Agnosticism

T H Huxley coined the term "agnostic" as an antonym of "gnosis," from the Greek term for "knowledge." Some early Christian groups referred to themselves as Gnostics because they felt they had special, secret knowledge. (Keep this is mind because it makes the rest of this post even funnier.) Gnostics lost out in power and influence to other Christian groups who asserted that the knowledge of Jesus and His salvation was meant for all mankind, not just for an elite group.

Here is Huxley's account of how he came up with the term "agnostic."

When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis"--had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ...

What the Hell is "the problem of existence"? Have you ever heard an atheist claim that he or she had solved it, even more or less? Yeah, me neither. Do you see a difference between atheists and freethinkers anywhere except in bizarre descriptions of them by agnostics, like this one? Yeah, me neither.

If there are any atheists who are completely sure that no God or god exists and would not change their minds on the subject if shown convincing evidence that He or She or they exist, they are a tiny minority of the group of atheists, statistically insignificant and sharply at odds with the rest of us on this point.

And that's just one point, one topic, one question, the question of the existence of God or gods. Whatever "the question of existence" might be, I'm having an awful time imagining it being something other than a question, a topic, which is far, far broader than the question of God or gods. (For the rest of this post, whenever I write "God," just assume I mean "God or any gods.")

I can think of some people whom the term "agnostic" sensibly fits. I'm not thinking of Huxley nor of most of the self-identifying agnostics, but of people who sometimes think that God exists and sometimes think he doesn't. I believe that some or all of the people who call themselves believers who have had "crises of faith" come under this category. In addition, there are some people who simply aren't sure at all, who could go one way or the other, either to atheism or theism.

But Huxley and most of the people who identify as agnostics don't think of God's existence as being more likely than do we atheists. The whole agnostic movement isn't about theology, it's about misuse of semantics and claims of intellectual superiority. Bertrand Russell illustrated this very nicely with his example of the teapot in space, orbiting the Sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. That teapot is like God: Russell couldn't refute its existence, and didn't need to; although if he meant this as a refutation of the supposed special status of agnosticism, he was much too nice to say so directly. (Luckily, I am not.) We do not know, any of us, with absolute certainty, that God doesn't exist. However, that does not say anything about God, or about any unique or special or even unusual properties which God may possess. On the contrary, God is exactly the same as everything else in this respect, because we do not know anything at all with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, we do not go around constantly wasting our time emphasizing that we cannot disprove the existence of that teapot in space, or of 10-foot-tall man-eating parrots just out of our sight, or of Bigfoot. And it takes an agnostic of the Huxley variety not to understand that God is no different than any other absurd proposition in this respect.

Agnostics like to think -- and very much want you to think, that they're -- you know, not like everybody says, like... stupid! They're smart! And they want some respect!

Well, Sparky, respect is a give-and-take thing. It has to be earned. Some people give no respect whatsoever to strangers. Most of us are a little more trusting and give everybody a little respect on first meeting, on credit, just to help things go. But you can go through that credit pretty quickly. You want respect? Give it. Agnostics, if you want the respect of atheists, go to the trouble of learning what we actually do and don't believe, before you start telling us what we're all about. Hear what we believe in our own words. Not in the words of your fellow agnostics. I cannot emphasize that strongly enough. If you're listening, you'll see that when it comes to the question of God, we believe what you do. You'll see that you're just one more of this vast group of atheists out here in the very general public, and that if you want to be more special than all of us, you'll have to do it some other way.

Except of course that you won't see any of this, because it's all so simple and clear that anyone who wants to see it already has, without any help from me. So you go right on thinking that you're much smarter than all of us, and that the only reason people like me verbally abuse you is because we're jealous cause you're so cool.

And for everybody else, my advice about T H Huxley is to read Mark Twain instead.

Agnostics Say Nothing Is Absolutely Knowable. They Are Wrong.

I am not absolutely certain about very much, but I am absolutely certain that agnostics are unbearable. I am absolutely certain that they are wrong when they claim that they have grasped certain aspects of knowledge which have escaped all of the rest of us, atheists as well as religious believers. I am certain, without reservation, that their smug sense of their own intellectual superiority is mistaken. I am absolutely certain that that smugness masks a subconscious insecurity about their intellectual prowess, and I am absolutely certain that that that insecurity, although unfortunately subconscious, is well-justified.

And I am as certain that I have no need whatsoever to prove any of the above, as I am that Bertrand Russell had no need to prove the inexistance of his hypothetical teapot:

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

Spot on, old man! Spot on! Well done! So wrote Russell in a magazine piece first published in 1952, in response to demands that atheists prove that God does not exist. A demand that I should demonstrate that agnostics are icky, horrible, unloveable motherless bastards with halitosis and bad manners is every bit as unreasonable. Anyone who has ever been unfortunate enough to meet an agnostic, any atheist who's ever been cornered by one of them and made to listen to him recite things which he, the atheist, went over long ago in his own mind before moving on, anyone who's listened to an agnostic swelling with unjustifiable pride as he goes on and on as if he'd just come up with an ironclad, easily-verifiable unified field theory, knows that I'm going easy on them.

They're the worst! All the rest of us, atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Orthodox Jews, Sikhs, Bahá'ís, Southern Baptists, ironical Episcopalians -- all of us can agree about that!

Stuff it, agnostics! Nobody wants to hear it (again)!

Agnostics Are The Pits!

Agnostics are the worst. Have you ever heard anyone pronounce him- or herself an agnostic for any other reason than to make a THOROUGHLY UNCONVINCING claim that they're smarter than both believers and atheists? Me neither! And all they usually end up proving is that they don't know, or don't want to know, how the rest of the world uses the term "atheist." And they didn't need to prove that because, unfortunately, we've already met agnostics. Hot tip, Dudes: If you really were so smart, you wouldn't have to constantly point it out to everybody. They'd notice. You're just annoying everybody, STFU.

