Apr
8
Written by:
Skeptic
4/8/2008 1:52 PM
All honest people are agnostic. This is the statement I am making. Whether you are a believer in god or not, if you are honest with yourself you are an agnostic. The following is pulled from Dictionary.com:
An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not," as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnōsis, "knowledge," which was used by early Christian writers to mean "higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things"; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as "Gnostics" a group of his fellow intellectuals—"ists," as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a "man without a rag of a label to cover himself with," Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.
I want to make the point that it is not a belief which makes one agnostic. As an atheist I must concede that the existence of god is not really knowable, at least right now, thus I am also agnostic. This in no way provides evidence that my atheism is wrong. I am an atheist because I have no evidence that there is a god and evidence is what I require to believe in anything. Believers must concede that they in turn have no evidence of god. I mean real evidence and not some warm feeling when they look at the night sky. In fact if we were to take any of the 3 major Abrahamic religions and and test there docterine against todays standards then they plain and simply do not stand up. Science has destoyed much of what these religions were built on and when you are supposed to be dealing with inspired word that should be impossible.
In summary; isn't calling oneself agnostic without also making the claim of being either atheist or theist kind of like a non decision. I am an agnostic because I believe that the existence of god is not knowable; and I am an atheist because I do not believe in god.
Copyright ©2008 Skeptic
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4 comments so far...
Re: Agnostic vs Atheist
Your religion has been at for quite some time. Either you are naive or purposely suppressing the knowledge of what humanists are doing to spread their faith. Ether way you need to wake up to truth.
Listen to what an American Humanist named John Dunphy said by correctly prophesying back in 1983:
"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level--preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new--the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism."
By Dan on
5/12/2008 5:31 PM
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Re: Agnostic vs Atheist
Thanks Dan for the random comment. Is it at all about this post? It appears to just be a random attack on humanists. Did I say I was a hiumanist? I don't think so. Though I may very well be, you don't know do you. I suppose you took the title of this site and assumed the word secular means humanist.
Thanks for the quote though, I agree with parts and disagree with parts of it. Don't really like him referring to Humanism as a faith as it is really a way of living which requires no faith.
By Skeptic on
5/13/2008 7:31 AM
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Re: Agnostic vs Atheist
I see your point in the above post. From my point of view, technically I would be labeled an agnostic because I recognize and concede that there is no way of knowing for certain wether or not God exists. However, I am about as agnostic about the existence of the Christian God as I am agnostic about the existence of the tooth fairy, easter bunny, or the flying spaghetti monster. I can't prove that any of these don't exist either. At the end of the day, the cash value of my opinions means I am an atheist until such evidence is presented that proves me wrong, and frankly I don't see Santa stopping by for afternoon tea anytime soon.
By jason on
5/21/2008 9:17 AM
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Re: Agnostic vs Atheist
Militant Agnostic says: I don't know and you don't either.
By Totanaca on
8/31/2008 9:32 PM
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