Is "agnostic" a useful concept?

[deucemagnet]

Is "agnostic" a useful concept?

<snip>
In everyday language, an agnostic is someone who is "halfway" between being an atheist and a religious believer, or perhaps someone who sits on the fence and makes a virtue of refusing to take a stand one way or the other. Of course, popular usage is quite different from the sense originally intended by Thomas Huxley: the position that humanity can never know one way or the other whether a god or gods exist. Either way, I question the usefulness of the term.

Huxley's claim might strike one as being rather sweeping and dogmatic in itself. After all, at one stage scientists might have said with confidence that humans can never know whether there was a big bang, whether there are black holes, and so on. But since then, observational evidence has piled up steadily to the point where it is overwhelming.

On the other hand, Huxley's claim is vacuous in a sense. You can never know with 100% certainty that the chair you're sitting on right now exists, or the computer or device you're using to read these words. Your brain could be floating in a vat in an evil scientist's basement lab, connected to electrical cables which feed inputs generating the illusory universe you perceive.

Not to mention that a chair and a computer are more or less well-defined entities; most people can agree on whether something is a computer or not. God, however, has never (as far as I can see) even been defined well enough that a debate concerning his existence is worth having. God is an incoherent concept. The old-style image of a bearded man in the sky is simply wrong, but the vague, abstract god of "sophisticated theology", who vanishes behind a smoke screen of semantic masturbation, is what a scientist would call "not even wrong".

More: http://schrodingerstherapist.blogspot.com/

A very interesting take on the term "agnostic".

[Curmudgeoness]

1. I think the article is making quite a stretch

in saying how we can never know anything 100%. Or that agnostics on just on the fence. I am not sure that I see the reason for denigrating people who choose to be classified as agnostics, for whatever reason. But there are people who do, and they do have a definition of what that means to them. It is a useful term to them. Usually, I consider that it means they are open to the idea that there could be a god, if they have evidence. I am not sure that the 100% proof is required. But right now, there is no evidence, so they are considering themselves agnostic. They are not on the fence or refusing to take a stand.

On my road to atheism, I considered myself an agnostic for a time. I was not wishy-washy. I was questioning and leaning away from religion and god, but felt that I needed more information to believe, or totally turn my back. I would not think of agnostics as lesser atheists.

[defacto7]

2. If you scan through the definitions

of atheist and agnostic, it's as if there is a mass of believers, non-believers and everyone in between that want to make up their own definitions. It's rather confusing when the basic premise seems simple. But the big problem is what seems to be a fight over the word agnostic as so many want their definition to be the "right" one. If you minimize the definitions it comes down to implicit atheism and explicit atheist or weak and strong respectively with a caveat or two. Then there is the definition that states that agnostic is actually called agnostic atheism which makes sense to me.

But personally I think Dawkins has the most realistic scaling of belief to non-belief and it pretty much covers the gamut.

1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.

I would define myself as #6 and I doubt anyone in their right mind would be a #7; it's illogical. You will find many even most believers who claim to be a #1 but to me that is as illogical as #7.

But as far as the need for the word agnostic, no I don't think it's necessary except for those who want to distance themselves from the word atheist because they have an unrealistic view of the concept.

[deucemagnet]

4. I never made it all the way through "The God Delusion",

but I like Dawkins' scaling of belief. I thought that the most interesting part of the article was that "agnostic" is not a useful concept no matter how you define it. Out of all the things we can't know, it elevates the existence of a God above all others (although it is rarely used to describe lack of knowledge in something other than a deity). Not only that, it gives special deference to the Christian God, since most "agnostics" (however they choose to define the term) are not agnostic with respect to Zeus, Osiris, or Baal. I thought that this article presented a very interesting case against a somewhat controversial label.

[Brainstormy]

14. not sure why

you never managed to finish God Delusion. I find Dawkins unfailingly interesting, but if you care to, you might try the audio book. In his own voice, the book is even better.

[deucemagnet]

15. I still have an electronic copy around somewhere.

Maybe I'll try to give it another read over the holidays. I put the book down when I got frustrated with one of the weaker arguments that he made. There are so many strong arguments for atheism that I don't think that you should bother with the weak ones.

[Heddi]

6. I've often referred to myself as an Agnothiest, or Agnostic Atheist

and I'd describe myself as: I don't know if God exists, he probably doesn't, and I'm okay living as if he doesn't, which I guess is another way of saying that I'm a #6 on that list.

[RebelOne]

9. I am an illogical #7.

I would like to believe that there is a doggy heaven and my long-gone beloved pets will be there to greet me at the Rainbow Bridge. I would rather spend eternity with them than all my dead relatives and ex-husband.

[defacto7]

10. Sorry for the illogical...

I only mean illogical is the absolute sense. I think the idea of #7 is that this person decides there is no god without room for argument or challenge. It sort of enters the realm of faith because a #7 chooses that there is no god without the ability to "know" and none of us are omniscient. I don't believe in god but I always leave a door open for change if the evidence presents itself. I don't expect it to change and until it does I cannot believe in a deity and that's how I live my life. That makes me a #6. I could never be a #7 because there is no evidence in science that is absolute. There's just reasonable data and reasonable argument at a given point in time. There are absolutes in faith because a person can believe anything they want without any evidence and call it absolute; it's their choice. If I were to say there is no god period and there is no argument that can change my mind, I cease being a reasonable thinker.

