Atheists vs. Agnostics vs. Christians... and then some.

So today I was flipping through this book that I recently bought called "A Rulebook for Arguments," and came upon a page with this example:

In this essay I will argue that God exists.

I turned to Matt and said, "There is no way that anyone can convince me that God does exist... cause there really isn't any real proof that someone can argue."

He replied with, "Well there isn't any proof that he doesn't exist, either. That's why I'm agnostic."

Anyways, my initial reply was, "Yeah, that's true," but upon further thinking, I realized that that's not enough to be a good argument. There's just too much proven scientific fact and proof against the concept of the stereotypical "God," and not enough concrete proof for believing. Also, that argument opens the door for the ad ignorantiam fallacy (arguing that a claim is true just because it has not been shown to be false). With that argument, who's to say that the Greek gods in mythology aren't real? Almost all people would accept that as a myth ("Greek mythology"...), but there are many many Christians. Is there a Greek mythology term for "blasphemy?"

That's not to say that people should only be atheists. I used to be agnostic... and even Christian before that, but I was mainly pointing out that specific argument. But I have thought about why I went from agnostic to atheist. If there is a God of some sort, is there really even a point in believing in him? Enter Nietzsche. Specifically, his "God is dead" quote. It doesn't literally mean that he's physically dead, but that he can no longer provide a source of morality for those that believe in him.

"When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."

From what I've noticed, Christians only seem obligated to be ethical sometimes, not because they feel that it's the right thing to do, but because if they don't, they "won't get into Heaven," or they will "feel guilty to God." What about what you feel is morally correct? People should be moral even in the absence of a divine being. And if that last sentence is viewed as only an opinion, then my outlook on people has dropped even more.

So, is there really a point in being agnostic, rather than atheist? I know there are a lot of little arguments that can be made, but I need something big to convince me.

Speaking of Nietzsche, I was looking at random t-shirt websites today and found one pretty cool and representative of everything awful.



It says "Nietzsche is my co-pilot" and has a picture of Nietzsche as Biggles. But like a lot of t-shirts that I see now too often, it has no meaning other than its witticism, which is immediately lost, because there are 10 copies of the t-shirt in three different colors, available at ten different stores. This isn't the eternal recurrence that Nietzsche had in mind. There's no room for irony here... it's killed off by by irony itself.