I’ve been throwing a few thoughts around recently and would like some feedback. I have come to the conclusion that agnosticism is not a valid stance when it comes to belief in God. Lets look at the definition of agnostic from dictionary.com
Now, religion relies on faith and belief, not knowledge. If we knew that God did/didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a need for faith, just as you don’t need faith to know that 1+1=2. So not knowing doesn’t seem to enter into it at all, you either believe or you don’t, if you’re uncertain, then clearly you don’t. Knowing something and believing in something are two very different things.
I’m yet to meet a christian who “wasnt sure” if God existed. Agnosticism just seems like an indirect way of saying that you dont believe.
I think you are right about this. personally, i don’t let Webster define everything for me.
We seem (our culture, that is) to have lack of adequate terminology to cover the infinite range of “belief possibilities”.
What about the individual who believes in a power/being/transcendental figure/network/order/cause that is similar to what most people would call “GOD” but doesn’t believe in GOD?
what i mean is this: religion has a tendency to tell you what you should believe in a definitive sense. they define the belief for you. i’m studying theology right now: st. thomas aquinas and st. augustine, and they go through a huge effort to explain, logically, the specificalities of god.
can’t someone believe without believing in ‘their’(the theologians, or other similar figures) way of believing in god?
if “God” can’t be defined then the word itself is already inadequate. when i try to talk to others about God i try to make sure they know that i’m not talking about “He, the Father, heaven=clouds and man with beard image”. The word “God” is tainted and misleading.
so, i’m not one religion. so i believe in what i can’t see. i have faith beyond the empirical. but i don’t believe in a word devoid of meaning.
some people would paint this “spiritual”, but this I resent. i mean, what does spiritual mean?
literally…you’ve got the dictionary…i’m curious.
but based on a literal translation of what you wrote, i’m totally with you.
thanks
I think you are confused about what an agnostic is. An agnostic cannot be a christian, because a christian is a theist. There are basically 3 stances that one can take on the issue of “god”–they are theism, agnosticism, and atheism. Some may disagree and say that atheism and agnosticism are the same but I don’t believe they are. An agnostic makes no claim to knowledge of “god’s” existance or the existance of “gods”, whereas both a theist and atheist do.
Now, for your question…Agnosticism is not only a valid stance, it is actually the ONLY valid stance. The reason for this is because both theists and atheist make a claim to knowledge whereas the agnostic merely states, “I do not know.”
Noone knows whether or not a “god” or “gods” exist. Agnosticism requires no faith and that is what makes it the only valid stance.
The first problem we have to face in the theist-agnostic-atheiest question is deciding exactly what is god. There are many different concepts, metaphors, and words used in the attempt to describe that which is beyond concept, metaphor, or word. In short, any ‘useful’ definition of what is theist>non-theist would necessarily need an agreed upon definition of ‘god’. I’ve yet to find consensus on that definition.
But ignoring that particular stumbling block, an agnostic is one who has carefully looked at the question and has concluded that, given our capacities of mind and understanding its’ limitations, there is no way to make a convincing judgement. Agnosticism is active suspension of judgement.
The theist-agnostic-atheist issue is not an either/or position, but is a scale of belief>non-belief. Very few fit neatly in one camp or another, primarily because so few have a clear understanding of that which is.
I used to hold that exact same position, Fthe, and in a sense, still agree with it.
But rational thinking has lead me to disqualify ‘agnostic’ from my vocabulary.
Why?
Think of it like this, firstly…what does atheist mean?
Acording to dictionary.com it means ‘one who denies the existance of god’
Ok, so it comes down to the definition of ‘god’ All notions of ‘god’ (one god) in our culture stem from judeo-christian tradition.
Sure, you can define god as ‘the universe’, a mathematical equasion, the unknown x factor, all the combined life energy in the universe, etc etc, and in those cases, ‘agnostic’ is valid.
But in reality ‘God’ is the god of the bible.
The term ‘agnostic’ deals with god, by the commonly accepted definition.
The god-characture of the bible has no evidencial support of any kind.
