Agnostic Universe

It’s hard to have a discussion in tweets. It even sounds silly to say that we would try. It was through tweets that I tried to get across the idea that actions should be attacked more than a person’s beliefs (religious or otherwise). The counterpoint from @FlyingFree333 (youtube channel) was that religious beliefs were the root cause of evil actions and those beliefs should be attacked directly. I still disagree with that overall sentiment and I’ll try to clarify my point here.

One example belief that was provided is a view that gay marriage is bad and that religious belief should be attacked for promoting that view. It’s not a perfect example because we can find some atheists that think homosexuality is unnatural and wrong just as we can find theists that accept gay people and their right to marry and would allow them to do it in a church. It isn’t a uniquely religious experience to be intolerant of others. That’s the first reason I disagree in attacking religious beliefs as a specific cause for homophobia or any other bad beliefs. Religion is just a mythical reflection of humanity so the real question is should we condemn personal human beliefs?

I can throw in racism as a somewhat similar intolerant belief since race discrimination is illegal. Here’s where I get to my other point. Racism is a thought and a belief that is not in itself illegal. I have a racist uncle and nobody can make him change his belief. You can’t outlaw ideas or the sharing of ideas. All you can outlaw are the actions that a person might try to take to impose their beliefs on the rest of society. You can stop my uncle from public discrimination even though he’ll never be friends with someone of another race. That’s the best you can do in a free society that doesn’t try to tell people how to think or what to believe. Attacking beliefs and not letting people think and believe how they want (no matter how bad you think they are) are some of the traits of a theocracy.

Gay marriage can’t be proven to harm others and has no logical reason to be illegal. Once we finally legalize it, there will still be people that don’t believe it’s right and won’t accept it for themselves, their family, their church, or whatever other intolerant group they may belong. I personally feel male homosexuality is gross and unappealing but don’t care what others choose for themselves. There are people today that believe we shouldn’t mix the races, use condoms, and even other odd things like not using electricity. The Amish can’t see this unless you print it out for them. I can criticize and make fun of other people’s beliefs like the Amish but I’d never be intolerant enough to tell them they can’t believe and live the way they choose if I want to share in the same freedoms. For a free society to function the Amish can’t go around cutting down our power lines. Eventually, the majority will catch up to what doesn’t really hurt them and they will let new beliefs continue to grow. Over time we won’t give it another thought that women weren’t allowed to vote, the races were segregated, and homosexuals couldn’t marry as just some examples of the evolution of society.

I want to be free to believe what I want and not be like everyone else. The price I pay for that is others are free to have whatever asinine beliefs they want as well, even yours. Keep your beliefs… but keep them to yourself.

Update: @GodsDontExist had replied during the initial twitter exchange but states they do not say what I’ve stated as the counterpoint presented here.

I received a few tweets asserting that I’m “an atheist without a spine or a dictionary”. Another tweet said “agnostic isn’t a better label for anyone when it comes to belief, theism is a belief, atheism the lack of it.”

I agree that agnostic is not a label for belief because it concerns knowledge. You can go through this blog and see that I am consistently without theism and therefore atheist by definition of belief. I might be critical of religious belief at times but I wouldn’t consider myself anti-theist, just lacking in those beliefs as an atheist and not seeing their usefulness for being human.

Regardless, people’s beliefs aren’t as important as what they KNOW. I know that if someone claims gnosticism they don’t actually have provable knowledge of anything supernatural. I have yet to see such claims proven without some flawed and convoluted circular logic. Knowledge is more important than belief and from our knowledge of the universe we don’t know why it exists or the actual root cause for it to come to be if it hasn’t always existed. Anyone claiming such knowledge has not come with proof that we can all confirm and agree upon. It is from knowing the limits of our knowledge that we know theistic beliefs don’t have the answers and is why I embrace the Agnostic label as the most important to me. Atheist just doesn’t mean much. I don’t have the same beliefs as religious people, so what? Why don’t we believe them? Atheist only sounds contradictory: I don’t believe you. I’d rather say that we don’t know and beliefs aren’t important in the face of actual knowledge.

Another tweet said that “there is no supernatural since the big bang, anything before the big bang is, by definition, not natural, even if it’s not magical or aware.” I’m not sure I follow that comment, but I can say that since we’re in the universe I’m not sure if we can accurately determine what may be beyond our current phenomenon. We do try and we may one day find whatever caused creation if there really was such an event. See these recent articles from a SETI astronomer for interesting ideas in this area: Who or What Built the Universe? and When One Big Bang Is Not Enough.

The Big Bang as the first natural event of a completely natural existence may not be the complete picture.

