Comments on: What is the point of agnosticism?

By: rp

rp — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:30:19 +0000

An excellent article. The critics of this blog entry fail to see its elegance, lucidity and simplicity:

“If, before we start to look at the evidence, the hypothesis that God exists is initially no less probable than the hypothesis that he doesn’t, that neither atheism nor theism has a head start, so speak, then we should keep an open mind, rather than be atheists until presented by overwhelming evidence for God.”

I think Le Poidevin rightfully promotes the position of agnosticism when addressing the God question for the first time without prior knowledge of the subject matter.

By: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm « Earthpages.ca

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm « Earthpages.ca — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 01:18:38 +0000

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By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:20:26 +0000

Dyz: Insults do not county as argument. How is that quote evidence of bias? What undertanding does it demonstrate a lack of and how does it demonstrate that?

By: Dyz

Dyz — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:19:20 +0000

Another bit of failure in the article is the following;
“Perhaps God is like that: his understanding and capacities may be infinitely complex, but the underlying nature that gives rise to that complexity may be relatively simple.”

This shows the bias and lack of understanding of the author. Nobody would call such an entity a ‘god’. The religious always fail at philosophy.

By: Dyz

Dyz — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:19:14 +0000

Agnosticism is a position on knowledge.
(A)theism is a position on belief.

Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not have belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity does not exist.

People that place agnosticism between atheism and theism are incorrect. Agnostic atheism is the most reasonable and open minded position.

By: stuart abrams

stuart abrams — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:43:31 +0000

This is precisely why Hawking was so right in saying that philosophy has become irrelevant. Agnosticism is utter nonsense because it suggests that some form of scientific “proof” could theoretically be brought forward that would either prove or disprove the existence of God. The assertions “God exists” and “God does not exist” are not scientific propositions. A scientific proposition is one that is falsifiable. The assertion that God either does or does not exist is not falsifiable, and hence, it is a proposition that is not within the realm of science, it is within the realm of theology. One either believes in God or one doesn’t, and no amount of scientific inquiry is going to provide the answer. The position of agnosticism is not one of “open mindedness”, it is one of empty headedness.

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:50:32 +0000

The brilliant author Margaret Atwood once described herself as a “devout agnostic.” I love this embrace of mystery, this acknowledgement that we don’t know, by some of our most intelligent writers and provocative thinkers. It gives me hope for our species.

By: ken adler

ken adler — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 23:43:44 +0000

The atheist is open to the belief that there is a god. But to this day, there is not a shred of evidence that a god exists. (deductive proofs are not sufficient.)

How does any believer know there is a god?

By: Egypt Steve

Egypt Steve — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:20:09 +0000

Hmmmm … sounds like you have conflated “God” with the “natural laws of the universe.” Otherwise, what is the point of your “grammar” illustration?

By the by, doesn’t any serious discussion of the existence of God have to begin with a definition of God? And a discussion of why a Jehovah-oid deity is a more probable or reasonable subject for further investigation than an Apollo or a Marduk or an Isis?

By: Ken Pidcock

Ken Pidcock — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:17:04 +0000

Bertrand Russell: As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:00:54 +0000

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By: Joseph Smidt

Joseph Smidt — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:43:53 +0000

Very interesting article. I also agree agnosticism is the most honest scientific viewpoint.

By: RS Deese

RS Deese — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:50:56 +0000

It’s also worth noting that Huxley’s agnosticism extended well beyond religion, to the question of consciousness itself. He was committed to discovering the simplest and most rational explanations for everything in nature, but he found the phenomenon of consciousness, both human and animal, to be profoundly mysterious:

“How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.”

— T.H. Huxley

Lessons in Elementary Psychology (1866)

By: Ishmael

Ishmael — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:49:40 +0000

Some great points! Agnosticism has always seemed to me to be the most honest of the “scientific” viewpoints on theological questions. The most a “scientific” explanation can ever say is that there is no evidence/requirement for a supernatural factor in the explanation for a particular phenomenon. Atheism takes it further to assert there is no god (hmm, isn’t that attempting to prove the negative?).

BTW, we can’t say there are no fairies on Mars — only that we haven’t seen any evidence for their existence — yet.

Maybe we need to put metaphysics back into the science core curriculum.