Claims of Knowledge

I received a quad chart on Twitter from @GodIsCosmos. If you’ve seen the somewhat popular chart with atheist/theist on one side and agnostic/gnostic on the other, then this other chart is just like it. This one replaces agnostic/gnostic with non-claimant/claimant.  It then asserts that agnosticism doesn’t equate to non-claimant because it’s supposed to be a distinct position with it’s own causes and effects.  I couldn’t find any more info to try to figure out what that’s trying to say since it doesn’t make much sense. The additional tweets on the subject didn’t help much since they were more convoluted ways to break down beliefs and knowledge.

My reaction to this different quad chart is that the agnostic “lack of knowledge” is the same as being a non-claimant of knowledge. “Lack of knowledge” was even written in the boxes on the non-claimant side.  I’ll just expand on what agnosticism means for making claims to work through my thoughts on this as something that adds little value to trying to understand what we know and should believe.

Let’s use the basic theistic question: do you believe in a creator, god, or gods?  Answering across the spectrum of “I don’t know,” “that’s unknown,” or “that’s unknowable” results in an answer of “unknown” regardless of why that answer is reached. This viewpoint equates to belief and disbelief like this:

  • “Unknown” doesn’t equate to “belief” (theism).  Belief implies having knowledge claims (verifiable or not) of a describable “it” to believe in. If “it” isn’t described then it doesn’t exist as a concept to be believed.  An unknowing person can’t logically be considered a theist since theism requires belief.
  • “Unknown” does equate to “lack of belief” (weak atheism).  You have no theistic beliefs if you don’t have any belief claims.
  • “Unknown” doesn’t equate to “disbelief” (strong atheism or anti-theism) since disbelief is defined as an active rejection which requires the ability to verify theistic claims are false.

I’ll provide a non-gods example of applied agnosticism.  Clear your mind for a moment.  Now all you know is that this blog post is some ramblings on the Internet and now the question is simply: what’s my age?  If you’re honest about your knowledge, you’d answer that with “I don’t know” or “that’s unknown because I don’t even know who you are.”  If you’re not fully honest about the limits of your knowledge then you might try to make some guesses based on what you think you know. You might consider what you think must be impossible answers like 2 or 200. You might wonder what assistance the writer had to write this which would turn a single age question into a false question because there could be various ages of various writers. You might wonder if I meant the age of the person writing this or the age of the post itself. You might even think of advances in Artificial Intelligence and wonder if there is a real person that crafted this nonsense.

Now what do you believe my age is? You still don’t know and any claims of knowledge you make as a basis for your belief is useless for finding out the real truth.  All of those thoughts are just fog obscuring reality. You only have guesses to fill that void in your knowledge. The truly honest approach is to admit you don’t really know and remain agnostic concerning the answer until you can find true knowledge.  There must be some sort of answer to the question even if the answer is that I’m not real and have no measurable age. Beliefs and disbeliefs are useless to help you answer that question.

Now back to the universe, I’ll bet my “soul” that we may be too simple of a being to ever know the truth about this universe.  Is there a beginning to it?  If there is, is there something we might consider to be a god or gods involved in that mess?  Nobody can really tell you because nobody really knows. Until we do, unknown is the answer.

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Primarily Agnostic

“Answers two different questions, ‘agnostic’ answers epistemological question but not theological.” @PennJillette

See some thoughts of @TobiasPrinz regarding a short Twitter exchange on this subject on his blog post: Atheism and Agnosticism

I’ll go over this in a little more detail from my perspective since I can’t fully express my thoughts in the short attention messages of Twitter.  Yes, there are two questions that can be asked when it comes to religion.  Do you have knowledge about “god(s)” and do you have faith or belief in “god(s)”?  I want to stress that god isn’t just your own personal Jesus and God the father of the Bible or Allah or whatever other specific beings you may have a preconceived notion of when someone says… (cue menacing music) GOD.  Theism crosses the gamut from that to the vagueness of pantheism and a general view that “god” is this universe and we are all a part of god.  Also, when I think of creation, I see a possibility that this universe we know is just a small subset of a larger reality and existence.  Perhaps this little universe is a created thing in a larger existence.  Maybe we’re in The Matrix.  I just really don’t know enough to share anything with authority since I’m just a simple little human in such a large and mysterious universe.

These are the kinds of thoughts that lead to me to believe that the most important question  is the one concerning what we know.  What we personally believe is ultimately useless to humanity.  The whole reason for atheism is to be a disbelief response to theism.  There would be no need for atheism without theism.  That’s why I think agnosticism will always remain an important view for the big questions of existence, creation, and whatever may be our first cause and origin.  I’m not sure why there is an agnostic/atheist debate since they are both true to answer those different questions.  I identify primarily with agnosticism because of the importance of knowledge to me.  I share my view with the same amount of importance that primarily atheist people have for their view of it.  Who cares which path we take in our freethought when the answer is roughly the same?

