I LOVE ME SOME NEIL TYSON. Who cares what he doesn't believe in? The man is brilliant. Something as trivial as religion shouldn't take away from an individual's inspiring work.
Anywho --
Negative connotation?
*shrug*
It's deserved, I think.
TECHNICALLY, an individual who called themselves 'agnostic' could have belief in a god - but what sense does it make?
The agnostic platform says, 'God/dess(es)? It cannot be known. I don't know. It cannnot be proven. I do not believe. I lack faith'.
The atheist platform says, "There is no god/god(ess)es. There is no proof. I do not believe. I lack faith'.
I'm not making things up. This is, what is.
There is a distinction: Doubt (maybe) and conviction(definitely)...but the lack of faith is the common thread.
I see no need to split hairs?
*shrug*
An agnostic theist. A 'reasonable position'?
How can you believe in a gods and be agnostic? Negative agnosticism...positive agnosticism?
...the hell is that?
You cannot call yourself an agnostic -- claiming that the existence of a deity is beyond the realm of our knowledge. Is not known or cannot be known. An impossibility, even -- but claim to KNOW, to believe in a god/dess(es), anyway....
What does that mean?
Atheism is atheism. Agnosticism is agnosticism...and resides beneath the umbrella of atheism.
You either believe in a 'something' or you don't (for whatever reason).
There is no 'middle road'...and I wish that more who called themselves agnostics understood that they canNOT claim 'neutrality' when they've already chosen a position. The position of non-belief.
If agnostics want to hide behind labels? Fine. Whatever.
Why don't they just call themselves... 'spiritual' and stop using words that they don't understand?
...or why not go for broke, join some religion and be done with it? At least with non-atheists, 'cognitive dissonance' is a virtue (and curiously appreciated).
*shrug*
**********************
For my part?
For the record, I'm - if you wanna get technical - an agnostic. I identify as an atheist and use the terms interchangeably, because nonbelief and not having faith is the core of it all.
Also?
Meh.
Pot-a-toe; po-tat-oe. *laugh*
One's an atheist. The other's just 'watered down'...and people only 'invented' that philosophy to create distance between themselves and atheism. To allow them to 'doubt' in heretical peace while appearing to be more agreeable and open-minded than the self-identified doubters (known as atheists) already in existence.
If you ask me?
There shouldn't even be a separate philosophy for agnosticism.
It's distinct but...the line is thin. For all agnosticism is, is WEAK/POSITIVE ATHEISM.
'Agnostic theism'?
>>rolls eyes<<.
Lunacy.
...but that is, of course, if you asked me. *laugh*
Unfortunately, that's the intellectual trap when wrapping your head around just what agnosticism is. People tend to categorize agnosticism in its practice in reference to whichever position they already hold. Agnosticism itself really tells you nothing about what the person believes. All it does is offer you where they stand in terms of certainty and uncertainty about their position. The problem is that atheism is still considered a bit of a dirty word, so it's co-opted into an attempted middle ground but a person can maintain either position on the sky daddy question and be an agnostic. They're simply not mutually exclusive.
It would be nice if there was a word that fit the popular usage of the term -- in the sense of how it would be nice if there was a word for what people meant when they say something is ironic but it's just merely an amusing coincidence.
Everyone is free to come to their own conclusions about such matters.
In an ideal world this would be the case.
I don't say what 'is'. I don't say what 'isnt'.
I tend to think that 'knowing-it-all' is a job best left to the 'believers'.
...because they're just so good at it and all....
*smirk*
But -- the most that I have or will ever say on the matter of 'god/dess(es)':
I. Don't. Know.
For that matter? Never claimed TO know.
It can't be known and unless our the religious/believer/theist/whatever types wish to skedaddle down that slippery slope descent into madness and claim a 6th Sense: That they 'commune' by some unknowable process or conduit with 'beings' through extra-sensory means that they can't as yet identify?
It's nothing but a bunch of guesswork...
*shrug*
I'm open to all possiblities, but if our little Secret Squirrels don't know, can't reveal and can't prove? They don't and can't. It's simple. So, why claim otherwise? Why bug the hell out of people like me about it?
In my personal experience this is the position of most atheists. It's a rejection of the options available not a declaration of having been to the mountain top to return with instagram pictures of a supreme being and scribbled commandments on an ipad.
