Comments on: On religion

By: Michi

Michi — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:21:06 +0000

Micah: Thanks for the Ignostic poke — that actually is very much my own position.

However, leaving the theo-philosophical nitpicking and terminology aside, in the popular language-use, agnostic and atheist occupy slightly different positions; and among most people I regularily interact with, agnostic is used as a label close to “I believe in something, I think, but I’m not convinced it’s any god I’ve heard described”, whereas atheist ends up being more along the lines of “I just don’t buy it, and wish to distance myself from all organized religion.”

By: Micah

Micah — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:14:07 +0000

You are using atheism and agnosticism as if one is one or the other. Those terms are not mutually exclusive. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a particular god. Agnosticism is the belief that a particular god cannot be disproven.

I for one call myself an Agnostic Atheist. There are Agnostic Theists. There are a fewer people who consider themselves Gnostic Atheists. There some Gnostic Theists, too.

From a utilitarian perspective, some do call themselves agnostics. Actually, you might rather call yourself an ignostic. Let me pull something from the Ignosticism article on Wikipedia, “Ignosticism is the view that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because it has no verifiable (or testable) consequences and should therefore be ignored.”

I’m really arguing a small nit-picking point about your wording. I agree with you on leaps and bounds more than I do with the Fundies.

By: Michi

Michi — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:53:43 +0000

@Brandon: You may want to include Selfstyled Truly Religious – I’m quite certain that there are people that can rightly be given that epiteth (in a non-sarcastic way) and still behave civilly.

Then again, this is the mathematician nitpicking about wordings.

@DanP: That being the point, wouldn’t it? What made me trigger on the posting in the first place was this formulation on one in a trillion – which, me being a mathematician, for a long time was the hurdle I faced in calling myself atheist. I couldn’t deny a one in a trillion chance, and thus absolute certainty was not to be had.

By: Dan P

Dan P — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:25:58 +0000

one in a trillion = absolutely certainly not. Surely only a mathematician, or an innumerate, would say otherwise.

By: Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH

Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:43:39 +0000

I was once held up on my way from somewhere to somewhere else by a Mormon missionary, who in the cause of our discussion put forth the thesis that humans are incapable of acting morally without the presence of a Watchful and Vengeful God.

Judging by the behavior of the Truly Religious(tm), it's pretty clear that this is true of them — not so much so of other people, who unlike them manage to behave civilly most of the time.... (be it known that I am religious, but have sincere and grave doubts about the self-styled Truly Religious(tm) of all faiths)