  • Theist: I believe in this!
  • Atheist: I don’t believe you!
  • Agnostic: You can’t claim a verifiable truth (knowledge) for something like that!

Yes, by definition, the agnostic is not explicitly expressing disbelief.  However, if you’re agnostic and you profess your lack of knowledge then you are also expressing an importance for knowledge.  What type of logic or knowledge would then say it’s valid for an agnostic to agree with a theistic claim and engage in the blind faith required for god belief?  I know it’s not a hard and fast rule that agnostics aren’t theists, but it makes no sense to me that the agnostic wouldn’t agree with the atheist when it comes to specific claims made by theists.  We should all be in agreement for disbelief even though we come to the same conclusion from a different primary path.  Nearly all agnostics should come to the same conclusion as atheism.

If you’re an atheist and you’re arguing that I shouldn’t be agnostic, then you’re really just criticizing my path and methodology even though we’re arriving at the same general conclusions.  Instead of criticizing folks that say “I don’t know” as being weak and lacking enough commitment to be an atheist, why don’t you “real atheists” just help those that may be on the fence to understand that nobody should engage in or support blind faith and theistic beliefs when we don’t know.

I’m primarily agnostic and that should be fine for any reasonable person.  People shouldn’t believe in crap that they obviously can’t know anything about.  That crap is the religions of our ancestors.  Yes, that’s just like atheism, but for me it’s just the conclusion and the real reason why I think that way is agnosticism since unknown is the real answer for me.

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A Defense of Agnostics – Jumping to Conclusions on the Marathon Bombing

There was an article on The Atlantic called Was the Marathon Bombing Terrorism? A Defense of Agnostics.  This is a non-religious example of applying agnosticism to the way we think and the way we live.  It was written during the heat of the moment with the Boston Marathon bombing story as people knew who the suspects were but didn’t really know what they we were thinking.  A key point made about agnosticism in general is:

“None of us is forced to bet or speculate or parse incomplete evidence right now. So why do it? Or if we just can’t resist, why mock those with stronger willpower?”

The agnostic viewpoint is stronger willpower to not jump to conclusions when further evidence is needed.  Too often people grandstand on their conclusions as truth and demand others agree with them to reinforce their unjustified leap from opinion to truth.  The assertion of the person or the number of people that agree with their opinion doesn’t make it truth.  We have been able to discover their true motivations because one of the suspects was captured and told us why they did it.  It’s interesting to read articles like this with the hindsight of actually finding out the truth:

That’s the part of Drum’s post that I wish everyone in America would internalize, myself included: “Just wait. There’s no harm in it.” It’s true. There really isn’t any harm in waiting for more facts to emerge. Whereas much mischief is the result of weighing in too soon and getting things wrong.

You’d never know that from Sullivan’s reaction. By declaring Greenwald’s agnosticism “left liberal self-parody,” he treats another writer’s failure to quickly take a position on the “terrorism or not” question as if it’s an example of a harmful ideological pathology that warrants a rebuke and mockery.

Why? What harm is Greenwald doing?

How much do we get wrong in our lives by weighing in as if we know specific things that we can’t possibly know such as what someone thinks?  Why are those that refuse to make final and complete judgement on a subject vilified as lacking conviction to make a judgement where one isn’t warranted?  We can discuss what is likely or not likely but that isn’t the standard for knowledge.

So I am grateful for reminders from cooler heads about how frequently what everyone “knows” to be true turns out to be false. At worst, those warnings delay the moment when an inevitable conclusion is reached, as I suspect will be true in this case. That delay is the worst thing that could happen. Is that so bad? At best, skeptics prevent wrongheaded assumptions from being treated as fact. That’s why I am especially grateful for skeptics when I catch myself making assumptions.

This paragraph can be applied to most anything in life to remind us that the cooler heads can withhold final judgement for when an inevitable conclusion is reached.  What harm is there in doing that compared to the harm of living with wrongheaded assumptions as facts?

I apply this to the big questions of religion.  The religions of humanity, given the available evidence, are most likely inventions of humanity that in my viewpoint are likely to be mostly wrong.  At their best, religions may be a faint echo or shadow of some unknowable truth about the true origins of this finite universe in an infinite existence.  Really though, I see no harm and only benefits for just waiting until I die to find out if there is anything more to me than this human body.  If there is, I’d bet my life that it has almost nothing to do with the religions dreamed up by our primitive ancestors.  I say almost because some religious views like those of the Native Americans or Taoism may have some elements of truth to them.  I see these as some examples of echos and shadows of a possible universal truth or they may also just be echos of very human desires for an eternal existence that isn’t true.

Who KNOWS?  Just wait.  Live your life in the here and now.  There’s no harm in it.  Make the most of this life and quit worrying about what we can’t possibly know.  I only know our lives are a precious gift from our parents and this gift shouldn’t be wasted or destroyed.

