Technically Agnostic?

So, there was a recent thread over at The Atheist Blogger regarding agnosticism and its relationships to atheism. Adrian was explaining the relationship of knowledge to belief. The individual he was addressing responded with a comment I hear often with agnosticism:

Are you agnostic about ghosts? Are you agnostic about talking to the dead? Are you agnostic about UFOs? It seems to me the answers to those questions should be yes, yes, and yes. We just can’t know!

Again, as the answers should technically be yes, most people do not consider them important enough to acknowledge. In fact, UFO’s exist, we just don’t know what they are. Even if you meant aliens, I would not be agnostic about them either. The universe is only finitely sized, and if the aliens live within it, we can know about them. (emphasis mine)

Why technically? Why the qualification? The essence of agnosticism is that the truth value of certain claims are not known or cannot be proven/disproven -- perhaps inherently unknowable or unprovable.

For example: Life, the universe, and everything came into existence five minutes ago. Everything was created as-is with every person created with memories of an entire life. Each person was created in a specific position performing a specific action.

Should you be agnostic about this claim? Absolutely. The truth value of this claim is unknown and cannot even be assessed.

Usually we apply agnosticism to the realm of the metaphysical, supernatural, and ultimate reality. You can apply it to other things though.

For example: Intelligent life forms exist in some other area of the universe.

We cannot assess the truth value of this claim and it's unknown, at least relative to our known segment of reality. We should be agnostic about it. And, being agnostic about it, we shouldn't care much about taking a position or arguing beliefs on it. Sure, you can try justifying belief in it with statistics or try justifying belief against it using the stroke of luck involved for Earth and life here. Ultimately, it's pointless.

Now, once people start making specific claims about it and about how it intersects with our known reality, then we can start making assessments of it and arguments are justified. For example, we can move beyond simple alienism and into abductionism. One is perfectly justified in responding and assessing these claims. Why always abduct the stupid people? What's with the homosexuality? Why travel all this way just to study us? If you aren't afraid of exposing yourself to some humans, why not all humans? Why haven't we detected you? And so on.


The same applies to the god question. Claim: a god exists. And? There's no possible way of assessing the truth value of this claim and it's unknown and, perhaps, unknowable. There's definitely no way to prove or disprove it. So, yes, we should be agnostic about it. There's no point in even taking a position on it as you can't justify it.

Now, once claims start flying about how this god intersects with our reality, starts interfering and intervening, then we can start assessing that particular claim. For example, Christianity. You can assess the Bible, the history of it, the consistency of it, the ludicrousy of it, the logical contradictions, etc. Belief for or against this can be justified given how much it interacts with us.


Something I see often, including in The Atheist Blogger's post on it, was assessing agnosticism and atheism in relation to "God." Atheism and agnosticism apply to gods in general, not just the monotheistical creator-god. I think we do our discourse a disservice when perpetuating such privilege to the monotheistical religions by extending it here. Furthermore, it compounds confusion for those trying to grapple with application of agnosticism to claims. Existence of a god merits agnosticism. Existence of a specifically defined god may not.

Related: Godly Aliens

Godly Aliens

Image: Kecko

I have had a few questions regarding my agnosticism and atheism from some Christian and non-Christian commenters, so I thought I would explain my position with an analogy between gods and aliens to demonstrate not believing versus believing not. I hope the three in the morning post doesn't lose its coherency...

I am an atheist because I don't believe in any gods. That is not to say that I believe there are no gods, just that I don't actively hold some belief regarding it. To assign some values to it:

+1: I believe there is at least one god. (theism)
0: I do not believe there are any gods. (a-theism)
-1: I believe there are no gods. (anti-theism)

The proposition is "A god exists." With that scoring method, I gain 0 points. Perhaps to make this more clear, let's relate this to aliens. We have the following scoring options:

+1: I believe that aliens exist. (alienism)
0: I do not believe any aliens exist. (an-alienism)
-1: I believe no aliens exist. (anti-alienism)

The proposition is "Aliens exist." Again, for this, I score a 0. It's not that I believe no aliens exist, it's that I have no belief regarding it. There may be or there may not be; I have no belief either way (I'll clarify this point later).

