A Word About Agnosticism, Part II

*yawns* What the hell am I babbling about?

Oh yeah, agnosticism. The agnostic looks at anything and says, “Well, could be true, could be false.” Span that over all contingent things which are consistent with each other, and suddenly, the agnostic is believing in a lot of things. So many so, that I believe it’s an infinite progress. Once you’re saying, “Well, invisible pink leprechauns may exist, they may not exist.” what is one really believing in? The same goes for the general supernatural.

The agnostic could say many things “may or may not exist.” The Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, the Hindu Gods, the Buddhism concepts of no-self, natural earth religions, witchcraft, pussism, Jedi, you name it, the true agnostic will solemnly resign his power of authority to know these things about the world. And, nevermind that number of world religions/beliefs are not consistent with each other.

I suppose I’m oversimplifying. A good agnostic would not claim that all of these things are consistent, he simply states that it’s possible for one or more of them to be true. But again, what does the agnostic believe? You could throw an infinite number of consistent beliefs a that agnostic, and he’ll solemnly nod and say that it could be, or could not be the case. I maintain that infinity is zero; belief in an infinite set of beliefs is to believe in nothing. Because, at heart, while the agnostic may maintain an infinite set may be true, he ultimately asserts none of them to be true. Infinity is zero.

And that’s why I usually just skip the trouble of saying that I’m “open-minded” about religion and say I’m atheist. Could the Christian God exist? Yes. And so could so many other possible gods. And other religions could be true, as well. But do I believe any of them? Do I put my weight behind any of them? No, I do not, and neither does the agnostic. Am I saying all agnostics are atheist at heart but don’t realize it? Not at this moment.

Though, if the agnostic actually believed in something, we would call him anything but an agnostic. (No wait, I’m aligning agnostic too much with nihilist. *smirks* Whatever.)

And. On a side note, I hear the “What if you’re wrong?” argument used. No, I’m not kidding, people actually think this is a good argument. Really, what if I’m wrong about x belief? Well, what if you’re wrong about y belief? This argument leads to an infinite progress, and you can easily plug in three-sided square for the desired refutation. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN THREE-SIDED SQUARED, YOU’RE GOING TO HELL.

And. Okay, that was actually all I had to say. I’ve been plotting this entry for a few days in my head. And this evening, I saw something in one of my books which related too directly for me to pass up.

Logically speaking, it is not necessary to disprove the existence of God. It is necessary only to show that the evidence in support of the existence of a supernatural deity does not in fact prove. any such existence. When we are dealing with the question of the allaged existence of something, logical method does not require, or even permit, that its existence be taken as fact until it is disproved. It is rather the other way around: There is no need, or warrent, to believe in its existence until that existence has been proved. The materialist argues that is has never been possible to prove the existence of a supernatural deity by any appeal to facts, evidence, and reason – that is, by the way of appeal to logic – and proof is, of course a matter of logic. Any appeal to logic is necessarily based on our natural knowledge of the natural world, and must be comprehensible to the human mind. Belief in the supernatural is an act of faith, not a mandate of logic. If the universe had no beginning, then it has no logical need of a supernatural creator who made it out of nothing. If reason tell us that there is a natural order of existence, which if infinite (without beginning or end) and eternal, what rational need is there to postulate a supernatural existence that is also infinite and eternal?

The Marxist feels that “faith” in such supernatural concepts and entities is misplaced, that the emotional comfort it may bring is purchased at too high a price. This faith largely amounts to resigning oneself to whatever happens, in the hope that there is some good reason for it, even though no one knows what it is, and that all will be made right in some future life, even though no one knows how that will be done, or has any objective evidence that there is such a life. The materialist holds that faith should be placed in the development of man’s own power to understand and control his natural environment, since this kind of faith has a rational basis that is confirmed by past experience.

– The Philosophy of Marxism (An Exposition) by John Somerville, “The Nature of Reality”, pg 34-36

Phew, there’s a mouthful. I knew this all already, but I couldn’t possibly state it so precisely. I won’t even talk about the problem of induction. *smirks*

Oh, and I have a HUGE list of those false arguments for god. I’ll post them if there’s any interest. I posted part of them before. But. Not all of them. : )

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pass out. And forgive any typing errors or any flaws in my thinking. I’m human, you know, and I’m not always right. And, I’m sure somebody has written about infinite progresses using a different name for it. But, I’ve never read it. : D Also, as if it wasn’t plainly obvious, I did not need to go into such painful detail about why that first argument is bad. I could have left the original logic as it was, and not allowed that “exception”. Logic is logic for a reason. I just felt like showing what happens when you break logic like that. BAD SHIT HAPPENS.

God damn, the things I write in my spare time, I tell you. *shakes head at self*

Addendum: For a list of over 300 false arguments for god, look here. They seem to be all of the ones Cliff pasted to me, and more. There are far too many for me to copy/paste as an entry.