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Richard Dawkins quote regarding agnostics: "Fence-sitting, intellectual cowards

watsup said:
The reason agnosticism fits here is because these are knowable things that we simply do not know at this time. Perhaps we will learn these answers soon, or perhaps we never will, but either way a truth does concretely exist regardless of whether or not we have it in our possession. Other examples would include questions regarding the origin of life on earth, or what existed before the big bang."

In other words, if we humans study long and hard enough, we may indeed at some point in the future KNOW the answers to these questions because we already KNOW that they are factual items.
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What definition of agnosticism is this?

Being agnostic on the question of God is not "I don't know". It is an assertion that the question of God's existence is necessarily unknowable. (I mean "necessarily" in the strict logical sense). The concept of God is of a creature that encompasses reality. Yet, we only have access to information 'within' reality. Information within reality could not lead to any deductions or inductions are what's outside of reality.

Meanwhile, if something could be answered in time with study, then agnosticism does not fit, because such a thing is knowable.
 
watsup said:
Note that in my last sentence of the OP, I encouraged feedback regarding the topic. Having read the repetitive inputs regarding their agnosticism of Ouroboros, Frank Apisa, and DrewPaul, it is the honest viewpoint that I have come to. I agree with Richard Dawkins in that regard.
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I just think someone calling someone else a coward of any kind...using an alias when the other person is using his full name...is comical. If you and I are in a discussion, Watsup, and it is established with certainty that a coward is in that discussion, it is you, not moi.

But I don't think there is a coward involved at all. That is just the childish name-calling that has to happen from time to time in these Internet discussions. I wish it would stop.
 
watsup said:
The final definition of agnosticism is not settled. I have seen almost as many definitions as there agnostics in this forum. I just wanted to understand how you see it, given that in the past multiple agnostics have made the claim that “it’s not what I said” when non-agnostics try to define it.
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Maybe have that discussion with them. My comment had nothing to do with that.
 
Noodlegawd said:
Why are you asking that? Is that why you started this thread? To argue about the definition of a word?
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I do not even use descriptors any longer. Hours are spent explaining what atheist means...or what agnostic means.
I describe my position on the major issue:




I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)

Most people who comment on it describe it as an agnostic take. Seems to me that it is.
 
Mr Person said:
What definition of agnosticism is this?

Being agnostic on the question of God is not "I don't know". It is an assertion that the question of God's existence is necessarily unknowable. (I mean "necessarily" in the strict logical sense). The concept of God is of a creature that encompasses reality. Yet, we only have access to information 'within' reality. Information within reality could not lead to any deductions or inductions are what's outside of reality.

Meanwhile, if something could be answered in time with study, then agnosticism does not fit, because such a thing is knowable.
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I have no idea if the question of the existence of any gods is unknowable. It seems to be, but I can think of a scenario where it could be known. (I cannot think of any scenario where "no gods exist" can be known.)

You use "God" in your comments here, Mr. P. It sounds to me as though you are talking about a particular entity.

Are you...or are you talking about any god or gods that might exist?
 
Frank Apisa said:
I do not even use descriptors any longer. Hours are spent explaining what atheist means...or what agnostic means.
I describe my position on the major issue:




I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)

Most people who comment on it describe it as an agnostic take. Seems to me that it is.
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I see no reason to believe that a god exists, and therefore don't. That's an atheistic take, though some may also call it an agnostic one. It could be both.
 
Frank Apisa said:
It reminds me of a quote sometimes attributed to Madalyn Murray O'Hair that goes something like, "An agnostic is an atheist who doesn't have the guts to identify as an atheist."

It always seemed to me that the exact opposite makes more sense. An atheist is an agnostic who doesn't have the guts to identify as an agnostic. They are afraid others who identify as atheists will make fun of them.
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I think their vehement rejection is not necessarily a rejection of the possibility of a creator God- which would be something like the hypothesis that parallel universes exist- but of the often dogmatic, backward, ignorant, closed-minded, fossilizing claims that are often made as some kind of necessary correlate of that: like that women should wear a hijab to cover their faces for modesty, or we should all pray 5 times a day facing Mecca, or that gay marriage is wrong, etc, etc...
 
