An Agnostic Manifesto (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Sunday, August 08, 2010, 12:09 (5008 days ago) @ David Turell

I quoted but argued against the common definition of agnosticism as "the belief that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not". David has followed this up with the statement that "agnostics will not choose atheism or theism unless there is absolute proof and that is impossible. Agnosticism is therefore an emotional choice, recognizing that since there are no absolutes, they will stay content with never knowing."-In my post, I tried to explain why I rejected the common definition. No-one can "know" such a thing, and so everyone would have to be agnostic. All of us ... theists, atheists and agnostics ... recognize that there can be no absolute proof, and my point was that our choices are therefore dependent on subjective factors (judgement of the evidence, personal experiences, inner convictions, upbringing etc.). These will vary just as much in agnostics as they do in theists and atheists, and David's comment seems to me to be far too generalized. He claims that he and George both follow belief systems that are "reasonable, in the view that proof is impossible." In my own case, there is an intellectual conflict between two irreconcilable factors: 1) the complexity of life is so great that I find it unreasonable to believe that it came about by chance; 2) I find it equally unreasonable to believe in a universal intelligence / designer that sprang from nothing or has existed for ever. "Unreasonable" does not mean that I require absolute proof either way, and there is nothing "emotional" in this conflict. However, other factors also play a part in my indecisiveness: I do not have an emotional conviction that there is a divine being watching over us; I do have an emotional and intellectual open-mindedness towards inexplicable mental phenomena which could indicate a form of life as yet unknown to us. And so in the same way that belief in God or Chance takes on different forms according to the individual's subjective judgement of probability, or personal experiences and convictions, these factors will vary in degree and kind from one agnostic to another. Matt, for instance, is far more sceptical than I am about the design theory. I would therefore reject the "absolute proof" argument, the restrictive tag of "emotional choice", and also the claim that agnostics "stay content with never knowing", since there are certainly some agnostics who are not content with their ignorance and continue to search for enlightenment. -In my post, I suggested a different definition of agnosticism: "an inability to believe that God exists or does not exist." On reflection, I think maybe "inability" could be taken as a criticism ... though there's nothing wrong with a bit of self-criticism! How about: "neither belief nor disbelief in the existence of a god or gods"? Any other definitions would be welcome, or suggestions for a new term to denote the form of non-belief that I have described.