Agnostic Universe

It’s funny that the cartoonist decides to make the kid agnostic instead of atheist or freethinker or any other non-theist label and since most people focus on the atheist label it must have some meaning to the cartoonist specific to agnosticism. I’m thinking the cartoonist is saying the agnostic won’t make up his mind and commit to a costume. So this is funny if it lumps atheists in with the wearers of false images. Most atheists say they are a-theist and not anti-theist, meaning they simply lack belief and don’t actively claim god is not real as a provable viewpoint. This is complementary to the agnostic “we lack knowledge” viewpoint.

I see the costumed kids as believers that wrap themselves in pretend despite the reality of who they are. If you’re true to yourself then you don’t dress yourself in a costume. I don’t see how an atheist would be in a costume, which is sort of implied by calling the normal kid an agnostic. I believe agnosticism and atheism are two sides of the same coin and it’s just a matter of your personal emphasis as to which label you prefer to say as “without knowledge” or “without theistic belief”. Either way we don’t believe and we lack knowledge of the supernatural which is the basis for theistic belief.

Freethought Today has an article on Robert Ingersoll titled Words of ‘Great Agnostic’ still ring true. I have a few of his writings in the library on this site, so it’s good to see a recognition of Ingersoll’s thoughts from the 1800′s that still ring true today. This is one of the agnostics that led to my preference for the label as the best designator for what I believe.

“It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.”

“If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help — we need not waste our energies in his defense.”

“The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.”

“The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called ‘faith.’”

It’s interesting that critiques of theistic belief and thought appear to be as universal and timeless as the religions present themselves to be. However, in reading religious text I often find myself thinking they are very much as primitive and dated as their time periods of origin. Freethought and alternatives to primitive religions need more presentations like Ingersoll’s discussing the limits of human knowledge. We need more “preachers” of truth to counter the preachers of blind faith in primitive writings. Any belief should welcome the critique and counterpoint if they truly believe they have the right answers, yet many religions present that critical thought itself is a dangerous endeavor and that their beliefs should be accepted without question.

Imagine an auditorium, filled to capacity to hear an orator known worldwide discuss atheism and question Christian tenets. Imagine thousands of people willing to pay a substantial admission to hear his eloquence and irreverent wit. Ingersoll, “The Great Agnostic,” would speak extemporaneously for three hours.

Robert Green Ingersoll, born Aug. 11, 1833, in Dresden, N.Y., was a major entertainment figure before the advent of motion pictures, radio and television. Between 1865 and 1888, he traveled the country on many speaking engagements. While he is not well-known today outside the freethought community, it has been said that, at the time, no human had been seen or heard by more Americans.

I find it very hard to imagine an America with a Bill of Rights including the freedom of religion would ever prosecute people for blasphemy. Yet, Ingersoll was involved in defending such a case and lost:

Ingersoll was an attorney. In 1887, he agreed to defend C.B. Reynolds, who was charged in New Jersery with blasphemy for distributing a pamphlet with an argument against the infallibility of the bible. Ingersoll delivered a 20,000-word closing argument that addressed the blasphemy charge and the bigger issue of free speech. The New York Times reported that an old man approached Ingersoll after the closing argument and said, “Colonel Ingersoll, I am a Presbyterian pastor, but I must say that was the noblest speech in defense of liberty I ever heard!”

I didn’t intend to quote so much of this article but these words of Ingersoll from the closing arguments deserve to be quoted again and again.

“For thousands of years, people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.”

“No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame.”

“It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike.”

“How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it.”

“Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another.”

I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t had time to post very often but this comment to a previous post gave me a chuckle so I wanted to provide a response.

You: “out out of all of these possibilities I don’t think it’s enough to just say that I don’t believe in any of the human defined theisms. I think it is much more honest to say that all of humanity definitely doesn’t know.”

Since when is it more honest to speak for all of humanity instead of just yourself? That sentence didn’t make sense to me.

I don’t speak for all of humanity but I definitely have an opinion of truth, our collective knowledge, and our ability to know the truth. If my viewpoint is confined to my own limits of knowledge then I’m just a fence-sitter that hasn’t yet heard the right truth from my fellow humans. I don’t think any of you have the answers to my questions about existence since I don’t think any of us possess the ability to understand. I may not speak for you but I do believe you share in my condition of ignorance. If I spoke for you I’d be compelled to have you believe as I do, and I honestly don’t care if any of you do.

You: “Even though I’m without theism (a-theist), that is why I use the Agnostic label.”

I use both (agnostic atheist). But for short I say “atheist” because in most cases agnosticism is a given (as in: you can’t be absolutely certain about anything).