I've Figured Out Why Buddhists Are So Annoying

It's because they're agnostic, and as we all know, agnostics are the worst people in the history of the Earth.

Ask Buddhists what's up with this business about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, for example, and you will receive long replies which, to be sure, in no way answer your question or are good for anything else either, but point out how you supposedly don't understand something -- could be reincarnation, could be the concept of reincarnation, could, be Tibet, could be all sorts of things. This is the essence of agnosticism: insisting that everyone else doesn't understand, and being useless.

And nasty. For example, read this. I'm sorry. I promise I won't link that bad man again. (He's agnostic.)

PS, 16. September 2012: Actually, he's an atheist, and agnostic on the question of Jesus' historicity, although leaning recently more to the historicist side. And he's actually not so bad. He was severely provoked when he wrote that. You should check out some other things he's written.

PPS, 22. October, 2014: Actually, I've heard that, although he doesn't believe that God exists, he doesn't consider himself an atheist, but rather a skeptic. Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me either, but apparently he's not the only one. Just as I consider people who call themselves spiritual but not religious to be religious and confused about what the term means and/or in denial, so I consider people who don't believe that God exists but to be atheists, and to be tiresome when they deny that they are. I still think think his writing is very much worth reading.

Christians and Atheists Discussing Religion

Is it possible for Christians and atheists (and agnostics and skeptics and so forth) to discuss religion without the discussion either remaining on such a superficial level that it hardly deserves to be called a discussion at all, with the participants either politely avoiding the subject entirely or ignoring their opponents' arguments, and/or or quickly degenerating into a bitter fight which threatens to permanently ruin friendships? I cannot recall a single example of a discussion which avoided both of these pitfalls. And I've seen a lot of discussions of religion between believers and non-. And yet here I am, trying again.

On January 20th of this year, someone noted in an Internet forum that on that day in the year 250, the Roman Emperor Decius began a persecution of Christians. Only with difficulty did I resist the temptation to make some flippant comment such as "A good start." or "And 1,759 years later, so much remains to be done."

I don't actually advocate killing Christians just because of their religion. But they do tend to weary me, when they talk about their religion. Otherwise, they're not necessarily any different to me than anyone else.

A few years ago, Jonathan Miller made a series for the BBC entitled "A Brief History of Disbelief." It's thoroughly excellent, I recommend it highly. Miller says he is an atheist, but that until recently he had been reluctant to describe himself so, and had given the matter little thought. I have heard many other disbelievers make comments similar to both of these. I find this very strange. Perhaps having been raised to believe in God, as I was, and then rejecting belief, causes one to be more inclined to think about the subject, and to think of oneself as an atheist rather than as an agnostic or to resist such labels altogether. Frankly, people who identify themselves as agnostics annoy me. It seems to me that their worldviews tend to be the same as those of us atheists, and that they're splitting hairs and being solipsistic. Strictly speaking, they're right: no-one can be certain whether God does or does not exist. But strictly speaking, nobody can be certain about anything else, either, and yet we get on with our lives as if we were certain of all sorts of things, and agnostics, for the most part, don't get solipsistic about a lot of other things.

Miller does a very good job in his program of showing how recent, in Christendom, is the phenomenon of fully open atheism. (Before Christianity, of course, and in parts of the world where Christianity has not dominated, speech was a bit freer.) He points out that even the Baron D'Holbach (1723-1789), often referred to as the "Newton of atheism," was not all that free and open in his atheism, and that people of his time often preferred to refer to themselves as deists -- sometimes because they were deists, and sometimes because deism was much safer than atheism. Between the 4th and the 18th centuries, in Christendom, you really have to read between the lines and guess just exactly how skeptical this person or that may have been. Besides deism, there arose in the 18th century (and persists to this day among, for example, many neoconservatives) the phenomenon of "elite atheism," where one, assuming oneself to belong to an elite, is an atheist, but believes it unwise to let atheism spread to the masses. Just very gradually did we get to the point of openness and tolerance of debate of such things which we enjoy today. And things could be more open still.

Not that I'm bitching or claiming I'm oppressed. Others still are, but me -- not so much. One unproductive result of Christianity -- and perhaps of many other religions. I don't know them nearly as well as I know Christianity -- is how it has spread the completely unrealistic idea of perfection. (Christianity inherited a lot on the subject of perfection from Plato and his followers.) I'm a firm believer that nobody and nothing is perfect. I admire Miller and Richard Dawkins and Spinoza and Einstein and Leibniz and Voltaire quite highly, even though Miller in his series on disbelief keeps referring to "Christianity" as if Western, that is, Catholic and then also Protestant, Christianity were the only sort there ever was, as if he had never heard of Byzantium and Orthodoxy, let alone the Armenian and Coptic and other assorted Churches; even though Dawkins starts off his fine book The Selfish Gene by quoting approvingly some jackass to the effect of the uselessness of philosophy before Darwin, and despite the fact, a fact which seems to have partly dawned on Dawkins himself, that The Selfish Gene is a very poor title for his very good book; even though Spinoza and Einstein made such easily-misunderstood comments about God; despite Leibniz' thedicee; and even though Voltaire reduced Leibniz, in his famous character Dr Pangloss, to this theodicee, even though Leibniz had all sorts of thoroughly brilliant things to say on a staggeringly wide variety of subjects other than religion. Hate the sin, love the sinner, say some Christians. I say, let's be as decent to them as we can, and not, however eyerollingly teethgringingly painful it may be when they get theological, mistake the belief for the whole believer. Peace out.