Agnostics

[FatAndFaithless]

That's just it, benny, if the box is unopenable, and the truth on the matter is unknowable, you might as well( in fact this is all you get to do) disbelieve in it. Since it doesn't affect you in any way, you can very well disbelieve in it. This is the logical thing to do. Do you have to worry about Lord Voldemort on the base of your agnosticism about everything? Of course not. Do physicists act like a parallel, metaphysical world that beyond any possible reach exists? No, because it doesn't help them to in any way. Just so for a person considering the question of god existence. I don't know if it does or it doesn't, but since I have no reason whatsoever to believe that anything I would call a God exists, I might as well express doubt and skepticism on the matter. Your doctrine of doubting everything, even the truth or falsity of any given proposition, while perfectly wise in theory, doesn't really work in practice.

First of all, my username is bennyboy, not benny.  If you intend to use me by my real name, I prefer you use "Benjamin."

Okay, in the case of the cat, you will disbelieve BOTH propositions:
Do you believe the cat is alive?  No.  I lack that belief.
Do you believe the cat is dead?  No.  I lack that belief, also.

That's the way you prefer to address this situation.


My way is this: since the cat is for sure either alive or dead, I cannot render a sensible belief statement.  I simply do not know the cat's existential state.

You could force me to view the question from a single perspective; "Do you believe the cat is dead?  No, I lack that belief, but I don't know the truth" but also "Do you believe the cat is alive?  No, I lack that belief also, but I don't know the truth."  So I'm either/both an agnostic dead-ist or an agnostic alive-ist, depending simply on which form of the question you choose to address to me.  In reality, it's a paradox: you can say I believe both, or belief neither, or cannot form a belief.  But what you CAN for sure say is that I'm agnostic.

If you do not believe the cat is alive, that does not make you a dead-ist, and if you do not believe the cat is dead, that does not make you an alive-ist.  Not accepting one claim is not the same as affirming the opposite.

"Do you believe the cat is dead?" "No" - you're an a-deadist.
"Do you believe the cat is alive?" "No" - you're an a-alive-ist.

Those are not exclusive positions, you can easily be both, and be agnostic about both (which mirrors my theist-atheist position).