On most demographic surveys that deal with religion, you’ll see many of the major faiths represented, and then a catch-all category for “Atheist or Agnostic.” This contributes to the popular confusion surrounding these identities.
Atheism, as defined by most of its proponents, is the positive assertion that there is no supernatural God.
Agnosticism is the assertion that the existence of God is either currently unknown or cannot ever be known.
Easy enough, right? But of course, whenever someone asks a rhetorical question like “Easy enough, right?” you already know the answer… Wrong.
The funny thing about identities is that there’s always a bit of wiggle-room when it comes to their exact qualifications. There’s no International Body of Atheism, no Atheist Pope to lay out the rules.
When I say I’m an Atheist, I’m not saying that I have a flow chart that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that no version of God could possibly exist. I’m saying that based on the evidence I have, the books I’ve read, the arguments I’ve heard and my own critical thinking, the existence of God seems extremely unlikely.
This is where I usually get called an agnostic.
But I’m not talking about your regular, run-of-the-mill unlikely. I’m talking about really, really, really unlikely. Like, waking up to find that you’ve metamorphosed into a giant cockroach unlikely.
I can offer you several very good reasons that I would not spontaneously turn into an enormous bug, but if you come at me and ask me to provide irrefutable evidence that I will wake up as myself tomorrow, I would be at a loss. And the same goes for the God hypothesis.
It’s what I like to think of as practical atheism. Based on the evidence I have, I’d say that it’s a fair assumption that I won’t wake up like poor Gregor Samsa tomorrow morning. Likewise, based on the evidence I have, I’d say that it’s a fair assumption that God doesn’t, in fact, exist.
Image by Allan Jones, see other work at http://www.jonseymonkey.co.uk/otherwork.htm
9 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 16, 2008 at 1:01 am
Jeff Atkinson
I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work
August 16, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Ken
Yes, I get called an agnostic too. But, to me, agnosticism means against knowledge. Philosophically it claims we can never know - about anything we investigate, not just a god.
So, I can say I don’t believe there is a god (or a god is extremely improbable) and still think we may be able to test a specific god hypothesis. We can certainly test hypotheses about many things in reality. So we can get to know reality - a bit at a time and imperfectly but always improving. Therefore I am not being agnostic by making a simple statement of belief.
I actually think that those people who claim agnosticism in a literal sense are saying that there is a part of reality which it is just impossible to investigate, understand or know. I think it is arrogant to make such a statement beforehand. How can they possibly know such a thing to be the case.
August 16, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Samuel Skinner
Technically certain Gods can be disproved- ones that are logically impossible or contradictory to the evidence and would make people able to see evidence clearly if they exist.
Other ones that have no effect what so ever go towards the agnostic spectrum, but similar to all “no evidence whatsoever” category.
August 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Michael Callaway
I liked this post, I would have to say that I am one of those Christians who did not know the difference as well. To me, I had always seen an atheist as the person who says there is no God, end of it where the agnostic said they do not believe that there is a God and where more open to debate. I guess when Derek said that I viewed all atheist as “The Villiage Atheist” he was partly right.
On a happy note, I am glad to see that even atheist and agnostics can fight it out too. Makes me feel better when different churches fight with each other =).
Thank-you for the information and I have enjoyed the debate, if that is something that you want to continue I will be more then happy to do it in a civil way. CultureFeast is probably not the best site for it long term and that is part of the reason why I kept my post rather light. Let me know.
August 22, 2008 at 9:54 am
Jesse
I think Ken is on the right track. I like to treat atheism and agnosticism not as different degrees of the same thing but different ways of understanding entirely.
To me, atheism is about not believing in any supernatural gods, where agnosticism is more about reserving the judgment that we can never really prove the existence/nonexistence of anything. Except as Samuel mentioned, logically impossible things like squared circles, etc.
In essence, I think people have to remain agnostic on the question of a god’s existence. However, the major thrust of being an atheist, as you mentioned in your post, is based on evidence and probability. Both of which are very small.
August 26, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Justin
Being an atheist is like looking at a painting and saying “there was no painter”. In fact, you might be so sure that there was no painter that you liken it to “waking up to find that you’ve metamorphosed into a giant cockroach”. You might to try to seem somewhat reasonable say you cannot completely disprove the “painter hypothesis”, but in reality you have become unreasonable because you strongly deny the most plausible solution to the painter problem.
Creation is absolute proof there was a Creator. You didn’t come from nowhere.
*Sorry if this has become repetitive to you, but Creation is the best proof of God there is and I can’t let you pass it by so carelessly.
August 26, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Derek
Justin,
The existence of something is not good evidence that it was created. By that ridiculous logic, God must have been created as well. If s/he was not, then there is no logical ground for you to claim that that the universe must have been.
This has been explained by myself, by others on this blog, and by many writers, scientists and philosophers across the ages.
In fact, just last week I linked an article in another discussion that referenced a quantum physics model — developed by Stephen Hawking — that provides reason to believe that a creator is in fact the least logical beginning point for a universe.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/smith_18_2.html
August 27, 2008 at 6:56 am
Justin
Three points to consider.
1. Everything which has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
There are only two ways to refute an argument:
1. Show that it is logically invalid
2. Show that at least one of the premises is false.
Let me know if you can do either of these after reading http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c039.html
August 27, 2008 at 10:13 am
Derek
Good timing. Please read my response here:
http://colouroftelevision.com/2008/08/26/john-varleys-wizard-plays-with-the-argument-from-design/#comment-361
I mean this in this nicest of ways, but you just seem to parrot tired old arguments without adding anything to them. Try doing a little reading outside of your Christian Answers websites to see if people, perhaps, have already considered these arguments.