I love the British version of The Office and I think Ricky Gervais has always been outstanding. Now I know why I really like him as a person. Here’s some excellent holiday reading for you all:
A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

Along with the excellent follow-up:
Does God Exist? Ricky Gervais Takes Your Questions

The fact that science can say “we don’t know” is exactly my point. Science doesn’t start with a set of convenient conclusions and try to justify them. It follows evidence. In fact, it tries to prove itself wrong. When it can’t, it’s right. Superstition, religion and blind faith cherry pick the evidence and justify the results by changing the goal posts. There are no cover-ups in science. For better or worse it finds stuff out. It has no moral code as such. It leaves those decisions to society. It discovers life saving drugs but leaves it up to you whether to use them or not. It discovers that splitting the atom can release a massive amount of energy very quickly and leaves it up to governments to try it out or not. It finds out what and how and why. It asks can we? Not should we? This is why it baffles me that some god fearers believe that without a god there is no reason to be good. Really?

If you don’t know what made the universe it seems pointless to say a God must have made it then. You have to then say “But what made God?” If you are then willing to say that God was always around, you may as well say that the universe was too. Saves time doesn’t it? How long did he wait till he made the universe by the way? And where was he? Did it turn out just like he planned? If he had to make another one would he do it any different? Where would he put it?

Since there is nothing to know about god, a comedian knows as much about god as any one else. An atheist however is alone in knowing that there is nothing to know so probably has the edge. An Atheist comedian can make people laugh about belief or lack of it. A good atheist comedian can make people laugh AND think about belief or lack of it. An agnostic would say that since you can neither prove the existence nor the non-existence of God then the only answer to the question “Is there a God?” is “I don’t know.” Basically they are saying just because you haven’t found something yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Well firstly we have to know what definition of God we are asking about. Many can be dismissed as logical impossibilities. In the same way that if you were asked can you imagine a square circle the answer is of course “No.” Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s just say there is a definition of a God that is possible. Does he exist? “I don’t know” in this case is indeed the correct answer. However this must also be the answer to many other questions. Is there an elephant up your a—? Even if you’ve looked you can’t say “no.” It could be that you just haven’t found it yet. Please look again and this time really believe there is an elephant up there because however mad it sounds no one can prove that you don’t have a lovely big African elephant up your a—.

Peace to all mankind. Christian, Jew, Muslim and Atheist.

What about Agnostics?

Uhm?…I don’t know. Only joking. Yes even Agnostics.

Peace and goodwill to ALL mankind.

We love you Ricky! Peace and goodwill to you too!

This little bit of fiction may seem odd, but bear with me. Stories are better when they have characters you are familiar with and understand. I think you’ll be very familiar with the characters and stories here.

Imagine if George Washington had accepted the wishes of the people that wanted to hold him up to be more than a simple man and crown him as their King of the United States. Imagine it is now back in that time. George Washington rules over us as a King and can decree all sorts of laws to punish us for what he decides are crimes. He could require all sorts of payments and penance for us to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the King as the sole ruler of our domain. George Washington was a good guy, so that’s why some people think it would be good to have someone like him with that much power over everything. Most people think its true and make it happen, so you should accept that George Washington is your King.

King George Washington lets all of that power go to his head and becomes a jealous King requiring all of his loyal subjects to love him above all others. He decrees that as a law in the First Amendment of the Constitution under the King’s new Bill of Commandments. Some of the other amendments make murder a crime, bans theft of private property, and makes adultery a crime the government should handle for us. We generally believe King George Washington is a good and righteous king overall even though he now requires unquestioning belief in his judgment and our unwavering loyalty or we risk a lifetime in a hellish prison.

George Washington, father and King of our country, eventually decides he needs to provide a son to the world since he considers himself the King of Kings. He believes his rule should live on to save us from our criminal instincts, lest we break down in to anarchy without his rule. He’s the King and can do just about anything he wants including having a son how he chooses. He decides the best way to do this is to demonstrate his power as King and use a nice young couple that had just gotten married. They haven’t had a chance to consummate the marriage and the young bride is still a virgin even though she has a husband. King George Washington rapes the young woman and forces her to have his child as the best way he can think of to provide the greatest gift he has for the country. King George Washington loves his new son and names him James Washington.

He realizes the people are suffering under his often misunderstood laws and that he loves the citizens of the country more than his own son. Even though he’s the King and makes all of the laws he can’t just undue them all by decree. That might make him look like he didn’t know what he was doing with all of those laws about slavery, goat sacrifices, and public stoning to punish certain offenses. King George Washington makes a new law, referred to as the New Deal, saying that if the Native Americans would kill James, then any crimes for those old laws would always be forgiven and the American people wouldn’t have to follow them anymore (now referred to as the Old Deal). King George Washington arranges for the murder of his only son to forgive the people of all crimes committed under the Old Deal laws he had made.

