bad because many people get sad'

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

And kids actually do have a relatively good logical reasoning. Kids believe 'clouds are for raining' not 'clouds are bad because many people get sad'

Hmm. Well, if we mean logic in the broader sense of the word, and not good logic, then I suppose you may be right. Or they would be about on par, perhaps.

Drake

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Originally Posted by Super Spright

Everyone has logic, the root of logic is observation. If you hear a small chirping noise you would logically conclude that it's a bird, but if you saw a elephant making that noise, you would now have to change your logic.

My logic in that situation would conclude that I'm going insane. Or that [insert person here] slipped [insert hallucinogen here] into your [insert food here].

[Circle V]

The elephant could be grinding its teeth.

And, since you heard an elephant make that sound, you would likely feel fear upon hearing it just outside your tent. Logic as trigger for emotion.

[Vako]

If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, did the trains really pass each other on time ?

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by DarkHeartedDemoness

I don't know what feels right. I don't know fucking anything at all about how I feel or what I believe, and it's driving me insane.

This one has been bugging me since I first saw it, probably because it sounds a bit familiar. I have been trying to think of what to say to it, but the best I have come up with is this. Something feels right, and you do feel something and believe something. I know it totally sucks being cut of from it, but don't think it isn't still there somewhere, or that you can't find it again. I base this on experience.

Drake

[mindbender]

Agnosticism is not necessarily being neutral. Agnosticism literally means "without knowledge". Since ultimate reality is an unknown and will likely remain so indefinitely, I am agnostic. However, I see insufficient evidence to believe in any sort of god so I am also an atheist. (a = without, theism = belief in god).

Anyway, I became agnostic quite a long time ago. I am not sure when or why. I just realized the world was bigger than my religion.

[Mirazatha]

I claim to be an agnostic because a) every religion I have yet to see seems to have some sort of gaping flaw in it or simply does not mesh with my view of the world, b) i do believe in something, but definitly NOT something that would make something as flawed, greedy, and sometimes outright evil as most of the churches are.

On the topic of logic: Everyone is born with the instinctual use of heuristics (a sort of parallel, mildly faulty logic) which is what gives rise to our feelings about things. This does not mean our feeligns are right, but it does mean that they often are deeper than pure (computational, serial) logic is. Many times peoples feelings and believe override both their logic and in fact their instincts (such as survival), which would imply that feelings tend to have a larger impact on peoples actions and minds than pure logic does.

Personally im in favour of using logic over feelings, because if you take enough time it is never wrong. The problem is taking the time, heuristics are far and a bove faster than serial logic which is why people can make all the decisions we need to in a day. Could you imagine if we sat down and considered and ranked every possibility and both pros and cons foor every decision we made each day? Buying a drink would take like 5 minutes in and of itself!