On the “atheist” vs. “agnostic” business, the old gadfly said as much as can be said, I think. From his Wikipedia entry:
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
If pressed, I describe myself as a “functional atheist,” living my life and thinking my thoughts, such as they are, on the assumption that there are no gods. If I can be reasonably sure that my interlocutor will know what I mean (and will not take me to be a member of that defunct rock group), or if I feel like sacrificing enough of my time to explain, I say I am a Mysterian.
Russell, incidentally, supplies a good data point to the nature side of the nature/nurture argument. His parents were radical freethinkers — scandalously so. His mother died when Russell was just two, however, and his father when he was 3½. Russell was raised by his grandmother, a puritanical Presbyterian. In adult life he was a … radical freethinker.
(Though these things are always probabilistic. Russell’s son became a stalwart of the Church of England.)
Readers of this site might be interested in the latest Blogging Heads featuring two atheists talking about atheism:http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16381
Since I tend to accept what the properly applied scientific method reveals, I call myself a Method-ist, when pressed.
Very good point, but I think we advance the public square argument even further by dividing people into not-theists and anti-theists, rather than on the dictionary definitions of agnostics and atheists (which is contrary to how other a- words are defined in English) as “denying the existence of God.”
We don’t say that someone who is a-sexual is trying to purge the world of sexuality, take sexuality away from others, or deny that sexuality exists in others, but that is how “atheist” appears to be defined in common usage.
I’ve always felt that agnostics leave open the possibility that there could be a God(s) (or may actually believe there is/are), but that even if there were a God(s), it wouldn’t change the way they live their lives. That seems wholly different from not-believing there is a God.
I don’t think atheists (in general) are denying the existence of what others believe in. They simply “don’t believe” themselves. There are people who describe themselves as atheists who don’t end it there and leave it alone (which gives religious people reason to be suspicious of anyone who describes themselves as an atheist). They really are desirous of purging the world of a belief in God/religion, and become as fire and brimstone in their approach as religious zealots.
Atheists (and probably agnostics) share an ideal with theists: That there are powers/matters that are beyond our control. We would agree (I hope) that we are powerless to alter the rules of Physics, for example. That is a power/rule-set that is bigger than ourselves. We can’t control the tides, the fact that we’re all going to die (eventually), genetics that impact how we behave or perceive things, or that we value life and desire happiness (of some sort). That is a “higher power” we can all relate to and rules we accept, regardless of belief of who/what made it that way.
But that begs the question… if I use atheist to describe myself, defining it as someone who “does not believe, but respects the right of others to believe or decide the matter differently,” am I really agnostic instead? In all company?
Liberal used to mean something it no longer means, too, so I wouldn’t define myself that way anymore (not because it wasn’t accurate at another time, but because the common usage has changed). Perhaps I need to do the same with describing myself as an atheist, to differentiate myself from anti-theists?
George Smith gave the best treatment of this subject, IMO. In short he comes to the same conclusion as Russell, but by a different route. “Atheism” implies a lack of belief in a god. Since it’s a negative position, most so-called agnostics are a-theist.
I’ve always preferred the term atheist for what are, I suppose, aesthetic reasons. It’s a clear and committed position, whereas taking the label “agnostic” is something of a dodge, trying to take on the benefits of unbelief w/o the burden of the stigma.
As irritating and pedantic as it must seem, I do think there is a benefit (if only in terms of clarity) in distinguishing between what we believe to be true and what we know to be true. I am pretty sure that Barack Obama is politically corrupt; I cannot prove it in any empirical fashion. And no matter the strength of my emotional belief, you can find someone else who has an equally strong emotional belief (also unproved) in Obama’s purity.
Theists – with, I suppose, the exception of Jesus or Moses or others who have had face-to-face meetings – are always expressing an emotional belief, myself included. I can’t prove Jesus is Lord; it just works for me. Atheists are in the same position.
Agnostics, on the other hand, have logic and reason on their side. They can prove that I can’t prove Jesus; they can prove that PZ Meyers can’t prove not-Jesus. “I don’t know, and you don’t really know either” is the rationalist position. Agnostic is the only position that isn’t an opinion. It’s not very emotionally satisfying to be agnostic (or at least, I found it so when that was my position) but you do have the cold comfort of knowing nobody can prove you wrong.
There is a big cognitive gulf between believing that it is possible that the universe and everything in it was created by an advanced intelligence and believing in the classic oriental despot version of “god” that is presented by the middle-eastern origin (e.g. “abrahamic”) religions.