Just like with the god question, "alien" is not well defined. What are we talking about here? Super intelligent aliens? Semi intelligent aliens? Aliens constructing spacecrafts? Aliens who are mere life and not even sentient? It's as ill-defined as "god." What are we talking about here? An omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient god? A deistic sort of god? A personal god? A semi-powerful god? An omnipresent god? It's not really defined.


Now, my lack of belief in aliens is not simply because I do not know. You can start defining the aliens and giving them characteristics. For example: A race of aliens who are super intelligent, capable of interstellar travel, and have been visiting Earth for centuries. They are little green men, with antennas coming out of their heads, they have been abducting people for centuries, probing them, and studying them. Once they have finished, they put that person back on Earth. That's the proposition, here's the scoring:

+1: I believe these aliens exist. (abductionist)
0: I don't believe these aliens exist. (an-abductionist)
-1: I believe these aliens don't exist. (anti-abductionist)

In this case, I score a -1 because I have the belief that these aliens with these activities don't exist. Of course, I don't "absolutely know" one way or the other; they may exist. I believe they don't, though. There are many reasons that have led me to this belief: Why always abduct the stupid people? Why the homosexual overtones with the abductions? Why travel all this way for all these centuries just to study us? Why not make your presence known? Why haven't we been able to detect you?

Just because I believe these aliens don't exist does not contribute at all to the general existence of aliens or to my general not believing in aliens. In other words, my anti-abductionist belief has nothing to do with my an-alienist lack of belief.


Now, to relate this to the god question. Start defining one and I'll see what I score on it. Take the Judeo-Christian God. He created the life, the universe, Earth, and everything 6,000 years ago. He's omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. He had a son 2,000 years ago and wrote a book in his free time. He will judge everyone after they die and send them either to Hell or to Heaven, depending if they believed in the divinity of Jesus. That's the basic proposition, and here's the scoring:

+1: I believe this god exists. (Christian)
0: I don't believe this god exists. (a-Christian)
-1: I believe this god does not exist. (anti-Christian)

I score a -1 because I believe this god does not exist. Of course, I don't "absolutely know" one way or the other; he may exist. I believe he doesn't, though. There are many reasons leading to this belief: The contradictions of his magical power (omnipotence and omniscience, for example). The extraordinary amount of suffering in this world does not lead to an all-loving god. The idea that God exists, powerful enough to reveal himself, cares that we believe he exists, and does not show himself because he doesn't want to force the belief or whatever, is absurd. Why would a god that powerful even care enough to create us, and further would even care about us, and finally would care that we believe he exists? Why if it's all about us did he create the billions of others stars and planets? What about all the evidence which disproves the 6,000 year old Earth/universe? What of all the errors, idiocies, and immorality in the Bible? Why write a Bible at all? If he doesn't want to interfere with us, why do it once with the Bible and again with Jesus, but never again? Why isn't there more evidence regarding Jesus and why isn't there any about his magical powers? I could go on, but that's the point of the religious absurdity series.

My believing that Christianity is false (and, by consequence, the Christian God) has nothing to do with my atheism on the broader question of the existence of gods.


Is this all some grand equivocation to get around saying that "I believe that no gods exist"? No, of course not, as I don't believe that. I believe that certain proposed gods, such as Yahweh, Allah, Thor, Zeus, Anubis, Ra, Osiris, Apophis, Odin, etc, do not exist. Certain types of gods though, like a deistic type of god or even a god very limited in power and with no other defined attributes, I hold no belief in either way. I may one day believe in them, but the time to believe in something is when there is some good evidence or some good reason to believe in them. In the light of counter evidence, contradictions, and good reason not to believe, that is an appropriate time to believe they do not exist. And just like super intelligent aliens abducting the dumbest people on the Earth and having homosexual encounters with them, there is good reason to believe that Yahweh does not exist.

While not concise, I hope this elaboration was clear enough for those who have asked about it.

