At 09:01 PM 11/26/02 -0800, you wrote: >On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 04:01:32PM -0800, Erik Dahl wrote: > >> To complicate this further, I'll mention that for some reason your post >struck >> me to wonder at the etymological relationship between "theism" and >"atheism," >> and "gnosticism" and "agnosticism." Based on my limited understanding of >> gnosticism, I don't see the connection. :) > >gnosis in general is "knowledge"; Tolkien mapped his Noldor Elves to the >Gnomes once -- the wise ones. a-gnosticism here is related to claiming a >lack >of knowledge, or denying the possibility of knowledge, depending on your >flavor of agnosticism. Not to be confused with Gnosticism, the mystics >around >the time of Christ who discovered secret mysteries aren't a good way to have >your religion survive. :) I would describe myself as a theoretical atheist and a militant agnostic. I don't know that there is no god, but the universe sure seems to tick on just fine without him, and I don't see any holes that need to be plugged by a supernatural being. Occam's Razor being sharp enough for me, I don't see any reason to believe in an external god. Gnosis, now, I do believe in. Heck, it's happened to me. The experiential portion of religion, the shaft of grace or the Voice of God or the sudden washing away of sins, these things do happen to people. However, since they are experiential, there's really no good way to judge from the outside what is going on. Is it just a momentary psychotic break, or a brief brush with the Infinite? I decline to evaluate these experiences, though, because I have insufficient information. I don't think that they can prove that God exists to anyone except, perhaps, the person who experiences it. (And sometimes not even then. I've had my own experience standing on the mountain top, yelling at God, and having him answer. I still don't believe in him. And no, I don't think it was schizophrenia or psychosis, either.) So, I'm a militant agnostic. I don't know, and neither do you. I can't know what happened to you, and you can't know what happened to me, therefore there is no proof available one way or the other. There's only personal experience. If I experience a baseball hitting me in the head, I can show you the baseball, I can throw it at you and hit you in the head, we can share this physical thing called a baseball and come to some agreements about it. It's a real world object. But if you are seeing green where I am seeing blue, and we both call it blue, how would we ever find out? Lydia Nickerson lydy at demesne.com Dulciculi Aliquorum