The citizens of the United States rejoice when King George Washington issues the New Deal for the country. The old laws required the citizens to love him as their only King, but under the New Deal he has devised a way for everyone to love him since he cares more about that than the breaking of any laws. There is now one condition for receiving a not guilty ruling for some of the old laws that make sense to continue to follow and any new laws the King and his growing set of advisors create. A person has to profess their belief in the King’s rule and offer King George Washington their love, and then the loving King finds them not guilty for their crimes. A person could murder someone but then can be found not guilty in the King’s eyes as long as they love and believe in their King. You still shouldn’t kill someone even though murder was a law under the Old Deal and the New Deal repealed some or all of those laws. You still shouldn’t kill someone even though your crimes can be pardoned by the King if you just believe in his judgment and love him. Believing in King George Washington is more important than anything so don’t worry about the details of crimes and forgiveness.

It does get a little confusing as the New Deal progresses because nobody hears from the King himself anymore and only gets messages through his advisors. The King’s advisors assure everyone the King still lives and that they’re authorized to pass along his new laws and pardons. We all must continue to love the King if we hope to have all of our crimes pardoned. It’s good to love the king and believe in his judgment. Why would you want to risk jail when his pardons are such a great gift?

Wouldn’t the United States have been great if we really could have made George Washington our King instead of just a President?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a video worth? I like finding well made videos about nonbelief since they serve as wonderful examples and tools for communicating what I believe. Here are two recent finds I enjoyed that I want to share.

Coffee with Bernie is a good dialog describing the nontheist point of view. Watching the back and forth between belief and nonbelief is more compelling than just presenting one view or the other by itself.

So now that you’ve heard arguments against belief in gods, now what? This next video is a good one with the honest dialog, beautiful pictures of the universe, and the music at the end. Science Saved My Soul is something that I personally find emotionally moving. It’s an agnostic religious experience. The jealous god of the Bible dreamed up by our primitive ancestors is pathetic in comparison to the majesty of the universe itself.

Here’s a more logical view of Pascal’s Wager that I can actually agree with:

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” – Marcus Aurelius

The other problem I always see with Pascal’s Wager is the assumption that there is only one right choice for deity belief and you would be able to make that right choice when you follow Pascal’s Wager. I’d add to the line of “if there are gods, but unjust” and say that we’re all screwed anyway in that case and you couldn’t really hope to know how to do right for such gods.

A post on Evangelical Realism concerning How God Really “Works” is a prime example for how people try to tie normal human activity to acts of a supernatural deity. It references a story about a professor who states “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” Of course nothing happens until a Marine steps up and knocks him down. The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America ’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an a$$. So, He sent me.”

Evangelical Realism has an excellent rebuttal for the whole thing discussing something I’ve brought up many times. Acts of God are simply just acts of humanity attributed to the wrong person. Prayer is just hope given over to the supernatural and hope doesn’t result in any real actions unless we decide to act. The blog post ends with a great summary of this:

This is the secret. This is how God really “works” in the real world: somebody thinks they know what God ought to be doing, then they sit there stewing about it because God’s obviously not taking care of the matter, then they jump up and do it themselves, then they claim that God ought to be given credit for having gotten the job done. A classic case of sock-puppet deity. Rather pitiful, really, but so long as God persists in failing to show up in the real world it’s the best Christians have to offer.

Mr. Anonymous And Probably Fictitious Marine, I salute you. You may have acted violently, ignorantly, and unjustly, but you at least gave us a clear demonstration of how Christians perpetuate the delusion that God actually does things in the real world.

I’m trying to actually catch up on some old things I wanted to post about. I’m not an entirely consistent blogger and often look to outside content for blogging ideas. There is an old post on Daylight Atheism called Whence Comes God’s Nature? It touches on some good ideas as to why I can easily reject the religions of my fellow humans. Even though I’m rather firm in my belief that we don’t know what, if anything, exists in the realm of the supernatural since we are natural, I’m equally firm in my belief that the existing religions are simple creations of our primitive ancestors. Read the entire article at the link above but here are some of the major points I like.

God, so we’re told, is eternal and unchanging. He is pure reason, pure mind, pure spirit – no physical needs to fulfill, no past history, none of the contingent events that make human nature what it is. So how is it that he has, just like us, a complex nature with specific likes and dislikes? He did not undergo the process by which human beings acquire their preferences, so where does he get them from? Why does he prefer things one way and not another?

Read the original post for various examples of gods that would have different major traits and personalities of humans to see how weird it is to think something so supernatural and powerful would be as petty and simple as a human in thoughts and desires.

There’s an interesting parallel here with the “fine-tuning” argument sometimes used by religious apologists. They ask how likely it is that a universe with physical laws conducive to life could just happen to exist with no prior explanation. But atheists can ask an analogous question in return: Out of all the billions of possible gods, each one with a different highly specific and arbitrary set of desires and preferences, how likely is it that there just happens to be one who’s benevolent and kindly disposed toward humans? What prior cause can explain that favorable coincidence?

Out of all of the billions, trillions, etc. of possible supernatural beings or supernatural causes for all of existence to be I’m fairly certain humanity has no clue as to what that really is. But 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. Even though I’m without theism (a-theist), that is why I use the Agnostic label.

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’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.