A Bloody Mess

The ignorance of his latest entry is astoundingly discomforting. The comment concluded that Ray was like a boyfriend who beats you and then buys you a necklace the next day. Nay, it's more like the boyfriend who beats you and tells you that you deserve it and it's for your own good as he does it.

What's remarkable about this post is he likens himself to a doctor in an insane asylum and atheists are the patients with delusions and psychological problems. Seriously? I mean, really, seriously? How many people in an insane asylum are there because they believe that there are evil squirrels out to kill them? I couldn't quote statistics, but it is likely more than the number of people in an insane asylum because they don't believe that there are evil squirrels out to get them. Or how about the number of people there because they believe aliens are manipulating the weather patterns and one day will take over Earth? Again, I don't have the hard numbers in front of me, but roughly more than the number of people there because they don't believe.

And yet, Ray, by your own admission, you believe that a magic man is manipulating weather patterns and will one day take over Earth. And I should be there because I don't believe that? The role of the doctor at such a hospital is to serve a dose of rationality and get them to see that they are delusional and anything they point to is simply coincidental, confirmation bias, irrelevant, or better explained by something else. The doctors are the only people in the insane asylum who don't believe such fantastic claims of the supernatural, delusional, and magical variety. Like so many other things, Ray, you get the definitions all wrong. The person claiming that aliens, the government, witches, warlocks, or magic are manipulating the weather patterns aren't called the doctors; they're called the patients.

He concludes the entry by pulling out his classic gem of ignorance:

Any thinking person who denies God’s existence will admit that he doesn’t know for certain that there is no God, because someone in the universe (in the evidence he hasn’t yet come across) there may be ample evidence to prove that He does exist. He is therefore forced to say "With the limited knowledge I have at present, I have come to the conclusion that there is no God, but I really don’t know." So he cannot truthfully say "There is no God." He’s not an atheist. He’s actually an agnostic--someone who doesn’t know if God exists.

It's not that hard, Ray. Allow me to be the twenty millionth or so atheist who has tried to get these simple, basic definitions and distinctions through your skull:

Theist (n): one who believes in a god or gods.
Atheist (n): one who lacks the belief/doesn't believe in a god or gods.

Gnostic (n): one who claims to know that that which they claim to believe is true/knowable/provable.
Agnostic (n): one who doesn't claim to know that that which they claim to believe is true/knowable/provable.

If you'd like some extra credit, Ray, Iron Chariots has a nice, brief article clarifying the two terms.

Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive as they have basically nothing to do with one another. One addresses one thing while the other addresses another thing entirely. Agnosticism is not unsure atheism. Everyone, theists and atheists, should be agnostics. You can combine these terms into four labels:

Gnostic Theist
Agnostic Theist
Gnostic Atheist
Agnostic Atheist

Ray likes to define atheism as "knowing there is no God" so that he can build up a straw man to beat down with his whole "only God is omniscient" shtick.

Belief and knowledge are two different things -- epistemology 101. Let me consult my handy dictionary for you Ray, something you should really invest in:

belief (n):
1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.

knowledge (n):
a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2): acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique b (1): the fact or condition of being aware of something (2): the range of one's information or understanding knowledge c: the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : cognition d: the fact or condition of having information or of being learned

And let me submit something to you, Ray. You do not know the Christian God. You believe he reveals himself to you, speaks to you, answer your prayers, etc. But you can't know that it is really the Christian God doing the revealing, speaking, and answering, though. How could you? Because he tells you that he is Jesus/God? You can't verify it. While Jesus/God would tell you that it is him who is revealing, speaking, and answering to you, it would also be the sort of thing a prankster alien, a prankster spirit, or a demon would say to you as well. And since you have no way of verifying or "knowing absolutely" (as you would put it), you can't possibly know. Therefore, Ray, you are not a theist; not a believer. You are "actually an agnostic--someone who doesn’t know" if your Christian God exists.


Your analogies are as ridiculous as your logic is faulty.

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Other Blogs on this Topic
About.com's Atheism / Agnosticism (over atheism vs agonosticism)
Of Microbes and Men