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Souls From The Universe

The true essence of what could be considered our soul is rooted in our physical mind. But what if there is a true origin for our soul in this universe that is not yet dreamt of in our philosophies or religions? The root of agnosticism for me is this acknowledgement that outside of our verifiable knowledge is the realm of the unknown and a possibly unknowable reality. The universe gives us our atoms and the building blocks of our physical bodies. I can imagine that some of the essence of our thoughts and our personas could also come from some misunderstood aspect of the universe instead of existing exclusively in our physical minds.

Our thoughts could be built from and connected back to the universe just as our bodies are built from the materials of the universe. Our bodies and minds are clearly independent of the universe, but there could be more of an impact and connection to our minds just as the physical universe impacts our physical bodies in many ways we don’t always understand or see. A physical example of this is radiation. Maybe there could be a mental equivalent of radiation. This is not to say that such things actually exist and leaps of faith can be justified by imagined possibilities. This is just to point out the limits of our knowledge. Since science can discover and prove radiation, perhaps science may be able to discover a mental essence of our being in addition to our physical existence. It could then be imagined that our mental essence could be built from our parents just as their DNA builds our physical bodies.

So many people believe in specific ideas of an intelligent creator that built thinking beings like themselves. I think it’s more likely this belief is based on projecting our own personas back on the universe from which we are built. If we have a subconscious sense of our bodies being built from the universe then perhaps we have a sense that our conscious also comes from the universe. This doesn’t mean there has to be a deliberate or intelligent cause for this to happen and is something that is beyond our knowledge our understanding. I’m simply suggesting that there may be something to a feeling that there is something out there more than this physical existence and it isn’t a jealous god that demands our love.

We know that the matter of the universe has spawned our physical bodies and minds in this little corner of it all. We don’t know, but it’s plausible, that we assemble our conscious thoughts and sense of self as momentary collections of something unknown in the universe just as our bodies are momentary collections of atoms we understand.  We return our bodies to the universe to be used for other things that are unintelligent and unrelated to our lives. Perhaps our thoughts and the essence of our being could also be something tangible we don’t understand. Whatever it is could also be dispersed back into the universe when the atoms of our brains cease to be organized as a living organ capable of processing thoughts. There could be an eternal soul and it’s simply some other material in the universe that organizes into our sense of being for a brief moment in eternity to be dispersed back into the cosmos.

The concept of a soul is another point where I believe knowledge trumps belief and agnosticism is more informative and descriptive than atheism. Disbelief in theism doesn’t convey this idea of what is known and the possibility of something existing beyond what we currently consider to be the natural universe. The atheist response to the soul is that we don’t believe because it is unbelievable. This is valid but it isn’t my primary message to people asking me what I believe. The agnostic view of the soul is we don’t know because it’s unknowable. The complete picture is agnostic atheism: I don’t know and don’t believe because of that.

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An Eternal Soul

The essence of self in our minds and psyche appears when the neurons of our brain formulate and process our first thought. These thoughts are recorded as memories that continue to feed our growing identities. What happens to our essence of self when our brains no longer function? I’ve known people that have died and everything I’ve seen has shown me they cease to exist. My own experience is that I don’t know of anything before I was born. Everything I know of our physical universe tells me that I don’t exist without my brain.

Religions teach us that there’s an eternal soul. The fear of death and the desire to live forever makes the idea of the soul a very appealing fiction. I have memories of loved ones that have passed away and it is through human imagination and these memories that I can project their persona into the present and imagine what they may think if they were still alive. Our imaginations have a powerful ability to trick and confuse the reality in our minds. Combining imagination with the vision of someone that actually existed can make their soul and essence of their existence appear to be real and eternal. Early humans and their ancestor worship led to the development of the eternal soul concept in later religions along with a heaven to hold our souls.

I have no sense of my personality or thoughts before I was born. The growth of our persona over the course of our lives leads me to believe there isn’t an eternal aspect to our essence of self. There should be some signs of our mental abilities and growth starting well before our physical human lives if we did have souls. Each person starts as a blank slate and a sponge that learns from everything around them instead of bringing with them an eternal knowledge or wisdom that a soul should possess.

If there really was an eternal soul then our human lives exist in such a small blip of time that these lives are meaningless compared to eternity. This very moment that you read this and contemplate this thought would literally have no meaning or value compared to the eternal time that we aren’t human beings. An eternal soul devalues human life and makes it insignificant and unimportant compared to the importance of an eternal soul. This is a dangerous viewpoint because unknowable beliefs about these imagined souls could be argued to be more important than the human lives we know.

The importance of agnosticism is the acknowledgement that we don’t really know about these supernatural or spiritual concepts. We shouldn’t put our faith in what we don’t know regardless of how much we might imagine or believe such things could be true. What we do know about our very real human lives should always be the most important concept that guides us.

I know I’m definitely a human being and not an immortal soul momentarily possessing this body. Every fiber of my being tells me I really do need this body to exist and my death will be the end of me. It doesn’t make sense to make the giant leap of faith to believe in my soul since it conflicts with that feeling of life inside my physical body and mind.

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