Especially benign agnostics. You can talk with them. And they probably won’t kill you.
They are safe. They are milk toast. I want to know what is bad about them.
They think beliefs are things you arrive at logically. They tend to apply the rationale they used to be agnostic about God with less rigor in other areas.
They are not spontaneous enough.
They read too much.
Absolutely nothing. Agnosticism is probably the most down-to-earth view one can take. One ought to come to grips with limited status of human knowledge.
Not so. Speaking as an agnostic myself (not of God per se, but on anything whatsoever), it is borne from a recognition that human knowledge is limited. We are just as spontaneous as the next person - it’s just that we recognize the products of that spontenaiety as artifacts of creative thinking rather than knowledge/truth.
- Are you sure?
- Can one really be agnostic about everything? Epistemology, for example?
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I was just playing around there. I mean, I would guess it is true. But I admit it is a guess and a playful one.
Agnostics are way too squeemish and cannot imagine anything higher than themselves.
Nope 
I believe they can. What’s one thing we can be most certain about? Mathematics? Are you sure 2 + 2 = 4? How do you know you’re not delusional? How do you know you’re not dreaming? Isn’t it possible that in a dream we could become so certain of things like 2 + 2 = 4 or that all bachelors are male, and yet this is just some epiphenomena of dreaming? Even if we’re sure that it’s not, couldn’t that be a product of a dream state?
You can doubt anything.
Where’d you get that from? I would think it’s the other way around. Holding one’s claims to knowledge (and thus one’s self) in such high esteem is certainly a tell tail sign of egocentrism.
OK, but you said it like you were.
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It’s not really a question of whether one can doubt, but whether one does. I doubt, for example, that one can be agnostic about everything or anything. IOW that a single person will be like this. Everyone I meet has epistemological assumptions. Sure, under pressure, they may ‘admit’ that they are not sure, but they live their lives otherwise 1) sure about their epistemology and 2) generally sure that to have another kind of epistemology is to be in error.
If one truly doubts all things, how does one add up all the uncertainties…? If one doubts one’s epistemology and then also doubts one’s memory (as a whole) and then doubts one’s application of each of these AND then doubts experiences as they arise, what mathematical formula does one use to calculate the level of certainty?
I ask this because even if agnostics say they are uncertain, it seems to me they engage in discussions AS IF their reasons for being agnostic (about whatever) makes sense (at least to a significant degree of liklihood), that they are quite sure about what one cannot know for sure, that they are quite sure other people have the same limitations they do, and then also doubt their reasoning - iow the qualia ‘that makes sense’ might be off in them - and so on.
I can’t see where they get a basis for being ‘quite sure’. I need to know the algorithm. Does each of these doubts knock off 1%, 10%? Are they cumulative? Does one multiply each doubt by the others or add them? Does one doubt the amount of weight and certainty one gives each of these doubts?
I can’t really see what ground one has to engage in discussion. I can see a quiet hermit agnostic who utters little, but otherwise…
EDIT: I should add. The original meaning of agnostic was that one could not know if there was a God or not. Being agnostic was not simply being unsure. It was a specific epistemological position that one could not know.
True, but acknowledging that there may be something higher that one’s self isn’t.
One could come to a point and say the only certainty is that there is none and that would be the end of the matter. Otherwise, if certainty is something to be achieved or attained in time and if each individual is seeking certainty for himself, there can be no certainty in the world.
The problem with this is that this is a generalization. How could someone who is not sure of anything know that their ideas apply to others even remotely?
me too [:
agnostics make the best mac n cheese, and they are so outgoing! and so intriguing and like when you ask them a question they have the most intelligent expression on their face and like they are just like a breath of fresh air…
lol but seriously
as long as you aren’t of the faith PEOPLE GET HURT SO THERE CANT BE A GOD, im probably on ur side. lol
Understood. Perhaps we could say there is no collective essence of certainty that’s objective in nature. That seems obvious enough from just observation. When it comes to broad and sweeping generalizations, that’s often as far as we can go regarding most metaphysical conceptualizations and imaginings
Specifics and particulars produced by inference on the individual level become less vague as in the case with lack of objectivity. Subjectively, what works for one most likely does not apply to others precisely, yet it sure is good for him.
It’s a socially safe position in which you basically say, “i’m atheist, but hey it’s cool, it’s not like I want to argue or anything.” It is however, not a philosophical position, or in any case, the one agnostics usually think it is.
Well, I do meet agnostics in the original sense of the term on the net fairly often. Those for whom it is an epistemological stand.
to come to think of it
im prolly agnostic cuz im lazy lol
Had trouble understanding this. I am pretty sure I disagree with the last sentence. I don’t experience what works for others works for me. Nor do I see this when I look at third parties and ‘what works for them’.
Well, any rational person will be an agnostic, but the point is saying you’re agnostic alone doesn’t tell you anything. No one has sufficient evidence to be justified in believing in the existence or non-existence of God. Still, just because S doesn’t have knowledge and recognizes that he don’t have and possibly can’t have knowledge of P does not mean S doesn’t believe in P. Most of our beliefs are not sufficiently justified and as such not knowledge. Knowledge is not a necessary condition of belief.
If the topic of religion is brought up and you say you’re an agnostic, and by it you imply (out of the bounds of strict agnosticism) that you withhold judgment on the existence/non-existence of God, you’ve also implied you lack a belief in God. To believe means something like to hold dear, or to hold as true, and so in withholding judgment you withhold what can be properly called a belief. Being agnostic does in no way affect you in your capacity as an atheist. You can be both. It’s not one or the other.
There are only two categories available here. You can be a certain degree of each, but at some point I can’t determine with extreme precision you cease to be one and are the other. Atheism—Theism. Agnosticism is not a third alternative. It is something you can be atop of either.
I should have written it like this:
Subjectively, what works for me most likely does not apply to others. I don’t know what works for others, because I don’t know what is the one thing that works for all. I only know what works for me.
I agree you can see “certainty” as an orthogonal axis to “theism”. Alternatively, from a behaviourist perspective you can take “belief” as meaning that you hold something as true for the purposes of decision/action. An atheist will choose not to go to a prayer meeting before an examination, as they will probably value last-minute revision more highly.
The question is then, how does someone who believes there is no god differ in their actions and dispositions to someone who doesn’t claim to know one way or the other? The differences are likely to be minimal, except insofar as dealing with others’ claims to (a)religious truth. In practice, I don’t know of many agnostics who support Creation Science on the basis of our ignorance of what really happened.
Personally, I have a lot of time for uctaa.net/
I don’t think there’s any sort of utilitarian calculations going on in the mind of the agnostic. Speaking for myself, I like to keep things simple. I hinge my agnosticism on one very simple principle: there is no such thing as absolutely certain knowledge - and even that I’m not certain about. But I don’t think that harboring mild doubts about one’s own position necessarily invalidates that position. In the case of agnosticism, it would seem to go with the territory.
So, yeah, you’re right - we will go about our daily business as though we were certain about the way things work, how things are, the reliability of knowledge and memory, but this is more an approach to living and getting by in the world rather than a philosophical position. It would not be inconsistent for one to hold the opinion that no knowledge can be absolutely certain and at the same time go through life trusting in whatever knowledge and memory one has however short of perfection that knowledge and memory is.
And why would an agnostic deny this? Of course there may be a power higher than one’s self. According to an agnostic, there may be a whole number of things we aren’t certain about. It’s the insistence on certainty in one’s claims that betrays a kind of egocentric confidence in one’s knowledge.