Does Agnosticism Make Sense?

I do not believe in unicorns. I have seen no conclusive evidence that suggests that unicorns do not exist, but I do not believe in them anyway. I do not believe in unicorns because I have never seen a unicorn, no one has ever told me that they have seen a unicorn, I have never seen a fossil record of a unicorn, no one can give a location on the earth where I might see a unicorn or a time in which unicorns existed, no one can tell me the diet or mating habits of unicorns, and many other reasons. These things do not, strictly speaking, disprove the existence of unicorns, but there's no good reason to believe in them. So, no reasonable person does.

Now, one day I may come across some animal droppings in the woods and think to myself, "Ah, now those are unicorn droppings. Surely unicorns exist!" While this sort of reasoning may be a little naive, it is not entirely unreasonable. After all, something must have produced those droppings. To say that the droppings spontaneously generated would seem to be a worse inferrence than a unicorn having made them.

Spiritual people have all sorts of arguments for the existence of God from ontological arguments from necessity to intelligent design arguments from contingency. None of these arguments are logically valid, but they believe that they are and that their belief in God is justified consequentially.

Only agnostics reject all arguments for the existence of God yet remain open to the possibility of God's existence. True, even if all previous arguments for God's existence are rejected, it is still logically possible that God should exist. God could, for example, be entirely unknowable. Strictly speaking, it is still possible that unicorns exist, as well. But why would one remain open to the truth of a proposition for which there is no supporting evidence? I am not talking about a proposition such as, "There's Ted behind you!" in which all you would have to do is turn around to discover whether or not Ted is indeed behind you. Agnostics go further than this to say that God's existence can never be proven. So agnostics choose to remain open to a possibility which they, by their own admission, can never know.

But agnostics also say that there can be no proof of God's non-existence, either. Well, of course not. There is no proof of the non-existence of unicorns precisely because unicorns do not exist.

Therefore, all agnostics should remain open to the possibility of the existence of unicorns.

 

Yeah, kinda seems like their trying to hedge their bets to me too.

But whatever works for 'em I guess.

 

Yes. This is quite correct.

An agnostic suspends judgment until a certain amount of evidence can be obtained to suggest for or against some criterion.

That being said, when the question of "do you believe unicorns exist?" arises to an agnostic, the agnostic would (probably at least) say no.

When the question of "do you believe unicorns don't exist?" arises, the same answer, no, would be the answer.

And the question "do you believe that unicorns exist, or not?" does not arise, because it is completely irrelevant, and is basically a loaded question. In this example, it would be acceptable as an agnostic to either say, "I don't know," or to say, "I can't answer that," or to be a skeptic and ask, "why does it matter?"

 

What's so far fetched about unicorns? (besides the fact that we haven't seen any... although I shouldn't speak for everyone) We don't know everything, and we haven't seen everything. People used to think the world was flat, until someone proved otherwise.

 

i love when people use the 'world was flat!' argument.

I believe that any rational thinking person would come to the conclusion that unicorns probably don't exist. PROBABLY. And that's what this stuff is about for a lot of us-- Probability. It doesn't seem probable that Unicorns are out there. It doesn't mean they aren't, just that we are pretty safe assuming they aren't.

It is far fetched because of probability. It is probable that if these horse-thingies existed, someone would have found evidence of them.

And just for fun....If you wish to apply the 'world is flat' thing, then you must also accept that maybe the world is flat. Maybe they were right and we didn't know it. Maybe there's some sort of lens on the dimension we live in that makes the world look and feel to us other than what it is. That is a far-fetched idea, but one that one day may prove true.

for the record, I consider myself an athiest because I don't think the existance of a God is very likely. Some might say I'm, an agnostic because I know that anything is possible, and I could be wrong.

 

The problem I have with agnosticism and most other brands of skepticism is that, supposedly, judgement about a position, both positive and negative, is suspended. But is that possible? I find that the best way to discover what another truely believes is to watch them; their actions will tell you want they hold to be true, and what they hold to be false. If an agnostic claims no allegience to or belief in any god, doesn't participate in any religion, and is not worried about any type of retribution from some god(s), then it's safe to assume that they hold a negative belief in a god's existence. They may proclaim agnosticism, but they practice atheism.

