Ok. Maybe this time. I may be splitting hairs, but I see a difference between pure skepticism that says nothing can be known and everything is just questions, and agnosticism that says there is something there even though I can’t know what it is. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I see a difference.
On the one hand, the can we know question is a disputed philosophical argument, and whether one is well read or completely naive, the element of doubt does rear its ugly head. The concretized notion of skepticism is counter-balanced by the zealot religious positions. Both ‘know’ from a supposed inviolable position. Both are dead wrong IMO. No one can say anything but from a particular perspective, and that POV can always be challenged. I’m not quite convinced that the secular skeptic world is any more guilty of demanding that Christians must question their faith than are the fringe elements of Christianity demanding that the world must be seen from their perspective.
I do see the argument put forward that Christians are being ‘picked on’ or ignored, or bullied, or… It was the same argument put out by the Jewish Anti-defamation League for many years that anything they didn’t like was anti-semitic. It is playing the ‘race card’, I’m a victim crap. But the set in stone dismissal of any position other than my own is common on both sides of any issue.
Ultimately, I feel it is about the questions, or perhaps about the answers? I agree that those who refuse to accept any answer as the only answer are being hipocritically foolish - about as foolish as the fringe fundamentalist who has decided that a hurricane is God’s punishment for sin. That either pretends to ‘know’ anything is either amusing or pathetic depending on your POV.
The real dilemma is that all the fuss and furor is about metaphysical claims of knowing. That leaves us staring at a blank wall and pawing through the liquor cabinet looking for the Lemonheart…
JT