[PLUG-TALK] Holy-Smoke

glen e. p. ropella gepr at ropella.net
Tue Oct 4 18:46:45 UTC 2011


Michael Moore wrote circa 11-10-04 11:17 AM:
> On 10/3/2011 9:31 PM, Russell Johnson wrote:
>>
>> Actually, I am agnostic, not atheist. I do not claim that there is nor
>> that there is not a God. I feel comfortable in this position due to the
>> fact that there are things that I can not explain, yet I can not
>> definitively state for a fact that there IS in fact, God. Neither
>> position has been proven beyond a doubt.
> 
> That's a definition I've seen often but never quite understood.  I take 
> theism as requiring a positive, assertive belief -- that is, as I 
> understand faith, one either believes in the existence of a creator or 
> one does not.  Those who do are theists, those who do not are atheists.
> 
> Agnostics, I thought, are those who express significant reservations 
> about their faith, not those who merely refuse to assert definitively 
> that there is a God or is not a God.

FWIW, I've always operated on Russell's definition.  An agnostic is
someone who claims "one cannot know" or perhaps "against knowledge".
I'm a fan of etymology, though.  So that biases my definition.

In that sense, a person can be both an agnostic and a theist and can
express that by saying something like "I believe in God, but realize I
cannot know that God exists."  An atheist agnostic would say something
like "I believe there are no gods, but realize I cannot know that there
are no gods."

Who you're talking to and in what context determines the meaning of "I'm
agnostic."  If the context allows the separation between intra-personal
(subjective) and trans-personal (objective) knowledge, then saying one
is agnostic is of little use, which is why it's not considered as
rational a position as atheism.  After all, _all_ metaphysical knowledge
_must_ be intra-personal.  The only knowledge we've found so far that is
trans-personal is scientific knowledge.  I tend to believe this is why
Protestantism appeals to so many people in the face of Catholicism,
because in the former, your knowledge of god is just between you and
your god.  Nobody else can really explain any of it to you; they can
only "guide" you.

If the context disallows the distinction between personal and
trans-personal knowledge, then saying "I'm agnostic" is exactly what
Russell is saying and is distinct from theism and atheism.  But very few
people would disallow that distinction.  In fact, it usually comes up in
these conversations naturally and it usually devolves into vague
nonsense about the meanings of knowledge.

-- 
glen



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