RE: Agnostic among Atheists
July 5, 2015 at 3:51 am
(This post was last modified: July 5, 2015 at 3:55 am by bennyboy.)
Time for another trip around the merry-go-round.
"Agnostic" CAN be used in exclusion of atheism. I, for example, am agnostic, and do not accept the terms atheist or agnostic atheist in reference to myself. I see agnosticism as an ambiguous position, depending on WHY the person claims they don't know the answer to the question:
1) A person can hold competing beliefs simultaneously; for examply the conscious rational mind and the subconscious or emotional minds may be in a state of conflict.
2) The question can mean many things, and a person, knowing he might answer differently under different meanings, cannot therefore verbalize a simple yes/no answer.
3) The person may be open to both possibilities, and feel that he is still "processing" the question-- that is, that the person thinks he might believe in some kind of god, but is waiting for his brain to spit out that answer.
The problem with the bi-axial view is that the agnosticism may not be about God ("I don't know if God is real,") but about the mental process that goes into identifying beliefs ("I don't know that I can accurately represent my belief/lack of belief at this time.") I do not accept atheism as the default position, because if I am aware of the God question, and cannot clearly "No, I don't believe in that," then either I DO believe in it, or I don't know what exactly I believe.
"Agnostic" CAN be used in exclusion of atheism. I, for example, am agnostic, and do not accept the terms atheist or agnostic atheist in reference to myself. I see agnosticism as an ambiguous position, depending on WHY the person claims they don't know the answer to the question:
1) A person can hold competing beliefs simultaneously; for examply the conscious rational mind and the subconscious or emotional minds may be in a state of conflict.
2) The question can mean many things, and a person, knowing he might answer differently under different meanings, cannot therefore verbalize a simple yes/no answer.
3) The person may be open to both possibilities, and feel that he is still "processing" the question-- that is, that the person thinks he might believe in some kind of god, but is waiting for his brain to spit out that answer.
The problem with the bi-axial view is that the agnosticism may not be about God ("I don't know if God is real,") but about the mental process that goes into identifying beliefs ("I don't know that I can accurately represent my belief/lack of belief at this time.") I do not accept atheism as the default position, because if I am aware of the God question, and cannot clearly "No, I don't believe in that," then either I DO believe in it, or I don't know what exactly I believe.