Also, not bringing up the agnostic label might just help avoid the brain-in-a-vat discussion.

I can have reasonable certainty of many things starting with my own existence as well the existence of the wife and children I love. My certainty also includes religion and the supernatural. Whatever real truth is out there, I am certain we are too simplistic to know it. A completely natural universe that just came to be in a big bang is an interesting theory of our beginning, but I find it hard to believe that it’s the complete story. There may just be more than this that we just don’t know and can’t understand.

It may just be that I’m dreaming and I’m simply a brain-in-a-vat and none of this is truly real. LOL

There’s a Slate article by Ron Rosenbaum on An Agnostic Manifesto as well as an Atheist response article by PZ Myers called “New Agnostics” or “Same Old Ineffectual Wafflers”.

First, I’ll reiterate that I continue to concur with the prevailing view that agnosticism is not a “third way” from theism and atheism. However, agnostic theists are focused on their faith and have no use for the agnostic label or qualifier since for them knowledge has no importance and their faith is all that matters. Those that argue agnosticism does not stand alone successfully argue that atheism means nothing more than being without (a-) theism. It is not synonymous with anti-theism (gnostic atheist?) so to proclaim to be atheist is only to claim “I don’t believe that.” I believe agnostic atheist is the correct worldview and that the Agnostic label alone says the most for my belief. I don’t just simply “not believe that” but do believe that “we do not know.” I am Agnostic. Yes, a big letter Agnostic could semantically be theist or atheist but in practice I only know agnostics to be “without theism.” I think I’m safe to assume I can use agnostic without atheist and not get lumped in with Christians or other theistic groups.

The New Agnostics article tries to carve out agnosticism as completely different from atheism in general. Agnosticism is really only a different view from the hardline anti-theism or a strong atheism if it were akin to gnostic atheism. Read Huxley, Ingersoll, and Russell and you’re reading people that could easily use a broad “without theism” label. It’s just that the label wasn’t the right fit for them personally and didn’t say enough about what they really thought about being outside of theistic belief. They all gravitated towards what Huxley created in the term Agnostic. I agree with Ron that agnosticism isn’t an exact subcomponent of atheism but that is just because it concerns knowledge and not faith so semantically it isn’t just “weak atheism.” However, in common practice I wouldn’t see a problem with agnostic and weak atheism becoming synonymous. There is no dogma to being outside of theistic belief, so why not?

You can read through both articles but it really comes down to what PZ Myers closes with:

I know he hates it when we say this, but Wilkins is awfully hard to distinguish from any other atheist, except for the fact that he insists on the label “agnostic”. If it makes him feel any better, he can always call the rest of us agnostics, too. We’ll humor him.

Exactly! I’ve personally backed off from the notion that agnosticism is unique from atheism. We are all truly agnostic atheists as a total set of labels concerning knowledge and faith. If you bother to use a label at all for this subject it’s easier to use just one and for reasons I’ve already described above I believe either one is fine to distinguish yourself from theists.

If I’m a “New Agnostic” then I’m just here to proclaim that we are all agnostic and atheist. Agnostic is a perfectly respectable label to use for a viewpoint on theism even though it is about knowledge and not faith. Just know that Agnostic as a standalone label generally implies that you are not a theist and are therefore also a-theist. Now get back to your lives, family, and friends and just enjoy what you do know.

Quoting from Thomas Henry Huxley

They were quite sure they had attained a certain “gnosis,”–had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of “agnostic.” It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the “gnostic” of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.

I said in my last post that I believe we are all agnostic and the unknowing trait of humanity is a universal truth to me.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t many people that think they do know and believe they do have the answers.  Even those that claim they don’t have knowledge and only proclaim a faith make a claim of knowledge by defining what it is they have faith in.  It’s kind of hard to claim we “don’t know” when you start talking about specific traits of the god you believe in even if your belief is based only on faith and not actual knowledge.

So how could you be a truthful agnostic if you claim to be an agnostic with faith in a specific god?  Even though I do now accept the definition that knowledge (agnosticism) and belief (theism) are two different topics that doesn’t allow for agnosticism to stand alone, I still see an incompatibility with theism if you’re being honest about your labels.

If you’re a god believer and your belief isn’t based on knowledge then why the heck would you feel the need to believe something like that?  I can’t in good conscience make a leap of faith for something that has no basis in knowledge.  Knowledge doesn’t even have to be exact and complete.  If you say that something is true to your knowledge or to the best of your knowledge, you mean that you believe it to be true but it is possible that you do not know all the facts.  How can you have faith if you can’t even make that small claim of knowledge?  If all you have is faith without knowledge then aren’t you basing your faith on an unjustified and potentially false belief?  Shouldn’t you desire the justified true belief that is knowledge?  I certainly do and is why I believe the path for truth in life is to remain a faithless agnostic.

