{"id":676,"date":"2008-12-09T08:28:07","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=676"},"modified":"2008-12-09T08:28:07","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T16:28:07","slug":"atheist-agnostic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/atheist-agnostic\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheist, Agnostic"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the “atheist” vs<\/em>. “agnostic” business, the old gadfly said as much as can be said, I think. From his Wikipedia entry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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,\u00a0 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a>), or if I feel like sacrificing enough of my time to explain, I say I am a Mysterian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Russell, incidentally, supplies a good data point to the nature side of the nature\/nurture argument. His parents were radical freethinkers\u00a0\u2014 scandalously so. His mother died when Russell was just two, however, and his father when he was 3\u00bd. Russell was raised by his grandmother, a puritanical Presbyterian. In adult life he was a\u00a0\u2026 radical freethinker.<\/p>\n

(Though these things are always probabilistic. Russell’s son became a stalwart of the Church of England.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}