Mr Person said:
It is an assertion that the question of God's existence is necessarily unknowable.
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Mr Person said:
The concept of God is of a creature that encompasses reality. Yet, we only have access to information 'within' reality. Information within reality could not lead to any deductions or inductions are what's outside of reality.
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Mr Person said:
Meanwhile, if something could be answered in time with study, then agnosticism does not fit, because such a thing is knowable.
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To repeat from the OP, what I am saying is that when you use the word “God”, then you are basically immediately admitting to “knowing” since there are definitions and descriptions of such an entity or energy that must necessarily be acknowledged in order to simply the word. For myself as an atheist, I refuse to even acknowledge that such an entity is anything more than imaginary, a result of the wishful thinking of humans since primitive times. For myself as an atheist, the “ultimate reality” is the universe and all that it holds therein, with no need to imagine anything beyond that, and no evidence of such.
And how could you even know that a God or gods is “unknowable”? In order to make such a statement, you just have at least a general outline of what it is that you are claiming to be unknowable. Sorry, but to me it is just an exercise in belief rather than in logic.
 
gboisjo said:
Agnosticism at its core is the view or belief that the existence of God is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact.

Its the humble position of not knowing what's out there.
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See my post #36 so that I don’t have to repeat it. The assertion of your last sentence seems to be that atheists are somehow not “humble” because they reject a belief in a God ot gods, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it, really. Rather, atheists are simply being HONEST by making such a statement. Should we accept the possibility of a God or gods just because other humans have imagined them? As an atheist. I personally don’t see the point. Agnostics (and some believers) sometimes use the term “ultimate reality” in the place of God or gods, but for an atheist like myself, the “ultimate reality” is the universe and all that it contains, and I see no use for simply imagining an entity beyond that, although that leaves open the possibility of a NATURAL energy that has always existed but has no sentient creative power, but merely exists.
 
Frank Apisa said:
I do not even use descriptors any longer. Hours are spent explaining what atheist means...or what agnostic means.
I describe my position on the major issue:




I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)

Most people who comment on it describe it as an agnostic take. Seems to me that it is.
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Go back to your other thread. I was hoping for a more in-depth discussion in this thread than just your hundreds of repetitions of the very same macros over and over and over and over.
 
Atheists like Watsup want to assert that there are no gods.

That is very, very akin to people who want to assert that there is a GOD.

Nothing wrong with either of those things. They are reasonable blind guesses about the REALITY. The REALITY is that there either is at least one god...or there are no gods. (Non-zero fractions notwithstanding.)

I truly wonder which is correct. It is an interesting question.
 
watsup said:
Go back to your other thread. I was hoping for a more in-depth discussion in this thread than just your hundreds of repetitions of the very same macros over and over and over and over.
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You do not get to choose or dictate where I go.

Do continue to make your blind guess...and give the reasons why you consider your blind guesses to be something other than blind guesses...and why you think your blind guesses are better than simply acknowledging "I do not know."

I get a kick out of it.
 
Frank Apisa said:
You do not get to choose or dictate where I go.

Do continue to make your blind guess...and give the reasons why you consider your blind guesses to be something other than blind guesses...and why you think your blind guesses are better than simply acknowledging "I do not know."

I get a kick out of it.
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I was just hoping that you would not bore us in this thread with hundreds of reptitions of your simplistic claims. I suppose that was too much to ask.
 
He's a more nuanced examination of agnosticism from Dawkins:

Atheist or Agnostic — and Does it Matter? | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

By Herb Silverman
richarddawkins.net richarddawkins.net

"I used to call myself an agnostic because I could not logically prove whether a god exists, so I took the agnostic position that the existence of any god is unknown — and perhaps unknowable. I was without belief in any gods and thought it highly improbable that any supernatural beings exist. When I learned that this view is consistent with atheism, I became an atheist.

So, my “conversion” from agnosticism to atheism was more definitional than theological. [emphasis mine] In reality, depending on how terms are defined and their context, I can accurately call myself an atheist or an agnostic, as well as a humanist, secular humanist, freethinker, skeptic, rationalist, infidel, and more."