Closing thoughts from Thomas Henry Huxley:

I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of existing religions. On trial of any so-called miracle the verdict of science is “Not proven.” But true Agnosticism will not forget that existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the intelligible universe, which “are not dreamt of in our philosophy.” The theological “gnosis” would have us believe that the world is a conjuror’s house; the anti-theological “gnosis” talks as if it were a “dirt-pie” made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena.

I believe that every person regardless of “belief” is Agnostic and it is the correct label for everyone on the planet. I believe that none of us really know and anyone that claims to know is wrong or even intentionally lying. The alternative is Gnosticism, which would be a claim that you do have real knowledge of gods. If there really was such knowledge then we could consider that and examine it instead of having all of these religions and theistic beliefs based upon faith. Well, since the theists only have faith to stand on then humanity obviously has no real knowledge. Since we are all without knowledge that would mean we are all Agnostic. It’s still the only label I really care about because it still says the most to me.

I understand the root meanings of a- and theism and see that atheism itself doesn’t really mean much. Most people using that label apparently want it watered down since it isn’t truly synonymous with antitheism or an explicit rejection of gods. Theism is the belief in gods and the prefix a- only means someone who lacks that belief or someone who isn’t in the god believer category. As a word it doesn’t mean anything more than that. It doesn’t mean the same thing as antitheism if anyone actually uses that label for themselves. If you’re not a theist then you are a-theist. Even if you might have a god belief in the future, you don’t presently so you’re still an a-theist. If you’re a hardcore antitheist then you also fit in the broad category of atheist since you also lack a belief in gods. It can be a little confusing but anyone that is non-theist is atheist. The anti- prefix is the one that means “opposed to” whereas the a- prefix just means “without”.

A reader asked what happens to the middle ground between atheism and theism, which perhaps should be phrased as between antitheism and theism. Well, I think that there really isn’t a middle ground unless you want to remain undecided on the whole subject. Agnosticism isn’t about being undecided. Maybe we could make a new word like untheist for that. Agnosticism is truly about the lack of knowledge and being the unknowing people we are. It’s a decision to say we don’t know. A middle ground would be a nonreligious person firmly planted in the secular world and unwilling to even enter the argument enough to have a label. What is a neutral path other than to not have a label for belief or nonbelief? To all god believers (theists) we are all outsiders to their belief and the “without theism” (atheism) label is valid for anyone that is not them. If you believe like I do that we don’t know and the theists don’t have the answers, then the theists don’t care if you do so primarily from a simple lack of sharing in their belief or the added acknowledgement of your lack of knowledge on the subject. In the end I see that nontheists are both atheist and agnostic, but I think we should still choose which word says the most about us, which for me is Agnostic.

I’ve engaged in a forum discussion on the subject of Agnosticism being a “third way” in addition to Atheism and Theism. I want to retract that notion and say that I am an Atheistic Agnostic or alternatively I’m a strong Agnostic/weak Atheist. Either way, I will continue to go by the label Agnostic as the shorthand for both.

Here is what I posted to the forum at About.com:

I’ve never found the atheist label troublesome since I believe a rational agnostic should be in agreement with atheism. I am definitely a strong agnostic as contrasted to a weak agnostic. OK, I think I’m understanding this better and would revise my stance of putting agnosticism in as a “third way” between atheism/theism sitting right on the line between them or outside of that set of 2 that I was last trying to argue.

Let me look at some other labels for a moment as to why I was flawed in thinking of it as an independent “third way”. I’m a male (XY). I’m a non-female (non-XX) or A-female. Not all A-female’s are actually male even though that is definitely the first assumption a typical person has. There is such a thing as a Human Intersex or Hermaphodite with XXY chromosomes or other variants. They are A-female even though they share chromosomes of both male and female. I could argue XXY is both XX and XY, however it actually is a new third category. I was there with my thoughts on atheism, theism, and agnosticism. However, XXY in the strictist sense is definitely not XX so it is logically in the A-female category. So XY isn’t atheism, it’s some sort of active non-belief or rejection of theism. XXY could be a passive non-belief, lack of belief, or those open to the possibility of belief. Atheism is simply being non-XX which does not logically imply XY. I think I’ve gotten that now.

Let me add that I’m a left-handed male which is A-right-handed. We have the same thing going on with this category. There are ambidextrous people that are also A-right-handed so the A-female logic applies to this category as well.

