Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[LadyForCamus]

That's right. That's what prompted Aristotle and everybody after him to work out why the assumptions behind Zeno's paradoxes were incorrect. It was the beginning of a long history of careful thought, employing a dialectic of logic and empiricism.

Yet, you’ve drawn from logic and evidence of material world to reach that conclusion, lol. I’m fine to agree that our knowledge is often wrong, and our logic is often flawed, but we have to call on those things in order to make those very assessments of them, right? If not, what else is there?

Why is this "lol"? Of course I've used logic and evidence of the material world. Where have I argued otherwise?

Sorry, perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. You said:

If people's logic seems wrong to us, then we either point to the empirical world as a rebuttal, or show that the logic is wrong. But our knowledge of the empirical world is often flawed. And our logic is often wrong as well. So it's an ongoing problem to use them in dialectic to improve out thinking.

I guess it’s the phrase “ongoing problem” that caught me off guard. Yes, we are erroneous in our execution of logic and reason, and in our understanding of the empirical world, but I don’t think it necessarily follows to say that because we sometimes miss the mark, and fall short of these objective standards, the standards themselves are in intrinsically problematic, or obstructing our attempts to improve accuracy. I mean, they’re the tools we use to identify when we’ve used them wrong. Without sound and valid reasoning, and a method for interpreting the material world, we would be lost at sea in terms of a consistently reliable way to understand reality.

if we get to the point where we’re revering individual, subjective, unverifiable experience the same as logic and methodological naturalism, I think that’s a problem. If you tell me you have an invisible, pixie-farting unicorn in your basement, would it be wise for people to just take you at your word because, ‘there might be other ways to know things besides methodological naturalism’?

I wonder how you think revelation works.

I think I know, but I could very well be wrong. 😛

If you write a letter to the Pope describing your pixie-farting unicorn revelation, he will dismiss it out of hand. He has an internally consistent system, built up over centuries, by which he judges claims of revelation. Most religious people are just as aware as you or I that people can be mistaken, deceived, or dishonest. Claims of purported revelation are subjected to logical analysis in which the premises of the religion are held as standards, and if you claim that God is made of ice cream your claim will be judged inconsistent with those premises. 

(And before the scolders start to scold me: I am aware that you and I and the other superior people on this forum do not accept the Pope's premises. I am not claiming they are true. I am only claiming that he uses them as standards of judgment and does not accept purported revelation without them.)

Personally, I think millions of people claiming to experience revelations in accordance with an internally consistent, but mostly unverifiable or demonstrable framework, built over centuries, is far more dangerous than one individual thinking they a have a magical unicorn in their basement. 

No doubt there are silly people in the world who believe anything that pops into their heads to be true revelation. If they want pizza, it's the word of God. These people are not thinking clearly. This is why I think the advice that atheists often give to believers is insufficient. We say "think for yourself," but the problem is that they are already thinking for themselves, but they are thinking stupid things. The advice would be better as: "think for yourself, but never believe what you think." And I think this is necessary for all of us. All of what we hold to be true is best subjected to the widest possible critique.

I really liked that last sentence. I completely agree; the beliefs we feel the surest about are certainly the ones that demand the most scrutiny.