Further, Dawkins made a distinction between what he called "TAP," or Temporary Agnosticism in Practice, and "PAP," or Permanent Agnosticism in Principle. In TAP, agnosticism is (in Dawkins' opinion) a legitimate fence sitting where a definitive answer exists (there is a God/god or there is no God/gods) but so far we lack the evidence or the ability to understand the evidence to know. In PAP, the idea is that the existence of a god/gods can never be proved or disproved, regardless of how much evidence is available, because the idea of evidence itself is not applicable. For TAP, the existence of the divine is a scientific question - either it exists or it does not, and someday we may know for certain but for now all we can do is argue (with varying degrees of strength) as to the probability one way or the other. For PAP, the question is outside the realm of evidence and lies strictly in belief.

So, a little more complex than "shit or get off the pot."
 
I
watsup said:
The underlying problem with agnosticism is that it defeats itself at its very foundation. Here is a normally accepted definition: "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably unknowable."
The very instant that the agnostic refers to a "God" or "gods", then that agnostic is basically admitting that he or she DOES know of such an entity or energy because simply using that word indicates a definition or description associated with it. How can you define or describe something but at the same time claim that you can't "know" it? You have already done so by simply using the word, and thus your argument defeats itself.

Perhaps an agnostic could claim, as above, that he or she "cannot know" an ultimate reality, but if that "reality" includes some sort of entity or energy that is a "cause" of the universe, then that is simply defining that "ultimate reality" in accordance with the same definition or description as the word "god" in the dictionary. As soon as there is any indication of acceptance of a definition or description that is normally used in reference to a God or gods, then the agnostic is admitting to "knowing" what is meant.
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This is an example of someone engaging in the mental exercise of semiotics to prove a point and not succeeding.

Semiotics can be applied to those asking for the definition of agnosticism. As soon as the word is defined, it is known and it can be known differently depending on how an individual defines it. Yet those with different personal definitions of the word can discuss agnosticism and still have the ability to understand the convo.

Substituting "ultimate reality" for "god" in a convo among agnostics or between agnostics and atheists is still defining ultimately reality as god because the convo is about god and whether or not one believes in the existence of god. Ultimate reality is god in Islam, Christianity, Judaism. A god by any other other name.... Knowing what is meant by a definition does not mean one believes in a god, rather, it means one believes in the definition.

I disagree that agnostics are intellectually lazy. It takes just as much energy to be uncertain as it does to be certain.
 
watsup said:
I was just hoping that you would not bore us in this thread with hundreds of reptitions of your simplistic claims. I suppose that was too much to ask.
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It was.
 
Argent said:
Semiotics can be applied to those asking for the definition of agnosticism. As soon as the word is defined, it is known and it can be known differently depending on how an individual defines it
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I just get tired of agnostics telling me “that’s not what I mean” when they neglect to post their own definition of the word and I then post my understanding of it. I have seen them hide behind that excuse so that they don’t have to actually define it on their own, perhaps because they are afraid of exposing a definition that may merit some criticism. And as you say, different agnostics often have different definitions or descriptions, so I still think that answering the question is foundational to having a conversation with an agnostic about his or her viewpoints. So with that as an explanation, how do you define agnosticism?
 
watsup said:
Here is the cite from which I got the title of this thread:
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Dawkins was an excellent biologist. He's also an asshole.

watsup said:
So that falls in line with agnostics claiming that it is about "knowing", but Dawkins says that such "knowing" only truly applies to that with has some evidence of its actuality....
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Unicorns do not exist. And yet, I know many facts about unicorns. E.g. they have a horn, they have hooves, they are a solid white color, they do not have wings.

There is no cognitive difference in the way a human brain stores facts about unicorns than it does facts about horses.

I.e. Saying "I know X" does not obligate me to believe that X is an actual, existing, physical object. This is mere sophistry, which does not even try to understand the agnostic's position.

Agnostics are not "cowards." They certainly don't get any social benefit from saying "I'm not sure." They just haven't made up their mind about what they believe, or think humans will never have the answer, and that's their choice.
 
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