Does the Agnostic believe nothing?

[Charlemagne_II]

What is an agnostic? Is he someone who never believes anything is certain and all is in doubt? Then why doesn’t he doubt the worth of his own doubts? How can one be an agnostic with conviction?

Was it an agnostic who was addressed by the famous command of Thomas Paine:

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

 

[kerebos]

Is he someone who never believes anything is certain and all is in doubt?

Short answer – no.

An agnostic takes the stance that there are some things you cannot know for certain. There are many things that an agnostic can determine factually. The sky being blue, water being wet – an agnostic does not doubt these because they are verifiable. In a religious sense, an agnostic may believe in God, but acknowledge that you cannot know for certain that God exists. You cannot verify this here on Earth so you cannot know the answer, but you can still have faith and believe.

 

[asd72]

Speaking for myself, I was agnostic and I basically thought there might be a God, but I couldn’t know for sure until I died.

 

[tonyrey]

Thomas Huxley wrote:

“Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle… Positively the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”

If we go by that definition an agnostic cannot be someone who never believes anything is certain and all is in doubt because he accepts at least one principle!

He doesn’t doubt the worth of his own doubts because it constitutes a method of investigation - and one can be an agnostic with conviction with regard to the method if nothing else!

 

[followingtheway]

What is an agnostic?

An agnostic someone who is unsure of the existence of God, gods, or goddesses.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

What is an agnostic?

In common modern usage it is some one who doesn’t think he/she/we can know whether or not there are any gods or a god.

Then why doesn’t he doubt the worth of his own doubts?

That sounds like something you would need to explore on an individual basis. If the only thing you know about a person is that (s)he is agnostic with that information alone you cannot determine whether (s)he has pondered over the “worth” of his/her thoughts on the matter. I could be misunderstanding your question here.

How can one be an agnostic with conviction?

I’m not sure what you mean by “agnostic with conviction.” It sounds a lot like not knowing some one else’s bank account balance with a conviction. Conviction is about strong beliefs or being convinced. For some one that is agnostic on spiritual matters (s)he does not have strong beliefs nor has (s)he been convinced that there is a god or gods or that there are no gods

 

[ASimon]

Personally, I don’t think that “agnostic,” as a stand-alone term, really does any heavy lifting anymore. “Agnostic atheist” or “Agnostic theist” still have some use.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

"Agnostic atheist"?

How could you be an agnostic atheist?

 

[ASimon]

ASimon

"Agnostic atheist"?

How could you be an agnostic atheist?

You don’t believe in God, but you don’t know that God doesn’t exist.

Agnostic theists believe in God, but don’t know for certain that God exists.

Gnostic theists and atheists think they know what they believe is true. Despite the fact that God’s existence can neither be proven, nor disproven.

EDIT: Actually, I should revise this bit. You can claim to know something with only evidence that doesn’t rise to the level of proof. The only question is how compelling the evidence really is. For atheists, since it’s fundamentally understood that you can’t disprove the existence of an invisible man, I tend to reject truth claims about God’s non-existence out of hand. Theists have more wiggle room, since they have the luxury of claiming that various naturalistic phenomenon and events are caused by and intervening God. For those claims, it’s simply a question of how credible the evidence is.

Since God’s existence is unfalsifiable, I’m of the opinion that nobody can know that God exists or doesn’t exist. So even ‘agnostic theist/atheist’ is a redundancy and really doesn’t need to be said.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

How could you be an agnostic atheist?

The terms are answers to two different questions. One is of the question of knowledge, the other is on the position of belief. There was a college kid that had done a presentation that I thought gave a pretty good explanation. If you’ve got 100 seconds of time watch his presentation starting at time marker 6:16 (while I thought the entire presentation was interesting I tried to identify the minimum sub section that I thought would sufficiently make the term more clear). The link I provided will take you directly to the time marker I mentioned.

 

[tonyrey]

Since God’s existence is unfalsifiable, I’m of the opinion that nobody can know that God exists or doesn’t exist.

You are assuming that scientific knowledge is the sole form of knowledge…

 

[ASimon]

You are assuming that scientific knowledge is the sole form of knowledge…

It is. If the truth claims about there being a heaven and/or a hell ever proved out, that knowledge wouldn’t stand within its own domain. It would simply be added to our scientific understanding of the Universe.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

**It is. If the truth claims about there being a heaven and/or a hell ever proved out, that knowledge wouldn’t stand within its own domain. It would simply be added to our scientific understanding of the Universe. **

Can you prove scientifically that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge? That would strike me as impossible.

Gnostic theists and atheists think they know what they believe is true. Despite the fact that God’s existence can neither be proven, nor disproven.

If it can neither be proven nor disproven, why assume that God’s existence is not true? Isn’t that an assertion of knowledge without the ability to scientifically prove it?

 

[ASimon]

ASimon

**It is. If the truth claims about there being a heaven and/or a hell ever proved out, that knowledge wouldn’t stand within its own domain. It would simply be added to our scientific understanding of the Universe. **

Can you prove scientifically that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge? That would strike me as impossible.

