I do know that some people do look down on Science Fiction as a genre, but I find this speech compelling.
Friday, July 05, 2013
Thursday, July 04, 2013
Agnosticism, a way appease everyone and not have to argue, or a valid point of view?
I am conflicted when it comes to Agnosticism. Wikipedia defines Agnosticism as the philosophical position stating that the world is unknowable and certainty is impossible.
This position is entirely true, and also entirely useless to me.
If one wishes to get pedantic enough, one can state with all honesty that nothing is knowable in the truest sense of the word, but take this to it's logical conclusion and see how it breaks down.
Imagine meeting someone on the street and asking someone what time is it, and they response that they are agnostic about time and are not sure time is real or not so they therefore cannot give you an answer with absolute certainty. I press them farther and say I don't need an answer with absolute certainty, just tell me what time you believe it is, and they reply they cannot tell me with certainty so therefore they have no opinion one way of the other.
I hope to an outside observer you can see how frustrating this can be, and this is how I feel when someone claims to be an agnostic.
Saying you are an agnostic is making a factual statement about how knowable the universe is.
Saying your an atheist is making an opinion statement that the claims about the existence of god made by others are found lacking and not credible.
Unless you are some kind of uncaring robot, you will have an opinion about the existence of god no matter how loudly you proclaim agnosticism, and your actions speak louder then your words.
Do you actively go to a church or temple or mosque to worship?
Do you pray?
Do you live your life by the rules written in a holy book?
If it walks like an atheist, talks like an atheist, and doesn't worship like an atheist, why do we call it anything else besides atheist?
I can think of a few reasons why people would shun the atheist label and self identify as agnostic, but they are all practical reasons that make dealing with theists easier, and that feels intellectually hollow to me.
I'm not here to tell people that they can't call themselves agnostic, but I just wanted it know that, to me, hearing someone self label as agnostic instead of atheist is on par with a christian claiming to be non-religious because they have a relationship with god instead and that christianity is a philosophy instead of a religion.
I could be completely wrong about this topic, but at least I'm willing to state my opinion.
This position is entirely true, and also entirely useless to me.
If one wishes to get pedantic enough, one can state with all honesty that nothing is knowable in the truest sense of the word, but take this to it's logical conclusion and see how it breaks down.
Imagine meeting someone on the street and asking someone what time is it, and they response that they are agnostic about time and are not sure time is real or not so they therefore cannot give you an answer with absolute certainty. I press them farther and say I don't need an answer with absolute certainty, just tell me what time you believe it is, and they reply they cannot tell me with certainty so therefore they have no opinion one way of the other.
I hope to an outside observer you can see how frustrating this can be, and this is how I feel when someone claims to be an agnostic.
Saying you are an agnostic is making a factual statement about how knowable the universe is.
Saying your an atheist is making an opinion statement that the claims about the existence of god made by others are found lacking and not credible.
Unless you are some kind of uncaring robot, you will have an opinion about the existence of god no matter how loudly you proclaim agnosticism, and your actions speak louder then your words.
Do you actively go to a church or temple or mosque to worship?
Do you pray?
Do you live your life by the rules written in a holy book?
If it walks like an atheist, talks like an atheist, and doesn't worship like an atheist, why do we call it anything else besides atheist?
I can think of a few reasons why people would shun the atheist label and self identify as agnostic, but they are all practical reasons that make dealing with theists easier, and that feels intellectually hollow to me.
I'm not here to tell people that they can't call themselves agnostic, but I just wanted it know that, to me, hearing someone self label as agnostic instead of atheist is on par with a christian claiming to be non-religious because they have a relationship with god instead and that christianity is a philosophy instead of a religion.
I could be completely wrong about this topic, but at least I'm willing to state my opinion.
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