I really like Russell on this point. I also agree with misdutoit and others that ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’ seem to shade into each other.
Part of the problem here is that theists usually have a different view of atheism than atheists. It’s rare to meet an atheist who claims that ‘science has disproved God’ or something similar, paralleling the theist claim that their knowledge of God is certain, but most theists look at atheists as being so parallel – as having a ‘religious’ belief in the nonexistence of God. Most atheists, of course, only claim a lack of reasonable doubt akin to our lack of doubt that there’s no floating teapot between here and Mars (this is a thread about Russell).
In my experience, self-identified agnostics are either particularly wishy-washy or completely uncaring. The belief backing it up seems to be something like “I’m about 50/50 on whether God exists, but I don’t really care one way or the other”.
While it is on-face tempting to say that agnostics “have logic and reason on their side”, there is a point at which withholding judgment becomes unreasonable, even when the evidence isn’t conclusive. We don’t demand a deductive proof for every piece of knowledge. Agnosticism is the soundest position only in the sense that philosophical skepticism is the soundest position.
I’m an atheist in the same sense that I’m an a-bigfootist. I can’t prove that there isn’t, somewhere on the North American continent, a species of ape that meets the vague descriptions of Bigfoot. But so long as there is no plausible evidence, I regard any claims of Bigfoot’s existence as silly. If new evidence comes up, I’ll consider it, but this doesn’t make me “agnostic” on the question.
1. There is much talk in some places about the difference between “strong” and “weak” atheists, wherein a “strong” atheist believes in the non-existence of gods in the same way as a devout Christian believes in the divinity of Jesus. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met such a person, and the only evidence I have for their existence is the reports of unreliable observers. Hmmm, that sounds familiar. 😎
2. Mrs. Du Toit wrote: “We would agree (I hope) that we are powerless to alter the rules of Physics, for example.” Off hand, I can read that in three different ways, two of which I disagree with and the third of which is tautological.
a. The “rules of Physics” could be read to mean something like, “what physicists say when you talk to them”. Using this definition, the statement is clearly incorrect, since the purpose of science is to change to better describe the world. In this sense, “alter[ing] the rules of Physics” is the whole point of the science.
b. The “rules of Physics” could be read to mean something like, “the way things in the vicinity behave”. (With the examples Mrs. Du Toit used, I suspect that this is approximately what she meant by her statement.) In this case, I mostly disagree. Tides are changeable; move a mass near the water and the tides change, though most of these changes are lost in the noise. If the mass is large enough, however, you can get a measurable change, and there is no theoretical reason that such large masses cannot be moved. Genetics are eminently changeable; viruses do it all the time and people are starting to do it too. I don’t see why the specific sort of genetics that “control how we behave or perceive things” should be impossible to change while the rest are changeable. Valuing life? Some do, some don’t. Desiring happiness? Perhaps correct in the sense that if you desire it, you think it will make you happier, but that’s rather circular. Live forever? Well, as t goes to infinity, the probability of survival approaches zero in the limit. But that’s a probability argument, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. As the number of people might go to infinity over the same time, the question gets mathematically interesting.
c. If you read “the rules of Physics” to mean a complete definition of how things work, then the statement is tautologically true. If you find a case where you think it isn’t true, your problem lies in your definition, not in “the rules of Physics”. “Physics” is a description of how things work, not a prescription for how things must work.
Move planets, change the speed of light, create a magnetic monopole, create life from raw elements …. Even though I can’t do them right now and I don’t know anyone who can, I don’t see why a breakthrough in theory couldn’t change the most fundamental things we now believe about Physics.
ps. I don’t assign the same probability to each of the things I mention above. I assess the probability of some events (past and future) as low enough to dismiss and others as high enough to act as if they are truths. But give me good evidence and I’ll change those assessments on the fly — “Dang, I never thought that would happen. What does it mean?”
Besides marketing approaches, how is it different?
@Doug Sundseth
Much too far into the pedantic forest for my liking, but I guess I was referring more to 2B. The truth that we don’t (yet) know all truths with certainty, or what we accept today is truth might be wrong, doesn’t deny that there is a truth to the way things work that we are (yet) powerless to alter in the universal sense (I can’t conern myself with what MIGHT be possible after I’m dead, other than accepting that it could happen). (The idea that we could, at some future time, alter any- and everything seems to stray too bit into the spiritualist realm for me.) Sure, we can alter some tidal areas, but we have not yet been able to flip the ocean currents to “off” in their entirety (even if we desired to do so). That’s what I mean about it being similar to religious rule-sets. Religious rules change over time, too, but the basic idea among religious people is that there is a “universal, God-defined truth rule-set” hasn’t changed… just the details of what is in the rule-set and how one complies or works with it. Our knowledge of physics laws may improve or change, but there is a still a set of laws.