I simply repeat my earlier point. Anything new we learn about how reality actually works is annexed into one or more scientific disciplines or becomes its own scientific discipline. Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. If someone wants to claim it’s not, and for example, provide Genesis 1 as evidence for that, where God created the water before he created the stars (which ordinarily contain the hydrogen that would be fused into heavier elements), then you’re not talking about a different form of knowledge than science. You’re just wrong.

Gnostic theists and atheists think they know what they believe is true. Despite the fact that God’s existence can neither be proven, nor disproven.

If it can neither be proven nor disproven, why assume that God’s existence is not true? Isn’t that an assertion of knowledge without the ability to scientifically prove it?

No. An assumption is just that - an assumption. I don’t know that God doesn’t exist, I simply assume that he doesn’t based on the lack of credible evidence. Conversely, I don’t assume the Earth revolves around the Sun, I know it does.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon
**
I simply repeat my earlier point. Anything new we learn about how reality actually works is annexed into one or more scientific disciplines or becomes its own scientific discipline. Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. If someone wants to claim it’s not, and for example, provide Genesis 1 as evidence for that, where God created the water before he created the stars (which ordinarily contain the hydrogen that would be fused into heavier elements), then you’re not talking about a different form of knowledge than science. You’re just wrong.**

O.K. now you seem to be backing away from the notion that the only knowledge is scientific knowledge. Anything we “learn about how reality actually works” is in the realm of science?

But mathematics is not in the realm of science. Mathematics is a type of knowledge that we learn “outside” the scientific laboratory. You cannot put the number “3” under a microscope and prove it exists. Nor can you prove that it has evolved. Nor can you prove that it existed at the time of the Big Bang. Nor can you prove that it exists outside the human mind. There are lots of things in mathematics, axioms and postulates, that cannot be scientifically proven. Yet nobody would deny they are a form of knowledge of a reality that surrounds us.

Then why couldn’t there be other realities we cannot prove because science is powerless to “prove” them, such as the world of spirit and God?

Is there a kind of prejudiced bias (egotism) built into the scientific community, which says “We know it all, and if we can’t know it, it can’t be known”!?

Isn’t that the foundation of all agnosticism, even the sort that the apostle Thomas practiced when he refused to believe in the Resurrection?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

Since you are an atheist, how do you know for a certainty that God does not exist?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

ASimon

Since you are an atheist, how do you know for a certainty that God does not exist?

I think you have overlooked his stated position. Let me copy his statement:

I don’t know that God doesn’t exist, I simply assume that he doesn’t based on the lack of credible evidence. .

With that position the question of how does he know with certainty that God does not exists is not applicable to him.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ThinkingSapien

**With that position the question of how does he know with certainty that God does not exists is not applicable to him. **

Yet you will find no lack of scientific types who are glad to assume, even without credible evidence, that this universe we inhabit is the child of an earlier universe, and so forth ad infinitum.

Scientists might be willing to assume anything, without the slightest thread of evidence, so long as it is possible. Democritus assumed the existence of atoms without evidence of their existence. He was right. They do exist, even before there was material evidence of them.

But if God is assumed without material evidence, that is not possible!

Do you not detect a presumptuous brain at work?

The atheist does not merely assume the non-existence of God. He is certain of it, or he would call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist.

 

[ASimon]

ThinkingSapien

The atheist does not merely assume the non-existence of God. He is certain of it, or he would call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist.

This has long been a common mis-characterization of the atheist position. It is simply untrue, which is why I say “agnostic” is such a devalued term.

To repeat: The existence of God is an unfalsifiable premise. I can’t prove there isn’t an invisible man who lives on a cloud in the sky, or lives in some alternate supernatural realm, or is somehow in both of those places at once, while simultaneously present in every plant, rock and creature in the natural world. Trust me, I would like to be able to disprove this. But intellectual honesty simply forbids such claim. Just as intellectual honesty forbids you from saying there isn’t an invisible, flying, fire-breathing (but non-heat generating) dragon living in my garage. The best you can do is simply say there is no credible reason to believe this dragon is actually there. Despite this, I can go on believing that this dragon does exist, and you can go on believing that this God exists, but neither of us is under any obligation to take the other person seriously in these claims.

 

[babylonsfalling]

ASimon

"Agnostic atheist"?

How could you be an agnostic atheist?

an agnostic is unsure of God’s existence

an atheist believes there are no gods.

atheists don’t like that definition because it involves an actual decision made against God’s existence. So they will often try tweaking the definition into some “lack of belief” grey area that stops short of genuine atheism…but they will still call themselves an atheist. It’s good they don’t want to go all the way with their atheism but it also intellectually dishonest.

agnostics actually have the more grown up perspective, and there are no such thing as agnostic atheist…that’s just attention getting word play which as I said conveniently stops short of actual atheism…