But let's look up the words in a dictionary for a second.
AtheistPersonally, I believe there is no God, but I fully acknowledge that this cannot be known with certainty. I am, then, both atheist and agnostic. Similarly, it would indeed be possible to be both Christian and agnostic. In fact, everyone who are not insane should admit that whatever they believe about deities, we cannot ever know for sure. Thus, everyone should be an agnostic. The insane would then include all those who claim to have proof positive of their favorite fairy, say through revelation (but exclude those who are lying about that, like the Pope).
Webster: One who believes that there is no deity
Oxford: One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God.
Agnostic
Webster: A person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable ; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
Oxford: One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing.
Tom Rees wrote a post recently about the definition of atheism, with the take-home message that we should define explicitly what it is that we disbelieve. With respect to the God of the Bible, there is the problem that there are many interpretations of who that dude is. Yet, if you tell me anything specific about that God, then I definitely will say that I do not believe in that (given that you'd say any of the usual things, that is). But in addition to my belief of no God like that, there is also the issue with evidence. While it is possible to posit a deity that one cannot find any evidence against (e.g. Deism), it is not possible to believe in very much of the Bible without admitting that some of those claims is up for scientific inquiry. Genesis 1, for example, which explains how species were created in their present form (i.e. phenotype, for those of you who aren't theologians). I guess that's why so many Christians have a huge problem with evolution. That, and that they are animalophobes.
I forget where I read this, but I found it very useful and so will attempt to reproduce what I remember. There are basically four positions, covering the four options between theism/atheism and epistemological certainty/uncertainty.
ReplyDelete1. Gnostic Theist. A god or gods exist, and his/their existence is knowable
2. Agnostic Theist. A god or gods exist, but his/their existence is not knowable
3. Agnostic Atheist. No god exists, but their nonexistence is not knowable
4. Gnostic Atheist. No god exists, and their nonexistence is knowable
I suppose I'd put myself in category two. A person can have transcendent spiritual experiences, but there is never an absolute certainty that such experiences were not generated by the body's resources in response to some deep-rooted emotional need. Even if people perform "miracles", there's no absolute certainty that these aren't just powers made possible by interactions of the body and mind with one's surrounding environment which science has yet to fully understand. If one wishes to believe in a god, to a certain extent one has to take a leap of faith. The real question is whether a given individual believes such a leap is justified.
When it comes to the characteristics of an alleged god, that's a much stickier question. As Inigo Montoya said and my little sister is fond of quoting, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
You would definitely be in the third category. No gods exist, but since it's logically impossible to prove a negative, we can't ever definitively say that they can't exist. Which is a position I respect greatly. My opinion is, if there is a god, honest atheists are among his favorite people. Cause y'all wouldn't try to BS him with fake praise while going around and using him as an excuse to be jerks. :)
I suppose I'd put myself in category two. A person can have transcendent spiritual experiences, but there is never an absolute certainty that such experiences were not generated by the body's resources in response to some deep-rooted emotional need.
ReplyDeleteSuch spiritual experiences can of course be explained by funky, but natural, things going on in the brain. I therefore do not think they are even an indication of a God.
Even if people perform "miracles", there's no absolute certainty that these aren't just powers made possible by interactions of the body and mind with one's surrounding environment which science has yet to fully understand. If one wishes to believe in a god, to a certain extent one has to take a leap of faith. The real question is whether a given individual believes such a leap is justified.
You speak of miracles as if people actually go around performing them. Is there any evidence for that, or is this one of those times where evidence is besides the point for the theist? (It never is for me.)
The gnostic atheist position is a mystery to me. How can anyone claim that we can know for certain the absence of something that isn't even posited to exist within the material world? Gnostic theists could at least say that God could one day show himself, and is therefore in principle knowable. But even in this case is has been argued that nothing he could do could prove beyond any doubt that he was the creator. Everything could be a hallucination, for example, with extremely potent means developed by someone with superior medicinal skills.
About miracles. I've known people personally who've had things happen to them they considered miracles. Mostly of a medical nature: a fetus who'd had no heartbeat or other vital signs for almost three weeks suddenly starting to show signs of life again, someone being treated for a serious ulcer which disappeared overnight after prayer. Yeah, it's all anecdotal, but short of actually becoming a scientist and studying it myself I'm not sure how to get around the problem. Unless there's some studies out there I don't know about, I've never heard of reported miracles being studied by anyone other than a partisan with an axe to grind and crappy research methods.
ReplyDeleteThe problems I have with these kinds of things are twofold. First, science still doesn't know the limits of the human body and the things it can do, so it's possible that these types of things are simply human abilities that for one reason or another don't get used very often. Second, I've heard stories of this kind (though less often from the horse's mouth) about people from many different creeds. Which kind of reinforces the first suspicion: maybe the trigger simply involves believing in something, and it has a chance of working regardless of the thing.
I fully admit that my theism stems from a combination of early conditioning and psychological opportunity cost. Belief in a god, carefully managed, is helpful to me in keeping myself on an even keel. And the urge toward belief is deeply enough embedded in my psyche that it's easier to manage it than to eradicate it, as I've learned the hard way. I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, though, and I'm certainly not asking anyone else to do it!
I agree with you about the gnostic position, though, on both sides. Claiming absolute knowability for anything is extremely sketchy in my book. Human cognition is limited, the universe is vast, and we could always be wrong about something. Even though we need to have beliefs and operating assumptions in order to live, any one of them takes a certain rudimentary amount of faith. Even if it's just faith that things more or less are what they appear to be.
Everybody's got their own lines they want to draw when it comes to epistemology. I imagine someone who'd identify as a gnostic atheist might also equate "certain knowledge" with "demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt." And a gnostic theist might trust their own subjective perceptions completely because they don't want to consider that their experiences might result from strange chemical reactions in their brains. Neither of which is right, but probably gives them access to fun psychological benefits like a high horse to get up on and (to them) sweet-smelling crap to fling at their adversaries.