Agnostic is a knowledge position.
Atheistic is a belief position.
All atheists are agnostic (though some may claim otherwise).
All theists are agnostic (though some may claim otherwise).
It’s as simple as that.
I’m an agnostic with respect to God or gods.
I am a total unbeliever when it comes to Faith. I have zero faith in Faith.
Even if God exists, I can’t imagine why you have to worship non-human alien beings.
Well done, Ergo, you took my four blathering paragraphs and put them into four pithy sentences. 😉
“All atheists are agnostic” is a cute formulation, but it only works in the sense that everyone is ultimately agnostic about all knowledge (although some may claim otherwise). As Gary McGath so aptly put it, this formulation makes us all agnostic about phenomena like Bigfoot, or homeopathy, or pyramid power. While it may be true in a strict philosophical sense that one cannot provide “justified true belief” regarding these phenomena, nonetheless it is silly in the extreme to violate the common parlance meaning of “know”.
In that sense, I am an atheist to the same degree that I am an a-leprechaunist and a-pixieist. It would seem absurd to me to say that I am “agnostic” about leprechauns and pixies, and thus likewise absurd to say that I am agnostic about god(s). Note that this does not mean I am certain that gods do not exist, merely that this uncertainty is at the same level for any other belief that I hold strongly.
My point is that agnosticism does not fall in the middle of a spectrum between atheism and theism, as the muddy common parlance indicates. Indeed, I don’t see how belief allows for gradiations at all.
“On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist…..”
Because, of course, those Walmart guys couldn’t possibly understand what Russell had in mind, even though they don’t seem to have much trouble with the Trinity — which is at least as tricky conceptually as the point that Russell is making.
The meaning of one’s communication is the results achieved, regardless of intent. Voltaire admonished, “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.” In today’s Orwellian world, many once useful words no longer are. Like “liberal” et al, I find atheist no longer useful for most discourse. I prefer instead to use “godless,” which nicely sidesteps the atheist/agnostic debate, since both are.
Further, it perhaps surprisingly does not have the same connotation baggage with Christians, which the term atheist evokes. One might as well admit to belonging to the ACLU. A poll recently revealed that almost all Christians would vote for a Muslim before voting for an atheist; because at least a Muslim has “faith.”
If the subject comes up when among fundamentalists, I use the word “heathen” to good effect. They are never offended, because they all know heathens – their brother-in-law probably is one – and they are not necessarily bad neighbors, just not saved yet. 🙂 ◄Dave►
Atheistic is a belief position.
Nope, being an atheist is the only rational position if one is looking for an explanation of the universe based on perceived evidence.
Because “god” is no explanation: Where does god come from? (i.e. been created from simpler causes)
The “god” response is just a silly dormitive excuse as I argued elsewhere.
Furthermore I think that the origin of religious beliefs is some mild form of schizophrenia, ascribing inner feelings, emotions, visions, to external fictitious entities.
If you could cite a single instance of Obama’s political corruption, then you will have proved it. Since you cannot, one wonders why you are “pretty sure” it is the case.
Kevembuangga, lack of belief–though not a belief itself–is still a position on belief.
a position on belief.
???
I fail to see your objection as well as you seem to fail to see my point:
My rejection of belief comes from a “non belief related” stance.
Seeing the world around me (as I guess everybody else does, modulo idiosyncratic variations) I am wondering “How the heck does this work?”
That is, I want to be able to predict what I can expect to see next and (possibly) tweak the outcomes whenever I have a hunch that they could be detrimental to me in some way or another.
Starting from this, which I think is also an endeavour shared by many, the “god hypothesis” isn’t only vacuous and useless but a hindrance.
Also, whenever I have a dream, a nightmare or an illusion I am fairly aware that this is something which is going on inside me even if it refers to external events and images (no schizophrenia).
Nor am I wary of the “menaces” of any mysterious hidden agents as explained by Scott Atran (no paranoia).
May be I am just lucky to have escaped such insanity but I certainly don’t want the inmates running the asylum to enforce their delirium on me on the grounds that they are “a majority”.
Actually he provides a good data point for the nurture side of the argument. He was raised by a radical theist and became a radical freethinker. His son was raised by a radical freethinker and became a radical theist.