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"No, the lazy choice is to have the visions of the infinite you mention and instead of trying to understand them"

There is some ground between being religious and being an atheist. Being an atheist implies some degree of faith. The question whether there is a God cannot be answered within our current knowledge (and it may pretty well remain so until the end of our universe). An atheist firmly believes the answer is "no". An agnostic acknowledges we are unable to answer the question. Maybe in a million years, maybe never. Interestingly, the only answer science can give to questions like these is on the lines of "we can neither prove nor disprove this hypothesis".

As I use to joke, I lack the faith required to be an atheist. ;-)

3 comments

Outside of math, you can never be sure that something is false. But if someone asked you whether the Red Sox won the 1950 World Series, it would seem pretty bogus to say that you were keeping an open mind. There's no distinction between atheist and agnostic on that question. The only reason there's one on the question of God's existence is because people have a much stronger desire to finesse the answer to such a historically loaded question.

Finding out the results of the 1950 World Series does not require an open mind - History can answer that one.

I think we are really playing with words here. You are absolutely sure God does not exist, but I cannot make the required leap of faith that being a true atheist implies and, thus, I can only call myself agnostic. Still, I am pretty sure He (or She, or It) doesn't exist.

As you well pointed out, I am not absolutely sure of anything that cannot be proved with a sound mathematical demonstration. That's about all the faith I have.

And I place it _very_ carefully ;-)

"To count oneself as an atheist one need not claim to have a proof that no gods exist. One need merely think that the evidence on the god question is in about the same state as the evidence on the werewolf question." -- John McCarthy

I used to think that it is just as arrogant to be an atheist as it is to be religious. Both sides have no proof. I considered myself to be agnostic as all we can confidently say is that "we don't know".

But I changed my label on reading jmc's words.

[edit: on reading other parts of this discussion, I see that jmc has already been quoted. However I'll let this post be, as it is still a reply to the parent.]

The attributes of werewolves are substantially different than the ones ascribed to the Jewish-Muslim-Christian God. Werewolves are believed (by some people, sure) to exist within our time-space continuum, to respect the same laws of physics we do and to pretty much be more or less a very strong mammal that is sensitive to the calendar as well as to moonlight. Those believers have created testable hypothesis that were proven wrong many times. I say the werewolf question is quite settled.

The JMC God exists outside our space-time continuum, since before the Universe and is said to have caused its formation and to interact with it in some way or the other, sometimes violating causality. Good luck trying to shape that into a testable hypothesis ;-) I won't bother with it until someone cooks up a decent one.

So, as only a true agnostic can say, I don't care if God exists or not. It's not a question I can answer.

Werewolves -> same laws of physics. God -> may be not.

Great thought provoking reply.

Personally, I don't have trouble concluding that the God theories of current religions are wrong (looking at the contradictions, absurd stories, in-built benefits for preacher class etc). Could there be some other non-religious God? "I don't care" is a good approach.

JMC = 'John McCarthy' as well as 'Jewish-Muslim-Christian' (all Abrahamic religions)? Whoa! My brain explodes!!! :-)

Keep in mind that certainty is just a model constructed by our mind based on a limited sampling frame, so we can make practical decisions in a timely manner. Thus "absolutely sure", "leap of faith", or "atheism" are just practical labels for dealing with events of high probability in a nondeterministic universe. These are just limitations of our languages.

Simple question: Where does Pi exist? :)

There's an extra 2Pi all over the place in physics equations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation#Short...

Related question: How much does blue weigh?

What is "blue"?

I'm playing a different game with pi. Produced by the brain as a shorthand or discovered within the fabric of the universe? Number theory, to me, is either a grand unveiling or just another language.

"Being an atheist implies some degree of faith."

As someone smarter than me once put it: "It's not that I believe in no gods, it's just that I don't believe in gods."

Christians and other believers have this most extra-ordinary theory: that there is an all-powerful creator who created everything, who sees everything, and has everything under control. They offer not one shred of proof, then muse out loud about the "faith" required not to believe in their absurd hypothesis.

I'd love to believe in gods of some kind -- it's not easy to accept the inevitability of your own annihilation -- but nobody has ever given me sufficient reason to deviate from the more sensible position of non-belief.

"It's not that I believe in no gods, it's just that I don't believe in gods."

It seems this person is agnostic rather than an atheist. As I put previously, an atheist believes "the God question" (that cannot be answered at all) actually has an answer and the answer is "no". An agnostic acknowledges we cannot answer the God question. As for the werewolf question, it is easier to create testable hypothesis that could and most probably would be proven false.

And, of course, even if you can prove false every "evidence" every religion says it provides, that would not answer the God question. It would only prove religions didn't get it right.

The God question cannot be answered with science and, so, it cannot be really answered. We are not discussing science here. We are discussing semantics.

BTW, I would be quite astonished if God did, indeed, exist. And somewhat happy. It's pretty dry here in no-faith-land.

It's pretty dry here in no-faith-land.

What a very sad way to look at life.

Atheism is simply the nonacceptance of a claim (theism) that lacks any supporting evidence. Not accepting a baseless claim is the anti-thesis of "faith" (ie. faith = accepting a claim without evidence).

Being agnostic is NOT a middle ground between theism and atheism. The break down is like this: 1) A god exists. 2) A god does not exist.

Theists accept #1 and reject #2. Atheists reject #1 and can either accept or reject #2.

Gnosticism (for the purpose of this discussion) deals with what you claim to know. A gnostic claims knowledge about the truth of an assertion. An agnostic (literally "without knowledge") does not claim to have such knowledge.

The term "atheist" is very similar to the legal term "not-guilty". Declaring a person "not-guilty" does not mean they are "innocent". It simply means that there is insufficient evidence to declare them "guilty". Saying that an atheist must "prove" that no gods exist is like saying that you must prove your innocence in a court of law. Rejecting an assertion because it lacks supporting evidence does not require proving the opposite assertion.

That is not what is traditionally meant by those terms.

Gnosticism is a religion in its own right and agnosticism generally always applies to questions of religious significance.

You are of course 100% correct. I was using the terms in their literal, non-traditional meanings so your clarification is appreciated. However, too often I've found the baggage of words like "agnostic" obscures the discussion more than it clarifies it.

Literally, "gnostic" and "agnostic" refer to what you claim, or do not claim, to know. Given the general muddle of terms--"agnostic", "agnostic theist", "agnostic atheist", etc--I tend to find it more helpful to separate out the terms into core meanings. I believe doing so more clearly displays the positions, as you can plot the Atheism <-> Theism axis against the Agnostic <-> Gnostic axis. I would argue that this separation of claims-of-knowledge vs claims-of-god(s) is clearer than the simple Atheist <-> Agnostic <-> Theist positioning.