Agnosticism: a critical analysis (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Monday, February 20, 2023, 14:39 (642 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: "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.”

As you would expect, I thoroughly endorse Ron Rosenberg’s description of agnosticism, and the fact of the matter is that both theists and atheists are so convinced of their respective faiths that many theists believe agnostics are atheists, and many atheists believe we are theists! I will deal only with Regis Nicoll’s criticisms:

RN: "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.”

Difficult to follow, but doubt in the possibility of something is not faith in its impossibility. To be 100% certain you need 100% proof. If God exists, only he can provide it, and if he doesn’t exist, then no one can provide it! RR and I simply don’t know what to believe, but if God exists, we doubt if he will suddenly make an appearance to convince us. Maybe there could be 100% proof in an afterlife, but that can only be proved or disproved when we’re dead, and I suspect RR is as uncertain of that as I am.

RN: 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.

In practice, it is perfectly possible to live without “oscillating”, and I would question the claim that the most important question in life is whether God exists or not. What world does RN live in? For vast numbers of people the most important question is “Can I survive?” And the next question may well be: “How can I be healthy and happy?” As an agnostic, I like to think that I live just as moral and humanitarian a life as any religious believer or atheist humanist would do, and although I am so fascinated by the subject of a possible God’s existence and nature that I started this website, I can calmly accept my own belief that I shall only know the objective truth about God’s existence if there is an afterlife. My ignorance does not make me a schizophrenic oscillator.

RN: "...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."

What “truth”, and “revealed” by whom to whom? Is it a revealed truth that God told Moses (Deuteronomy) that non-believers should be killed, and whole cities should be destroyed? Or that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or that insulting Mohammed should be punished by death? What is “functional” atheism and what are the “benefits” of atheism? Does RN believe that atheists and agnostics want to go round killing people, or that they are incapable of love and charity and altruism and empathy? I don’t go to church or synagogue or mosque – that would be hypocritical, and I must confess that when I do attend religious ceremonies, I find myself objecting to many of the assumptions which are just as blinkered as those of atheists who place their faith in materialism and chance. But I do not reject God or materialism, and I am not schizophrenically oscillating. Call it “weak tea” if you like, but – to be really nasty – I would argue that weak tea is preferable to the horrors perpetrated by the strong drinkers who wage war in the name of their God, or to the arrogance of those who call God a “delusion”.

RN: "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.”

I don’t know what circles RN lives in. Yes, it’s a statement: “I don’t know the truth, and I doubt if I ever will.” But it’s not a mood or a posture or a topic for intellectual “cocktail” conversation, and the use of such terms – which suggest hypocrisy and superficiality – is sheer arrogance. Luckily for me, the “atmosphere” in which I live does not support any particular faith, but in those societies where a particular belief – whether religious or secular - reigns supreme, there tends to be oppression and vicious intolerance. How many agnostics have gone to war to defend their inability to make a decision on whether God exists or not?

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

That is because you are as blinkered as RN.