 

CommonSense

Are you suggesting that no species/being can logically exist besides us
and the biosphere that underpins our existance?
That no other 'world' can result in a biosphere that produces a self aware species? [as ours has, there are 3 such species on earth right now, so classified by science]

How is this relevant to agnosticism?
It's very clear to occam.
Occams perspective is not anchored to this planet. If we talk of god and what is possible, earth is just a speck of dust in the immensity of reality.
Because earth...IS just such a speck, as you well know. And we must try to intergate our thinking into the actual parameters of reality or philosophy counts for shit.

Imagine a species/being with a billion years of technological development.
Not just a few thousand , like us.
Able to manipulate the laws of reality themselves.
Not just tinker with their effects, as we do.
All entirely logical and possible, in fact, statistically probable.
["in understanding reality imagination is far more important than intelligence"..Einstein]

Manipulation of the laws of reality as we experience them
IS OUR QUALIFICATION FOR A GOD.
And has always been so.
As we cannot logically know if a god is infinite or omnipotent.
For logic says , god can lie.
Then any existant phenomena outside the parameters of our understanding, produced by such a race/being. Is an act of god.

Do you still say such does not exist.
Or do you act reasonably, logically, and say. Could be.

Think of your fish tank.. Pretty little fish..oh dear,, one is dead.

Occam

 

My mom is certain we were seeded by aliens.

 

Well, I'm happy I helped reunite you with something you love, but otherwise all the other comments for me were unnecessary, with the exception of one that was completely ridiculous(let's say you know which).

Just for you agnosticism. It doesn't = rational.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but I explicitly said that God's existence is logically possible. That's not the problem. The problem is that there is no evidence that suggests that God exists and there is no valid proof of God's existence. So, there's no reason to believe in God. And why would you believe in something unless you had a good reason to? You might as well believe in unicorns.

Well, that certainly sounds very nice. But if you're not anchored to the natural world, then you're not anchored to reality, just a lot of superstition.

No, it is not logically possible to change the laws of nature. If you could, then they wouldn't be called laws of nature, unless you're using the term in an unusual sense.

No, it has nothing to do with manipulating the laws of nature as we understand them. We fully understand some laws of nature in both a concrete and abstract sense. So something can't be said to violate the laws of nature just because we're unfamiliar with it. Something that violates the laws of nature would have to be something that makes no sense, namely, a miracle.

Forest Pixie:

You're argument makes no sense. You say that scientific progress is possible, that we have learned over time that the earth is in fact round, not flat. But you go on to disregard all biological progress since Aristotle and choose instead to revert to mythology in the case of unicorns. I agree with the other poster who said, in essence, that you can't have it both ways.

 

well, unicorns arent god, they arent unknowable, so there is a difference between the two...

 

"No, it is not logically possible to change the laws of nature. If you could, then they wouldn't be called laws of nature, unless you're using the term in an unusual sense."

he said nothing about changing the laws of nature, he said manipulating the laws of reality.

 

Colours:


Of course there's a difference between unicorns and God. In fact, there are many differences. Unicorns are usually thought of mammals, and God is usually thought to be incorporeal, for example. All of these are irrelevent. Besides, I never said that God and unicorns are the same thing; it would be ridiculous to do so. I am, however, focusing on perhaps the one similarity between God and unicorns, namely, that there is no reason to believe in the existence of either.

As to you're second comment, I see no distinction whatsoever between to two terms.

 

im saying that God can be unknowable, because he is god. unicorns on the other hand arent unknowable, so it would be possible to disprove their existence. The onyl reason God could still exist even if you disproved his existence is if he defied logic. Do unicorns defy logic? i dont think so.

 

Unicorns are unknowable because they don't exist. How could you know about something that doesn't exist? It has nothing to do with being able to defy logic. That doesn't effect the argument at all. If you think it does, then I'd like to know how. What does defying logic have to do with knowability? How is it that God can be unknowable, but one can still justifiably believe in God? No one would make an exception in the case of anything else. So why is God immune from such criticism? Being able to defy logic is not a reasonable answer; it's irrelevent in respect to the question. Also, even if God did exist, that doesn't necessarily mean that he could break natural laws. Only a hand full of theologians have ever suggested that he can.