The lack of evidencial support for god reduces ‘god’ to nothing more than a guess at what started the universe off.
an infinite amount of people can postulate an infinite amount of guesses given infinite time.(guessing being postulations lacking any evidencial support)
This leaves the god of the bible(and all his defined parameters) to be an infintely unlikely guess.
And leaves agnosticism as purely arational.
noel: what you have said is true, but if you’re saying “i don’t know” or “I’m not convinced” then you don’t believe in god. like i said earlier, its just an indirect way of saying that at the present time, you don’t believe in the existence of a greater being.
Alexistentialism:
to be honest I really don’t know how to answer that properly, but obviously relating to the spirit, the question is, what do you consider your spirit to be? a gift from a superior being without which you could not live? Your consciousness? Or just the physical matter that makes up your brain and stores all your experiences?
FtheNaysayers:
oh you have no idea
I agree to a certain extent. “I don’t know” is only a valid answer to “does god exist”, but cannot be used to answer “do you believe in god?”. one of those requires faith and the other does not. to “know” is to have proof of its existence, to have faith is to believe without any proof, so knowledge becomes irrelevant.
If this thing, whatever it is, is beyond concept, metaphor, or word, how is it that we discuss it or know of it or realise it or create it? Perhaps then we can call it the ‘Indiscussible,’ or the ‘Unknowable,’ or the Unrealisable,’ or the ‘Uncreatable,’ or, simpler still, why not call it ‘God?’
The muslims tell us Allah has a thousand names, maybe the ‘Untalkable About,’ is one of them?
We have to get real about this matter. There is God or a god and it’s something you can’t wriggle out of. It may be an idea, or a hypothesis, or a belief. or a denial, or what-the-fuck, but we exchange ideas about this thing, this nonentity, and so long as we say a word we bring this unknown creature to life, thus it exists, when we remember it and talk about it.
There is also a non-god/God god, the god/God of the Atheists; and then, well, as for the agnostics, see my post above. (And I don’t mean in heaven!)
I don’t think of ‘God’ as the god of the bible. I am 99% sure that god doesn’t exist, however I am still on the fence when it comes to the existence of a ‘god’ or ‘gods’.
blayzed:
No, that is not true. Saying you don’t know does not mean you don’t believe a greater being exists. All it means is you don’t know. You are admitting your ignorance.
Man, I hate new age bullshit.
Theism, Agnosticism, and Atheism all deal with the truth about the concept of God, not the concept itself. I don’t deny that the CONCEPT of God exists–who would?–but as for whether that concept is true or not I am not sure. Just because the concept itself exists that does not mean the ‘being’ actually exists.
That’s a good point. When I think of god all I think of is a “higher-being”.
I don’t go for the bullshit idea that ‘god’ can mean anything you want it to, such as nature, or the universe. The word god clearly implies certain characteristics.
To me, ‘god’ implies the god of the bible, and my position on that ‘god’, for logical and rational reasons I have already explained, is atheism.
But if god can be anything…it is a whole different ballpark.
How does anyone know the characteristics of the divine? This is the point that gets me. Beyond the question about the existence of the divine are all the questions about the qualities of the divine.
What is God like? I believe that this is unknown and unknowable. Nobody has this knowledge of God and nobody can have this knowledge. This to me is agnosticism, vs. the gnosis: the intimate, personal and direct knowledge of God.
You are absolutely right. We can talk about god. We can define, describe, posit attributes, add, subtract, or anything within the realm of human capacity. All of this is then the man-made theistic concept we call god.
For myself, and only for myself, I make a distinction between my man-made constructs which I can ‘know’, and the reality which I can only infer. There is no way I could convince myself that I ‘know’ anything about the reality of that which is, and that is why I say beyond concept and language. It isn’t said as some subterfuge to avoid thinking about, it is my honest appraisal of my own limitations.
I truly believe that there is something beyond me, but it would be the height of arrogance for me to suggest (for me) that I know anything about that something.
All this has nothing to do with anyone else. It is my understanding of myself and my place.
And so, would you like to talk about god? I would like to construct a better model than the ones we have been playing with. They’re all a bit too paternalistic and stodgy.