I’m an A-right-handed A-female person and also an A-female A-right-handed person. It means the same thing but I’ve just flipped the perceived importance of the traits by their order of appearance. You could argue that being A-female is a much more important trait than being A-right-handed. However, what I feel more impacted by is my A-right-handedness like when I’m trying to use scissors or any other devices designed for right-handed use. Other people may be more impacted by their A-female trait then the A-right-handed trait or modifier. Both traits aren’t always worth mentioning at the same time. I could say I’m A-female as much as a I could say I’m A-right-handed.

Are there atheistic agnostics? I lack belief because god isn’t knowable. I like that usage of the terms and that is actually what I would consider myself. I would then just use agnostic in the same way that an agnostic atheist just uses atheist since they don’t feel the need to differentiate themselves from the gnostic atheist label. Atheists simply care most about the atheist part of the grid and don’t feel the need to always point out they’re agnostic in regards to knowledge. I’m an atheistic agnostic that goes by the label Agnostic for short.

Now if you say there is no such thing as an atheistic agnostic and agnostic only exists as an adjective modifying atheist/theist then I have this thought on using the agnostic noun as a primary label. There are strong and weak agnostics and strong and weak atheists that can subdivide the options into a grid of 4.

weak agnostic weak atheist – god could be known/proven and lacks belief

weak agnostic strong atheist – god could be known/proven and does not believe

strong agnostic strong atheist – god cannot be known/proven and does not believe – this one appears contradictory so you probably can’t be this

strong agnostic weak atheist – god cannot be known/proven and lacks belief

I would consider myself a strong agnostic weak atheist. As a “STRONG AGNOSTIC/weak atheist” I would simply shorten it to Agnostic. The reason for this isn’t just convenience of using a single word, it’s because I think a strong agnostic theist position is contradictory.

Strong agnostic theist – god cannot be known/proven and believes in god – this one doesn’t make sense since how do you believe in something that can’t be known to you? That is why I think as a strong agnostic I wouldn’t consider being a theist as a valid position to hold since as soon as you’re stating a belief in god you’re making god into something knowable. Because of this I feel it’s not important for me to state an atheist position since I feel it is implied by my strong agnosticism.

There is also the weak agnostic theist – god could be known/proven and believes in a god based upon faith. That is how they are able to describe something they claim to not have knowledge of because god could be known. Anyway, I don’t care about the theist labels so much since I’m certain I’m not a theist.

Me: I’m an agnostic

Me: Yes, I’m an atheist agnostic or just agnostic for short. Alternatively I’m a strong agnostic/weak atheist or I still just prefer being called an agnostic for short.

I’ve written about an article in the Atheism Guide on About.com before. I have to write again about another article there since I saw a tweet about it. It’s called Atheism vs Agnosticism. Austin Cline believes agnosticism isn’t a belief by itself since it speaks of knowledge first and foremost instead of belief. He only thinks atheism and theism are the two major categories of belief and Agnostic is just an adjective to qualify why people have a belief. I guess he forgets that Agnostic is also defined as a noun in the English language.

First, I don’t see agnostic as a useful adjective because I believe that none of us really know. Since we don’t know it means anyone with a belief claim does so without knowledge and only has faith in their belief. It’s a waste of a word and we should just simply use Atheist and Theist and not bother with an agnostic adjective. A Gnostic Theist is not credible without the ability to actually provide us all with proof of their “knowledge”. If that would ever happen we wouldn’t be arguing any of this anyway.

Now back to Agnostic as a noun. I’ll quote from Cline’s article:

Once it is understood that atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods, it becomes evident that agnosticism is not, as many assume, a “third way” between atheism and theism. The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god exhaust all of the possibilities. Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge — it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not.

Here we are with a black and white definition of either you believe in god or you don’t. Even in a binary system there is still the option of the variable being undefined which would be a third option for belief. The main problem with this article is the use of the word “god.” It suggests a single creator called god and instantly brings to mind the Christian God. So let’s go ahead and start there. The Theist obviously believes in their human defined god. The Atheist rejects that god or simply lacks belief in it because they just don’t believe in it. This part is easy to define and agree upon. The Agnostic, in stating first and foremost that we do not know about such supernatural things, must say that nobody else knows either. If they don’t say that then they’re not making a statement of belief that matches their statement of knowledge. If they don’t also reject Christianity like the Atheist then they shouldn’t bother calling themselves anything other than a fence-sitter at that point. The Agnostic should logically have a belief the Christian is wrong because the Christian is claiming to know something that collectively we don’t know. In this regards an Agnostic and Atheist can agree on the truth of Christianity even if they don’t get to that conclusion in the same way. The Atheist simply doesn’t believe and the Agnostic can’t agree with the belief because of a belief that we don’t know such things.

