It is about repeatedly (though not always) confirmed personal experience

An excellent example of recall bias.

Unfortunately for your opinion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, alas.

Though your posting illustrates why conmen (and women) can make a comfortable living.

To my mind the biggest philosophical impact of theism vs atheism would be that theists would tend to believe that morality is objective (that is likely based on religious scriptures, teachings or dogma). Whereas atheists would be more likely to appreciate that individuals whose moral code differs from a particular religious dogma are just as likely to behave morally as another whose moral code is identical to that of a particular religion's teachings, from the perspective of an agnostic third person observer.

This entire train of thought entirely ignores numerous illogical suppositions. Firstly, after the internal combustion engine was invented, how buses and trains could be perfected without passing through smaller and simpler cars first. Secondly, proposing mass transit over personal vehicles displays an urban bias. Rural folks are completely left out of the conversation.

Of course, a robust debate can be had on shifting a higher percentage of urban dwellers to mass transit and away from cars. But that is very different from declaring personal vehicles evil, as if they have no (inherently obvious to essentially everyone) huge positive impact to humans.

The OP is a not unreasonable first glance proposition that many, many folks have made repeatedly over time. As it happens when investigated beyond a layperson's first glance (as wonderer1 documented) it turns out to be an unsubstantiated idea.

Old news.

So in the terms in that quotation, agnosticism would be neither belief not disbelief, but, perhaps suspension of judgement or a belief that the question is malformed and therefore unanswerable.

It does seem to be the case that some (many) people don't think the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is important. And indeed, for some purposes, it isn't. But then, for other people, on other occasions, it is.

Well, agnosticism means that one doesn't "know" whether gods exist or not. However it is an error to then assume that believers and nonbelievers "know" that gods exist or don't exist. It is more accurate (when dealing with unknowable entities, like gods) to substitute "believe" for "know" on the question of existance.

Not considering something seriously isn't the same as positively a firm disbelief that it is possible.

Agreed, though atheism isn't (for most) possession of proof positive that gods don't exist, it is the disbelief in gods (regardless of the source of the disbelief).

After all, nonexistance does not require impossibility. It's possible I could have had eggs for breakfast, yet I most certainly did not.

Can you figure how these are different?

IN the absence of evidence, not believing amounts to the jury still being out. But perhaps out of hte building, rather than still in the deliberation room. I can't see any practical difference.

Not so much. Most common entities without evidence for their existance are in the "I don't believe in it" category not the "well, it's possible" category of most.

Where are unicorns in your mindset? Or ghosts? No doubt some believe in and numerous common folk don't disbelieve in ghosts (which an example of what you're referring to). But that number is severely diminished in intellectually rigorous circles (such as here).

If I don't believe in the existence of God, any god, because there is no evidence for its existence, what does that makes me? An agnostic, an atheist, an agnostic atheist?

To me you're describing classic atheism. You're not saying the jury's out on the existance of gods, you're saying in the absence of evidence I don't believe in any gods.

Well written. This is an example of a topic that can be difficult to parse the details and nuances of verbally, yet is completely obvious when encountered in Real Life.

Less governmental intrusion is not a plank of the conservative platform (though conservatives commonly claim it is). Rather it is a trope that gets dragged out on occasion to speak about taxes and environmental regulations, yet goes against their stances on abortion and homosexual rights.

I agree with your advice, just differ (again based on my actual experience, not opinion) of what constitutes "something of substance".

I tend to think this is a veil for trusting your overwrought assumptions in most cases.

I'm giving advice based on MY experience, but I acknowledge that your experience may be that your overwrought assumptions outweigh what others bring to the table.

Exactly. Individuals are who they are regardless of their vocabulary. The n word, for example is often a semi-magical insight into the mindset of folks. If I'm conversing with someone out of earshot of anyone who appears Black, and they drop the n word, I consider it a beneficial opportunity to gain a perhaps otherwise unobtainable peek at some of the inner workings of the guy's worldview.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

I generally agree. Time travel exists, but only to the future, never the past (since, as stated) there is no "past" to travel to.

Well, you're welcome (for enlightening you to that basic reality).

Nice illustration of the fact that folks are either lumpers or splitters. You're creating numerous selves such that our true self is "enslaved" to a lesser self, therefore everyone is enslaved ie not free. That's not an unreasonable way of looking at things, but not superior to others who view the same situation and lump your "ego" and their true selves into a single entity that is "free".

It still wouldn't be time travel. It would be recreating the past in the future. Just like recreating a natural diamond perfectly in a lab, doesn't make another natural diamond, rather it is a natural appearing lab grown diamond.

I think that you want to understand God's actions before you know him (who is infinite according to the definition of philosophers and the question is, how can the finite know the infinite?), this seems not possible and you attribute an action to him before you understand what his action really is.
Before knowing God, it is not possible to understand his actions, just like before knowing a human being, one cannot understand his actions.

Speaking of human beings... you do understand that each individual human gets to describe their god any way they want to, right? Thus gods are therefore subjective (intersubjective actually), not objective.

Years ago when George Bush was asked who his favorite philosopher was, he replied (after a bit of thought), Jesus Christ.

One can draw all sorts of conclusions from George's choice, negative or positive, but His teachings provide a way of life that could mitigate all those inequalities. Just a thought.

Well, it's a politically expedient answer for a politician who doesn't follow the subject of philosophy speaking to an audience who doesn't know of any philosophers.

She told me that she believes it's wrong and struggles with that belief.

