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Agnosticism & Atheism
What it Means to be Agnostic or Atheist

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Agnosticism & Atheism

wuliheron
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Posted 09/18/09 - 07:57 PM: Subject: Agnosticism & Atheism	#1
This subject came up in another thread, but was really a side issue. Not wanting to detract from the original thread I decided it might be best to create a seperate thread if people want to discuss the issue further. In particular we were discussing the commonly used terms for agnostics and atheists such as "strong agnosticism", "weak agnosticism", and "atheist agnostic" and "agnostic atheist". Personally I find such new fangled labels confuse the issues and often attempt to lump me under the catagory of atheism when I see myself quite clearly as being agnostic. To me the existence or non-existence of God(s) seems as illusive and beyond any proof as any set of metaphysics. Sure, we might have plenty of reasons to not assume that there are Gods playing ongoing roles in our lives, but that is quite different from saying we believe there are no Gods. After all, as Kurt Vonnegut once penned, perhaps God just created the universe and then left for the next project. As for these new labels of strong and weak atheism, I consider myself to just be a simple agnostic. I don't strongly believe or disbelieve in God any more than I stongly believe or disbelieve that the universe is ultimately composed of polyhedrons or waveforms or lime-green-jello for that matter. Why on earth would I form a strong opinion about something I don't know the slightest thing about. It is a bit like asking me I like to eat something when I have never in my life eaten that thing before. These labels of strong and weak atheism seem to assume that I can only either believe or disbelieve in the existence of God(s) when I believe myself to be, ultimately, about as ignorant of the subject as it is possible to be. On a more emotional note, for me existence itself is about as miraculous and unfathomable as any God imaginable. That's not to say that I worship existence or that I believe existence is supernatural in origin, but merely that existence is deserving of this description. If not deserving of being called a supernatural miracle, it certainly is miraculous in that it inspires awe and wonder. For all I know existence is ultimately beyond any labels at all and that explains all the difficulty philosophers have had with the subject over the eons. Anyway, existence is one of the things that inspires me to remain open minded about the subject and makes me quite frustrated when people insist I must be labeled something other than merely an agnostic. As far as I am concerned, I have been agnostic since the day I was born and agnosticism is the natural human condition. There is no shame in not having an opinion on something and no shame in being ignorant. In fact, it is only by accepting our ignorance that we can have no opinion on something and it is only because we are ignorant in the first place that we can learn. Edited by wuliheron on 09/18/09 - 08:12 PM

Stirling
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Posted 09/18/09 - 08:41 PM:	#2
Richard Dawkins has a really good scale in "The God Delusion."
"A cage went in search of a bird." - Franz Kafka

180 Proof
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Posted 09/19/09 - 04:44 AM:	#3
One can style oneself anyway one's likes. But when one gives reasons for why this label rather than that one the implications of those reasons are fair game for critical scrutiny. You call yourself an "agnostic", wuli, and that you "neither believe nor disbelieve (in god)" as if the choice is only between belief & disbelief and as if agnosticism is the middle ground, or only alternative, between theism & atheism. These assumptions are mistaken. Re: theism, deism, atheism, etc. "Belief in -" is a dispositional attribution. This consists in statements about states-of-affairs internal to an individual. In this context, "belief in" denotes trust. Consider: a. "Belief in" 0. If 0 = JCI deity, call this 'theism'. b. No "belief in" 0. Call this 'nontheism' (since weak, negative, implicit ... atheism seems confusing). c. "Belief in" not-0, or disbelief. Call this 'atheism' (also because strong, positive, explicit ...) Claiming that one neither believes (i.e. theism) nor disbelieves (i.e. atheism) doesn't exhaust the choices but by elimination leads simply to one not believing. Nontheism. (Btw, it doesn't make sense to further claim that one does not 'not believe' either since that double negative is tantamount to asserting that one believes after all.) Re: agnosticism "Belief that -" is propositional. This consists in true or false statements about states-of-affairs other than those internal to an individual, or that are about the world. In this context, "belief that" denotes knowledge. Dispositional attributions (e.g. theism, nontheism, atheism) say nothing -- true or false -- about the world and thus propositions cannot be implied by, or derived from, them. Propositions (e.g. gnosticism, mysticism, agnosticism), however, may provide grounds for dispositional attributions. Consider: x. "Belief that" 1 is either true or false. If 1 = JCI deity exists, call this 'gnosticism'. y. No "belief that" 1 is either true or false. Call this 'agnosticism'. z. "Belief that" 1 is neither true nor false. Call this 'mysticism'. *Re: wuliheron's* default position?** Consider: b. No trust (e.g. nontheism) y. No knowledge (e.g. agnosticism) 'No trust' does not determine 'no knowledge'. The latter is independent of the former. They are separate positions, and defaults, belonging to different stages of socialization and/or education in an individual's life. 'No Knowledge' does not determine 'no trust'. The latter can be dependent on the former. They can be related as argument to premise, an operation which is not a default position. note: My own position is 'gnostic atheism' (c-x) -- no. 7 on Dawkins' scale -- because I'm convinced that enough about the universe is rigorously known such that, beyond all reasonable doubts, every extant "transcendent god"-concepts can be excluded. Also, absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by a god-concept, or (its) claims) is evidence of absence. If I'm wrong -- I don't discount the possibility despite the apparent improbability -- then it's some god's fault for so forensically pretending not to exist. Our cognitive defaults, it seems to me, are set inadvertantly (or not) by parents and family rituals, which we spend much of our formal education (and perhaps years of therapy afterwards) unlearning & learning anew, which some of us take a little further to the precincts, or vistas, of learned ignorance, of impersonal understanding that can be, at turns, sublime & despairing. Of course I speak for myself, but I suspect that you, wuli (and a few other PF loiterers), find that no 'god-concept' is encompassing, or absymal, enough to domesticate & account for this shattering, shattered, void. Perhaps we only agree on this: this 'god' business is fairly trivial stuff; I just happen to think, though, that getting it right (or just moreso than wrong) is fairly useful trivia. NOTHINGlifeNOTHING. Edited by 180 Proof on 09/19/09 - 11:47 PM. Reason: Fidelity sans faith ...
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

