Agnosticism: a critical analysis (Agnosticism)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 19, 2023, 23:44 (643 days ago) @ GateKeeper

Discussion based uponn an agnostic's comments:

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

"Agnostic Ron Rosenbaum wants to clear something up: "Agnosticism is not some kind of weak-tea atheism," he says, but the stout ale of "radical skepticism, doubt in the possibility of certainty." In fact, he insists, his belief system is just as distinct from atheism as it is from theism. It is important that you know this.

"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.

***

"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.

"Another source is our non-rational sensibilities. For example, as I pointed out in "Radio Silence" in Salvo 14, 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.

"More to the point is NYU law professor Thomas Nagel, who, in a moment of admirable candor, admitted, "It isn't just that I don't believe in God . . . I hope there is no God! . . . I don't want the universe to be like that."

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"Obviously, authority-derived knowledge requires faith—faith in the expertise and trustworthiness of other people.

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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.

***

To the most important question in life—"Does God exist?"—a person can answer "Yes," "I don't know," or "No." But in practice, a person must live as if God either does or does not exist; there is nothing else to do, except perhaps to oscillate schizophrenically between the two.

***

"...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."

"Agnosticism is a statement, a mood, a posture. It thrives in the intellectual oxygen of coffee houses and cocktail conversations. But outside of those artificial environments, in the real world where life is lived, the atmosphere supports only belief and unbelief.

"It may well be that there are no atheists in foxholes, but it is certain that there are no agnostics there, or anywhere else on terra firma."

Comment: time for a dhw comment. I've said previously dhw comes across to me as 99% atheist.