Now we need to talk about the supernatural realm in the larger sense and whatever our possible origin may be from a supernatural creation, natural creation (Big Bang?), or even perhaps no creation event at all. The Theist looks at the majesty and mystery of the universe and claims an all-powerful being came from nothing (or always existed) and created the universe. Why they think a being is needed for this magic to happen instead of just the universe coming from nothing in the same way that their god came to exist is beyond me. Regardless, the question of our origin is answered by the Theist with “God did it.” There are other kinds of theisms such as Pantheism which claims the Universe is god or at least is the only thing worthy of reverence like a god. There are any number of words under theism you can dig up to describe a supernatural realm with a supernatural creation concept in it that explains the existence of our natural universe. That is the commonality found in theistic belief.

Atheism is a rejection or lack of all theistic beliefs and the supernatural realm they try to define. If you don’t see a supernatural cause for our existence then you are an atheist. This is the black and white two sides of the theistic belief coin. But what if you haven’t flipped that coin? What if you just don’t know and you acknowledge that humanity is clueless on this subject? What if you hold open the possibility of a supernatural creation that we don’t understand and therefore can’t define it under any theistic label? What if you also hold open the possibility of a natural creation or no creation event as well because you say you don’t know where all of this came from? Well, my friend, you are an Agnostic.

Wow, here’s a YouTube video of an interview with Bertrand Russell, one of the original Agnostics.

Nobel Prize-winning philosopher/mathematician, Bertrand Russell, explains why he does not believe in God. – Courtesy of CBC TV Retro Bites – via
www.AtheistMedia.com

I know I keep touching on this subject, but it is a common topic among freethinkers to try to figure out if agnosticism really exists. I obviously believe it does so I like bringing in anything that speaks to that viewpoint. I found a good article at Atheism and agnosticism… again.

It starts with a criticism of the wishy-washy “weak” and “strong” labels for theists and atheists and an article showing these thrown on a 2-axis graph of belief and knowledge. I agree with the author’s conclusion and reworking of the graph that I will copy here. (my thanks to John at ScienceBlogs)

<%image(20090613-agnostic-atheist-theist-axis.gif|400|303|Agnostic Graph)%>

The writeup from John on this graph is:

Each axis is in effect a question: can we know God or facts about God? (the Gnosis axis), and does god exist? (the Atheist/Theist axis). Here is my concern – can we say anything about God’s existence or not if we deny that the question of God is a knowable one, which is the agnostic position or perspective? I say that we cannot. I have absolutely no idea what a “weak theism” could be – do they believe in God’s existence but think that the question is unanswerable? It’s not enough to say they have faith God exists but think that is not knowledge – they are taking a firm position, and that counts as an epistemic commitment.

If the axes are simple binary choices, then no theist can be “below” the line of knowledge. If they believe God exists, then they have implicitly or explicitly taken a position on the knowability of God. But more realistically, if we treat the axes as degrees of certainty or likelihood (from -1 for complete rejection to 0 for ambivalence, to 1 for complete acceptance) then anything “below” the line is agnosticism. And if you think that you cannot know what the strue about God (as I do) then neither atheism nor theism are positions you will take.

Why agnostics like myself reject the appellation of “weak atheism” is that we do not take any position on whether God exists or not, because we think it is simply an unanswerable question. And being told, as we are, by atheists who do take a position on the existence of God, that we are atheists is to basically deny our most fundamental commitment – that these questions admit of no reliable, knowable or testable solution. Hence, we get a bit snarky.

My usual attempt to get someone to wrap their mind around agnosticism involves simple binary choices as well. Usually I define it as 1 is belief, 0 is disbelief, and agnosticism is the variable being undefined. So when you look at this graph and arguments over the supernatural you see atheism and theism on opposite sides of a belief question with the agnostic up on their own axis of unknowing.

The one point I would differ on with John is the unanswerable question of the capital G version of God as he writes it. That one usually means the Christian God that’s most often found in the english speaking world that would read this. That specific known definition of the supernatural and possible creator of the universe would be something the rational open-minded agnostic would have very good reasons to reject. We could very easily agree with the atheist position on the Christian God, Hindu gods, Norse gods, et al. as I do and still not be 100% atheist. The “god” that could exist up there on the agnostic scale for me that makes me not entirely an atheist is an unknown supernatural possibility of a creator that defies our ability to know or understand such a concept. I would not label such a concept as God since I don’t believe in the God with a capital G.