rigelrover
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Posted 09/19/09 - 05:27 AM:	#4
Of course if X = undefinable/unspeakable 'god-concept', as such, categorical description is non-nonsensical.
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

wuliheron
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 09/19/09 - 06:38 AM:	#5
180%, I trust that I do not know and assert that this is the "ground state". It is the natural state to which we are all born and the lowest possible energy state or state of being achievable by a human being. A computer can be said to have absolute lack of trust or mistrust, but not a human being.

treemanshope
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Posted 09/19/09 - 07:28 AM:	#6
Was it Thomas Huxley that coined the term "agnostic?"

BeHereNow
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Posted 09/19/09 - 07:40 AM:	#7
treemanshope wrote: Was it Thomas Huxley that coined the term "agnostic?" Aldous, not Thomas. As in The Doors of Perception. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Stupid me! It was Thomas! Edited by BeHereNow on 09/19/09 - 09:11 AM

philosophytomorrow
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Posted 09/19/09 - 06:01 PM:	#8
I agree with 180 Proof that whether or not a god exists is useless trivia, completely irrelevant to anything I have going on in my life. However, useless trivia irrelevant to anything I have going on in my life is what I spend most of my time thinking about. When I think about god, I see god in a similar way to Vonnegut -- that god is a D- chemistry student and all of this is a D- experiment. Which makes me wonder what an A+ existence might be like. People ask me whether I'm agnostic or atheist and I really don't know what to tell them sometimes. I normally respond with "what do you mean by 'god'?" and the answer is usually something similar to the Judeo-Christian god, or any sort of personal god. In that respect I'm agnostic but default to atheist because I do not believe that sort of god exists. Sometimes I just tell them I'm a philosopher, so I'm still thinking about it. Stirling wrote: Richard Dawkins has a really good scale in "The God Delusion." The scale is actually borrowed from somebody else, but after looking through "The God Delusion" I found that Dawkins didn't reference that person (not to my surprise). On a note unrelated to the thread, I think Richard Dawkins is a jackass.
"In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it." - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." -- Ipid.

rigelrover
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Posted 09/19/09 - 06:48 PM:	#9
philosophytomorrow wrote: I think Richard Dawkins is a jackass. Duly noted. But don't judge the person, just the actions. Everyone has redeemable qualities. I even argued once that Richard Dawkins could very well be doing God's work as a prophet of sorts. Speaking against traditionalist indoctrination, etc. The only problem with that is that he also encourages his own brand of indoctrination simultaneously.
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

philosophytomorrow
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Posted 09/19/09 - 08:56 PM:	#10
rigelrover wrote: Duly noted. But don't judge the person, just the actions. Everyone has redeemable qualities. I even argued once that Richard Dawkins could very well be doing God's work as a prophet of sorts. Speaking against traditionalist indoctrination, etc. The only problem with that is that he also encourages his own brand of indoctrination simultaneously. Precisely what I meant. Perhaps I should've said "I think Richard Dawkins acts like a jackass." I wonder if he sees the irony in his whole campaign against superstition and converting believers to scientism. Here's one of the best book reviews of The God Delusion I've ever read. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
"In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it." - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." -- Ipid.

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