To paraphrase, based on her actions, she means: she's struggling with the fact that her culture tells her it's wrong yet she doesn't (personally, meaning: morally) believe it's wrong. The evidence is that if her moral code was that it's wrong A) it would be in sync with the known cultural/ethical opinion of wrongness, so what would be the source of the "struggle"? In that scenario she would merely be a routine sinner who just had an all too human moment of weakness, ho hum. And B) that (presumably) her actions are her personal lifestyle, ie it's a well agonized-over (moral) decision.

Her comment on her belief of it's wrongness, sounds like a layperson's wording that she's been brought up to believe it's wrong (by her culture's ethics).

I don't disagree with your observations as stated, though in my experience success in this area is much more likely to be accomplished through more widely available Birth Control for potentially cr4ppy parents, than "educating" these potentially cr4ppy parents into decent parents.

Well to be accurate, homosexuality is wrong by her (Muslim) community ethical standard, not her personal moral code (based on her actions). This is very common for folks' morals to clash with their community ethical standards. But she is, in fact, following her moral code.

The Philosophy of badminton is play aggressively in doubles and for position in singles.

Well, perfect equality is stasis, which essentially equals death. No, I prefer inequality. That's what makes life interesting. Everyone is better and worse than others at something.

It makes easier (and more ethical) when the patient's interest and attitude aligns with the best legal posture for the staff and the facility.

Oh hey, Jack. Merry Christmas!!

In my field, which has a zero tolerance of negative outcomes, guarding against the "worst" (and therefore accepting a possibility of "bad") gives folks psychological comfort and thus the wherewithal to do and accept things gladly that under ordinary circumstances they would not.

It's not about guns it's about fearmongering.

The inaccuracy of risk assessment is part of the problem and how measures are taken on the basis of information with inaccuracies.

In my experience dealing with medical and personal risk assessments, I have advised those seeking counsel to compare the negative outcomes of either of a (theoretical) binary choice are taken. That is, it is more enlightening to compare bad to worse than good to better.

Part of the problem with the subject of risk (prospectively), is that risk assessment is notoriously inaccurate, thus ignoring "known" risk can be defended just as taking it into consideration can be criticized.

Churches saying that the purpose of life is to "do things for the church" is akin to Amazon declaring that the purpose of life is purchasing goods and services. It is inherently self serving. Logical and predictable, yet crass and demoralizing.

Well English has more total words in it's vocabulary than any other language. In addition learning English as a second language increases compensation more than learning any other language.

I don't mind if folks accumulate the identical wealth that they do now WITH an enforced income tax rate from say 1945-1963 plus a regressive estate tax.

The FDA has a questionable history of its own. It would be foolish to think it is a reliable source of protection against possible malfeasance by big pharma. After all, there is no question that the big pharma lobby is capable of influencing the presidential appointment of FDA officials. Don't be so certain that the FDA doesn't have greater interests that far outweigh the health concerns of American citizens.

In a conversation about the relative ethical standards of the pharmaceutical industry to other industries, the FDA isn't evaluated against how good it might have been, it's evaluated against other (lobbyist prone) agencies and against no regulation whatsoever (in certain industries).

Eh, not really news.

Don't get me wrong, the pharmaceutical industry is NOT inherently trustworthy, I agree. But then again no industry is inherently trustworthy... because they're industries, ie they are driven by profit. So Big Pharma is no more or less trustworthy than Big Oil, the Military Industrial complex etc.

Actually the fact that there is some governmental oversight (the FDA) actually separates Big Pharma from most other industries, in a good way.

Exactly. The more we CAN do (technologically speaking), the more we should ponder what we SHOULD do.

If we had total free will, it would invalidate all scientific knowledge about human behavior since there would be nothing fixed in our behavior.

It depends on your personal definition of "total free will". What most subscribers to Free Will that I know believe is that humans can actually make conscious choices, exactly as we appreciate subjectively, that is: human decision making is not an illusion.

I'd say that if we have free will, it's very limited. Otherwise it would be an insult to those low-functioning autists and anorexics. It would mean that an anorexic could wake up one day, make a U-turn and say "I'm going to eat as much as I need from now on." Or that a low-functioning autist could suddenly snap out of their autistic personality and become normal. But those things aren't happening. So if free will exists, it must be very limited.

Everyone agrees that various factors (say, being an autist) INFLUENCES decision making, sometimes drastically. However, abandoning Free Will says that there are no TRUE decisions for anyone. That is, if humans create a big enough supercomputer and feed it enough data all of what we call 'decisions' could be successfully predicted into infinity.

What is wrong with having a religious ideology? Has some law been broken here?

The answer is the same as what's wrong with spending money on concert tickets? Someone who is not a fan of the artist concludes the concert goer has nothing but some positive feelings/memories after the concert is over, ie it doesn't "buy" anything (of value). Whereas another could make the observation that it buys an albeit temporary positive emotional state.

Ok, what do you mean by "God"?

Or which god? Even if there is a god, there's less than one half of one tenth of one percent that it is the god that an individual believes in, historically speaking.

If honest is an adj, is it like tall and short, something we are largely born with, or is it like rich, something we can gain and lose?

It is a behavior profile that typically flows from one's psychological outlook. Thus CAN definitely change (along with one's psychology) though most don't change much.

In my experience the mindset most conducive to honesty is self confidence, since lying is frequently deployed to cover for the psychological inability to acknowledge personal shortcomings.