Knowledge, belief & agnosticism (Agnosticism)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 04, 2022, 23:10 (721 days ago) @ Mark

Agnosticism criticized:

https://salvomag.com/article/salvo15/functional-unbelief

"In "An Agnostic Manifesto" published on June 28, 2010, at Slate, Rosenbaum takes great pains to explain that God-deniers, like God-believers, have childlike faith: faith that reality is nothing but the sum-total of the physical world; faith that science is the sole source of knowledge; faith that the materialistic quest will unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, including the ultimate questions about human existence; and faith that their beliefs are not based on faith, but are settled beyond rational argument.

***

"God-deniers dismiss God-believers for their dogmatic claims, yet fail themselves, as Rosenbaum rightly notes, "to consider that it may well be a philosophic, logical impossibility for something to create itself from nothing." Not to mention the impossibility of nothing creating everything!

"But agnostics, Rosenbaum proudly points out, refuse to believe what is not or cannot be verified as true, and they therefore stand against the dogmatism of both theism and atheism. When faced with the question of cosmogenesis—what "banged," and who or what did the banging—the agnostic shrugs, ever so humbly, and says, "I don't know."

"It is a response calculated to let you know that the agnostic occupies an elevated plain of intellectual integrity, one on which lives are directed by facts, not faith. What the agnostic doesn't realize, however, or willfully ignores, is that he is just as much a person of faith as those he tries to distance himself from. It begins with what he really knows.

"What he, or any person, knows is what he accepts as true; and what he accepts as true depends on several factors, starting with personal experience.

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"In cases where personal experience is no help—as when contemplating questions about the origin of the universe, the existence of heaven or of the soul, the meaning of life, and so on—people depend on non-experiential sources of knowledge.

"One such source is intellectual predisposition. This was best expressed by the Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, who once said: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism."

"Note that Lewontin's faith in science as the ultimate source of knowledge is based on his intellectual preference for a particular worldview, not on science's proven explanatory power in answering ultimate questions.

"...astrobiologist Paul Davies believes that a yet-to-be-discovered principle has been woven into the cosmos so as to make the emergence of biological life inevitable. He believes this, not because he has any evidence to substantiate this notion, but because, as he says, he is "more comfortable" with it than with the alternatives, which presumably include a necessary, non-contingent Being.

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"Despite mathematical relationships that describe the effects of gravity with astounding precision, there is no consensus about the nature of the thing. Is it a distortion of space-time? An attractive force of tiny, mediating, and (as of yet) hypothetical particles (gravitons?) that act like a gigantic rubber band? A mysterious "action-at-a distance" between bodies having mass? All of the above? None? Take your pick. The lack of consensus indicates that we know neither the what nor the why of gravity.

"Without such knowledge, belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is nothing more than belief that the future will be like the past. But if the universe is the fluke product of random collisions, as atheists contend, then that simple belief requires faith of a high order—faith not only in the unwavering regularity of nature but, more fundamentally, faith that our sensory experiences correspond to reality, and that our minds and intellects have the ability to discern the true nature of things.

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"The claims of Ron Rosenbaum notwithstanding, the agnostic, like everyone else, exercises faith. What's more, his belief in "uncertainty" is an expression of faith in the certainty that the answers to ultimate questions are uncertain. So in reality, his faith is not in uncertainty at all. And that applies to his practiced faith as well as to his professed faith.

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"...the agnostic, who ever so humbly professes uncertainty as to God's existence, discloses his functional atheism by rejecting revealed truth and ordering his life as if God did not exist. He is attempting to avoid the costs of associating with atheism while at the same time enjoying the "benefits" thereof. In the end, that is pretty "weak tea.'"

Comment: I await dhw's view.