(January 16, 2014 at 5:19 am)Sejanus Wrote: Do agnostics think there's insufficient evidence to believe or disbelieve in Santa Claus? unicorns? How about fairies or leprechauns? Do they live constantly in the fear of whether that cloven footed, acid spitting abomination with the body of Michael Jackson and 6 Jocelyn Wildenstein heads screaming with the voice of Sylvester Stallone is behind them, with a boner, (and they just dropped dropped the soap) may or may not exist, and we can never know if it does or doesn't?
In my case, I'm agnostic for two reasons:
1) With regard to a general world view, the way I collect information is fallible. I do not know where my sense perceptions come from. Perhaps it is a physical universe, just as it seems to be. Perhaps its an idealistic universe, or the Mind of God, or the Matrix, or a BIJ. I just don't have a reliable way of establishing what the truth of things ultimately is by using my senses. Therefore I'm stuck with the sense that truth is dependent on context, and that what I think is true may not apply to any underlying context that I can't interface with.
2) With regard to the God idea, I consider the question malformed. You might as well ask me, "Do you believe in boogledyboo?" I wouldn't say, "No, not really. I don't have an active belief in boogledyboo." I'd say "What the fuck are you talking about?" I wouldn't know my answer until I at least had a well-formed definition to work with.
This is a semantic preference. I prefer the term antitheist for God ideas I actively disbelieve, like Sky Daddy watching with a notebook while some teenage kid rubs one out in the shower. I prefer "atheist" for polls, where a lack of any other belief is actually worth mentioning. I prefer "agnostic" when faced with nebulous ideas about an impersonal Deity, since it's close to synonymous with "nature," which exists by definition.
