Agnostics

[wiploc]

@benny:

You've made two different arguments in this thread.  First, that gods are not sufficiently well defined so as to be able to categorically answer the belief question.  Now you seem to be making an argument about the mechanics of belief and there being an indeterminate state in which neither belief nor disbelief predominates.  Both seem to provide adequate foundation for a position of agnosticism on their own.  So which one is the foundation of your agnosticism?

I don't think I can point to one of those as exclusively the starting point.  In fact, I'd add others-- a general distrust of the nature of reality and of mind, which makes it hard for me to form beliefs about things in general.  I find it hard, in fact, to see how any serious philosophical-minded person could be more than an agnostic, with regard to God or actually to almost anything else.

I don't understand.  If you're agnostic about everything, how can you take such firm positions?

To be consistent with your expressed skepticism, shouldn't "I find it hard, in fact, to see how any serious philosophical-minded person could be more than an agnostic, with regard to God or actually to almost anything else," really be more like, "Sometimes I think I wonder whether I find it hard, in fact, to see how any serious philosophical-minded person could be more than an agnostic, with regard to God or actually to almost anything else." 

Extreme skepticism seems to me a self-defeating position.