Agnostic: a pointless term?

[bennyboy]

Absolutely. But such experiences don't immediately point to anyone in charge or a creator so far as I can tell. Since everything I experience has to register through my being, these experiences may very well be as much or more about ourselves than it is the cosmos. In fact, that is my bias given my experience.

I agree. I don't consider myself agnostic about the source of my experiences-- I think they are natural and intrinsic to the way humans think, especially under duress or when studying ideas (like philosophy or modern physics) which undermine our normal way of looking at things.

However, I also know that when religious people talk about religious experience, they are talking about experiences similar to some of mine.

Are you equally agnostic toward all unverifiable beliefs? Dragons, faeries, shape shifters and all the rest require you not admit to a bias? I'm sure I'm every bit as agnostic as you, but I'm quite happy to concede which way my bias tends.

It is because dragons are well defined that I can disbelieve in them without reservation. With regard to God, if I'm supplied with a clear definition (e.g. "Sky Daddy"), I'm likely to identify as an (agnostic) atheist. My religious agnosticism is more complex: it involves an awareness of the ambiguity of terms, of a recognition of the human inability to collect information about reality, etc.

Earlier you mentioned that your toe and your toaster have no belief in gods yet we don't call them atheists. We don't call them agnostics either. Basically, so far as we know, only humans are capable of taking a position on a hypothetical proposition posed in symbolic language.

That's exactly right. I consider an "-ism" a position, not just a description of a belief one happens to have (or to lack). I have an active belief about the human condition, and a pessimistic view of the human capacity to observe and comprehend the fullness of the reality of the universe, and this leads me to take on the position that we are intrinsically agnostic about cosmogony and other issues often related to the God idea.

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To be fair, things like dragons and unicorns are so clearly defined that a clear repudiation of them is simple. Something like a god, however, which can range from an anthropomorphic superhero to an immaterial presence suffusing the entire material universe, and all points in between -- that's a bit harder to say, "I definitely know that doesn't exist." A bit like nailing the proverbial jell-o to the wall.

That's right. And what's worse, I've heard definitions of God (albeit strange ones) that I think might exist-- and some which necessarily do.

For example, if you said "God is whatever principle, force or entity which allows the universe to exist rather than not existing," then God would necessarily exist-- and I would still have absolutely no idea what it was or how to look for proof of it.