In the state of nature we are faced with four realities: 1. Limited Resources, 2. Unlimited Desire, 3. Equality of Strength (some people are smarter, and some people are stronger, but no one is so much smarter and so much stronger that they can take everyone else on), and 4. Limited Altruism (people don’t only care about themselves, but they aren’t so impartial that if two were competing, one could rely on the other to just step aside). This creates a situation in which life is “nasty, brutish, and short,” and so we remove the Equality of Strength by creating a Leviathan—the government—to establish rules and keep order.
But this is a human product, for human purposes, born out of human limitations. Furthermore, penalties that exist are the result of a failure of the system. If we look throughout history, we find that stable communities have the fewest rules and penalties, whereas unstable ones have the most and harshest. If a state had infinite power and stability, it would not make murder illegal, it would render murder impossible. And as for those that wished to murder—if such a wish could even survive as anything but a passing idea when separated from any practical possibility of actualizing it—they would not be treated with hatred, since they pose no threat, but with either compassion, curiosity, or indifference. (I should point out that when talking about a state with infinite power one may imagine a totalitarian regime, but that is actually the opposite of what I am describing. Totalitarian regimes control so much of the lives of the people because they are seeking to hold together a situation that is fundamentally unstable—it is indicative of their lack of power.)
Perfect power means the ultimate freedom for what one can allow, just as perfect love means allowing ultimate freedom to the object of one’s love. Also, if anything was ever separated from God at all it would mean a limit for God. A God without limits is never separated from anything.
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Now, I'm not saying that I'm particularly good at dialogue. This is my attempt at it. I'd like to see a more formalized methodology developed. It may be good to incorporate more reflective listening and open ended questions. But I'm not tied to any particular methodology a priori—I'm just interested in learning what's effective for helping us all to talk and come to common understandings. I think everyone has something to teach me which I do not already know, and that I have something to teach any given person that that person does not already know.
Agnosticism, contrary to popular belief, is not primarily a position on the existence of God. Rather, as it was originally coined by T. H. Huxley, it is an epistemological model whereby one only claims to have knowledge about things that are demonstrable. Most atheists, for example, are atheists (do not posit a belief in God) because they are agnostics.
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/atheistdefine.html
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/atheismfaq.html
That being said, this epistemological model seems to combine with different sorts of dispositions. There are, as I see it, three types of agnostics:
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