You might call me a #6.3

[Bradical79]

18. the flying spaghetti monster argument

Really no one can be completely sure of anything, but we mostly live our lives treating a lot of strong improbabilities as absolute impossibilities simply for practical reasons of getting on with our lives.

[OriginalGeek]

3. I don't know if there are any gods.

But regardless of my current lack of knowledge (or maybe because of it) I do not believe in them.

If there is one or more, it or they would have to do something pretty spectacular to get me to believe in it.


And something even more spectacular still to get me to worship it.

[Gore1FL]

5. I' can't be sure either way.

[deucemagnet]

7. LOL

I see what you did there.

[Major Nikon]

8. Atheism is the default

We are all born atheists and atheism requires no promotion. You can't say that about religion.

Someone who has doubts has been influenced by religion.

[defacto7]

11. Ignostics...

I think my wife is ignostic. She was brought up in eastern Europe without indoctrination in faiths. If someone were to ask her, "Do you believe in god?" her answer would probably be "Believe in god? I don't understand the question. Define god?" That's usually the end of the conversation. I'm expanding on it a little but it fits her being born under the default conditions.

[Brainstormy]

13. exactly

so simple.

[LostOne4Ever]

12. Agnostic

I am getting to the point I really HATE this term.

I find too many people try to use this word to suit their own political purposes (ie claim that atheism is a religion).

I debated a conservative till I red in the face explaining to him that agnosticism simply means that one does not think its possible to know if a god exists or not and that one can be both an agnostic and a thiest or atheist. I gave him link after link after bloody fucking link supporting my statements and even quoted Huxley himself. I then gave him fifty more links showing that a person who neither believer or disbelieves is a implicit atheist.

Nope. His unsupported opinion was fact. He, the non-atheist, supposedly knows more about atheism than I, the self described atheist. Or AA or the FfRF for that matter.

But going beyond that, I find the definition of agnostic rather over general. Most people I know don't think the existence of a god can be proven and therefore are agnostics. By the strict definition, I would imagine the vast majority of people in the world are agnostics.

Then there are those people who are in denial about being atheists. They claim they don't want to be labeled; yet, they are doing exactly that to us. By using the term agnostic in that way they only further stigmatize the term atheist and lead to more confusion and misinformation.

The only real use of the term is like the article mentioned in that you live in a religious area and don't want to ruffle feathers. But even then you are only adding to the misunderstanding and misinfo by using the term.

[PassingFair]

16. I've had that argument many times with believers in our Religion Room...

So many times that I once thought of just giving up and calling myself an "Agnostic".

In the believers lexicon, "atheist" = bad
and "agnostic" = reasonable person who just hasn't seen the light

The dictionary definitions of "atheist" don't help, they must have been written by
believers, and the believers will fling them at you to INSIST that if you are and atheist,
you are a "Number 7", and therefore as illogical as them.

So yes, I wish that Huxley had never coined the word!

[defacto7]

20. I'll have to say several wiki pages

on the subject have been taken over by theists and no one is challenging their definitions and correcting them. That's the way of dogmatism... smash it... maybe then the facts will go away.

[cleanhippie]

21. What tickles me pink are those in Religion who say that not believing is a belief.

Just had that conversation again with another one the day before yesterday.

It's stupefying how one can be so... I'm not sure of the word that best describes it.

[PassingFair]

22. She was a treat, wasn't she!

"And you're wrong and that's that and I'm taking my ball and going home" <--------------What I heard

[cleanhippie]

23. A treat, indeed. She pops up every now and then. Seems random to me.

There are several like that who just appear like that. Coincidentally, some of the regulars go silent at the same time.

[PassingFair]

24. Maybe they are as sick of telling us what WE believe or don't believe....

as we are of hearing it.

[TudorGothicSerpent]

17. Not so sure that it's a useless term

I think that, given the proper understanding, "agnostic" can be a good label for certain individuals. You might disagree with the argument that we can't know whether or not there is a deity somewhere out there, or you might think that we can know it as well as we can know anything else know by inductive reasoning (sometimes with extremely limited doubt). Still, there are some people, myself included, who really just don't believe that it's possible to know with any real certainty whether there is or is not a god. You can make arguments for or against the idea of any particular god, but a completely non-personal, deistic god isn't really possible to rule out even if it doesn't seem like the most parsimonious explanation. It may be unlikely, but it's not logically impossible, nor is it possible to prove.

There's also the fact that, if you define "god" in a non-conventional way, you could probably argue that a quantum vacuum is a god if its tendency to behave in certain ways is what started the universe. Technically, it would fit the definition of god given by St. Thomas Aquinas in his five proofs (the first cause being called god by its very nature as a first cause), but that's getting into some confusing ground and brings me somewhat toward ignosticism. If you can define god that broadly, the existence of god is pretty much a meaningless question.

[progressoid]

19. Welcome to DU TudorGothicSerpent!

I don't have time to do much more than I agree that it does have a valid use.

And welcome you to our little corner of DU

[DerekG]

25. What's wrong with being a theological fence-sitter anyway?

We're not discussing gravity or the Iraq occupation or the luminosity of Monica Bellucci, but rather prospects of a higher power and/or a reality beyond our own.

There's nothing wrong in the world with saying "God? Eh, beats me".