 

CS

Seems you are speculating on the concept/nature of god.
In fact, suggesting what god can and cannot do.

And thus your thread question is answered by your actions.
If your doing it, dos'nt that mean it makes sense?

Occam

Agnostics are not athiests who who wont commit to non/belief.
Athiests are agnostics who cannot accept that they do not know.

PS..Common sense, occam is an agnostic from intellectual interest only.
If occam was born into a world that had no 'gods', he would be in a more rational world than this. And a more peacefull one no doubt.
But he is here and the concept is interesting even if not at all actual.
As stated before, the only gods occam thinks exist is other life forms
that made themselves into such. [within the human definition]
And he doubts very much that we have met any yet.

 

I like your analogy between the existance of god and that the unicorn. mostly, because of how both are written about in their mythology. A magical horse with a phalix on its head is just as beleivable as a supreme being of such infinite love and compassion with such a murderous and vengeful history.

It is not necessary for an agnostic to accept that there is a possibility of the existance of the god known by many religions, just that there is possibility that there is some greater power which is responsible for all existance.

 

Given the enormity of the universe, it isn't altogether unlikely that, somewhere, unicorns do exist. Is a unicorn only a unicorn if it exists on earth? If so, then can anything be called anything? We aren't in the same places, exactly; are we both human? I propose that, in fact, and especially if all possibilities occur, that unicorns do exist.

If a unicorn flew to earth in a flying saucer today, and stepped out of his spaceship, and trampled in the corn and made a crop circle that resembled the face of Jesus, and you saw this all happen with your very own eyes, would you be any more prone to believing that, maybe, God exists? You might wonder why it hasn't happened. But time goes on for a long time and always has. Our millenia are fractions upon fractions of seconds. Anything could happen at any given moment, or not.

I believe in God because I don't believe God is entirely unknowable. At least not any more so than anything that exists is unknowable. Nothing is known with complete and utter certainty. When we discover God, we will know it is God because it works. We might say that God isn't God, but it won't matter. (I suggest we call it Steve.)

The sun is a burning orb of gas. Maybe what we call gas is actually God's magic sweat. Doesn't matter. When you find that the laws of time and space can be broken, even the laws of your own body suspended indefinitely, you will find unlimited power and knowledge existing in the universe. In fifteen billion years (at least, probably more), my guess is that an entity exists that has already beaten us to the punch, infinitely times over. Call it God. Call it Steve. Makes no difference.

 

"A magical horse with a phalix on its head is just as beleivable as a supreme being of such infinite love and compassion with such a murderous and vengeful history."

there is too much proof that there are no unicorns. we live on earth, we would know. until there is a unicorns, there are no unicorns. God on the other hand doesnt dwell on earth, so theres an extra part to the mystery of god.

 

Speculating about something doesn't mean that it exists; it only presupposes it in thought, like a hypothesis.

Look at it this way. It is logically possible that there is a cube 500 metres in diameter, blocking the road to the grocery store. I haven't been down that way today, and it is logically possible that that cube dropped out of the sky at 5:00 PM and landed there. Logically speaking, I have no reason to doubt that the cube is there. So, next time I need groceries, should I take an hour long detour around where the possible cube may possibly lie? Of course not. Sure, it's possible that the cube may be there, but I have no reason to even consider believing that it's there, let alone change the patterns of my behaviour to account for the cube. It's largely the same with God. Why should I go to church every Sunday when I have no reason to believe that there is a God receiving my prayers? As an agnostic, it seems that it would only be reasonable and in the interest of self-preservation to strictly observe the practices of all religions to have all your bases convered, so to speak. The agnostic can speculate about the existence and non-existence of God in his own little world of thought. But the moment he wakes up every morning in the real world, he lives his life as an atheist. Beliefs are of no use or consequence unless they effect the believers behaviour in some way. No agnostic faces a moral delema and asks himself what Jesus would do, then what Vishnu would do, then what Buddha would do, and so on. It would be maddening and nothing would ever get accomplished. So how can an agnostic really say that he's indifferent towards the existence of God?