(March 15, 2014 at 1:35 pm)whateverist Wrote:(March 15, 2014 at 12:55 pm)jesus_wept Wrote: And this is why the term agnostic is next to useless, it tells us nothing of one's beliefs.
And why would anyone expect a word which has to do with knowledge to be informative of what one believes? Wrong question.
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There is no contradiction.
I don't think JW said there was a contradiction. But often people use the term agnosticism to describe their beliefs. He's actually agreeing with you if anything. For instance I'm pretty sure on bigthink, when Neil Degrasse Tyson is asked about his beliefs, he says he is agnostic (maybe someone could find the video, I can't be arsed right now).
I thoroughly agree with jesus_wept though, that this is a kind of wimpy way of avoiding the question about beliefs.