Some people have issues with atheists.
I understand. I mean - if someone kept telling me that my religion was FOS and gave me a 3 page heavily bulletted dissertation as to why?
I might have a problem with them, too.
*laugh*
Maybe. The truth is the truth, no matter how dear you hold a specific thing.
But. Meh.
Y'know...when I discuss religion and it's deities, I'm always doing it in a very detached manner.
Isn't that precisely the issue? Some people regard the idea as fables handed down from the ages or a convenient dues ex machina when bumping against the unknown. On the otherside,
they believe they're the creation and obsession of something incomprehensibly complex and powerful. To some religious people, rejecting that is rejecting a big part of them and calling their truth a lie. There's no gentle way around this other than recognizing that people disagree and they should have every right to. It's also a matter of recognizing that people should be free from being ruled from this belief.
Sure, we can pretend it's a light matter from the perspective of a more privileged life than people born into places where it's a lot worse in this respect. On some level to me it's a nice sign of progress that people can consider these matters as significant as what toohpaste a person prefers, but part of me has to recognize the harsher side of reality.
I'm not anti-religion. I'm not anti-religious/belief system person. *laugh*
Hell - I go to church with my fiance and my children will attend private school...as I did as a child and teen. *shrug*
Religion is a small matter to me.
Not worth fighting, arguing, killing and dying over.
Church is way too boring. I'll go if they're putting someone I know in the dirt or committing them to the pyre.
No - when I talk about religious and things of a spiritual nature? I'm more or less talking about ideas and concepts. I'm arguing a point.
What I say may come off harshly because I don't actually consider the human or emotional element to belief. For me, everything is open to debate. To be questioned and picked apart.
I don't actually understand why religion and one's beliefs must be handled with kid's gloves? I thought that everyone was striving for the clearest idea of truth available to us?
...and who gives a d*mn if the majority 'believe'.
Majorities have sanctioned slavery. Majorities approved Manifest Destiny.
There was a time when the bulk of humanity thought the world flat.
Didn't exactly affect the shape of the planet, did it?
*laugh*
Human beings are the squishy parts of societal machinery that can determine whether or not it moves to the call of compassion or to dispense misery. It would be nice if facts ruled, but people aren't perfectly rational actors and belief gets in the way of good sense all the time. We know vaccines work and are pretty reasonable as an acceptable risk given the immense benefits they provide. Yet, Why am I hearing about measles outbreaks? Why do they have to run commercials for pertusis? Why are we still firing up coal and flushing our toilets with drinkable water?
I think this is the main point of interest for me when it comes to these discussions. Sure, I like hearing about the religious, philosophical, and historical thoughts out there, but I like seeing what happens between people.
To me, what the follower of a particular belief system/religion feels only matters so much as it impedes their ability to see the matter clearly and affects their participation in the dialogue. You can never actually discuss the matter with OR AROUND most believers without them constantly 'emoting' at every turn.
It's annoying. I'd say that most believers, by nature, are 'emotional thinkers'...but that's just another of my theories. *laugh*
Still, being an INTJ -- if you're familiar with personality types, GORILLA -- you can see how that'd be problematic for me.
I was told from a test in school I was an INTP and I got some separate other code for professions I should go into but I don't remember what it was.
*laugh*
Even now? I'm discussing this agnosticism situation...and I guarantee that I've pissed some agnostic off.
*laugh*
That's fine..but it doesn't matter because it's totally besides the point.
So -- our beloved hellbounders, the atheists...*smirk*... question and do so, harshly, at times.
I understand.
Folks got 'em figured all wrong, though.
Atheists just tend to just have... a really strong need for things to make sense. It's a common trait in all of them, that I've noted. I have this crazy theory that some personalities are just pre-disposed to belief and non-belief. No matter. Atheism...is just the critique of religion.
Atheists aren't really arrogant, though.
Just honest....
I don't think it's necessarily a common trait of atheists. Atheism just says the person doesn't believe not why, but I think it's a common trait of free thought, which probably requires a tolerance for uncertainty and discomfort. I think at some point there's no comfort, manner, or level of politeness that makes those questions gentler. Maybe there's a need to push a culture that's not afraid to question things with all the risk it comes with.
