UPDATE: Yeah, me and Taibbi. We’ve got a head of steam up.
Another title possibility: “Agonistic Agnostics.” The back-and-forth in Comments drove me to Merriam-Webster’s. There, while looking up everyone’s word of the day, I stumbled upon “agonistic,” which primarily means “of or relating to the athletic contests of ancient Greece.” But I like the second part of the definition better: “2: ARGUMENTATIVE.”
Fucking agnostics, the shit we get up to. Thank God no souls or church revenue is at stake. We’d have a non-afterlife-oriented St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre every weekend.
Cole, if you’re listening, no hard feelings. But I wasn’t a philosophy major and I’m going to stick with our two favorite words the way the dictionary and I like to use them.
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I thought Matt Taibbi was an atheist because he gets so pissed at believers. But no. Dig the windup to this blog post laying into Terry Eagleton and Stanley Fish:
They seem to think that if one doesn’t believe in God, one must believe in something else, because to live without answers would be intolerable. … But there are plenty of other people who are simply comfortable not knowing the answers. It always seemed weird to me that this quality of not needing an explanation and just being cool with what few answers we have inspires such verbose indignation in people like Eagleton and Fish.
Taibbi uses “weird,” so you’d think he was bemused. But no, he’s angry. You don’t let loose the following with a quizzical shrug:
… a recent book written by the windily pompous University of Manchester professor Terry Eagleton, a pudgily superior type, physically resembling a giant runny nose, who seems to have been raised by indulgent aunts who gave him sweets every time he corrected the grammar of other children.
Yow!
Most of the post is about lectures Eagleton gave on faith vs. nonbelief. The excerpts do sound woolly and dumb, a lot of vapid bluff written in jocose academese. But does Taibbi get this mad at atheists? In the post he charges Richard Dawkins with being “humorless” and of trying to make atheism into a religion of its own. But he doesn’t get worked up about him. For the record, I saw Dawkins on the O’Reilly show and he seemed like fun. That’s a nice argument he has about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But like any atheist or believer (really an atheist is also a believer, in God’s nonexistence, but I’m using shorthand here) he’s left with the problem of trying to settle an infinite question by using finite means.
Of course I had no idea that Eagleton and Fish cared anything about religion. I thought they dealt in some sort of advanced (at least for 1975) French school of heavy literary analysis. Maybe they’ve kind of eased into religion over the years.
More about difficult problems of faith here and here.
That’s interesting that Eagleton’s a militant theist. His criticism is tons of fun to read.
Eagleton is no theist. He’s interested in the question. Someone’s blogging about a book they didn’t read. Fish wrote a review of Eagleton’s book…then people started blogging about Fish’s review. Neither of the principles is a big believer (or any kind of believer, from what I understand–but I’ll admit to having not read this book (but have read some of both principals).
That make more sense. Eagleton’s a Marxist of some stripe; they tend not to be big theists.
“really an atheist is also a believer, in God’s nonexistence”
I take issue with this characterization; while some people who call themselves atheists no doubt fit your description, for me atheism is a lack of belief in God, not a positive belief in no God. “I don’t believe in God” and “I believe there is no God” are different statements. I have no interest in being defined using frameworks I explicitly reject.
Cole, most people would call that agnosticism, I think. Atheism is usually seen as more positive.
“Someone’s blogging about a book they didn’t read.”
Dig it, eric b. From my post about Taibbi’s post: “Most of the post is about lectures Eagleton gave on faith vs. nonbelief.” Taibbi quotes extensively from those lectures and takes it on himself to characterize them as a whole. If he didn’t read them, he’s being fraudulent. But he doesn’t claim to have read Eagleton’s book. He just says it was based on the lectures.
And, Cole, yeah, come on. You never heard the definition of agnostic?
I think it’s just that the strong, or positive atheists are louder.
Philosophers have been talking about the differences between “strong” and “weak” atheism for years; I admit that weak atheism and agnosticism are about a centimeter apart, but to my mind they are different things. I don’t stake my position on the idea that we can’t know whether or not there are gods; it’s that I try not to take anything on faith. These positions seem different enough to me, but I can’t keep anyone else from thinking it’s a distinction without a difference. I guess by definition I’m an agnostic atheist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
“by definition I’m an agnostic atheist”
Going by Wiki on agnostic atheists, you incline toward the belief that there is no God (or gods, whatever) but you realize this inclination is just that.
But, going by Wiki’s definition of agnosticism, this does not keep you from being agnostic: “belief that the truth value of certain claims … is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove.” You think we don’t, as of now, know if claims of a deity are true; I think we could never know. Either way, per that particular definition in Wiki, we’re both agnostic.
Looking at all the relevant Wikidefs, it would appear that the terms involved — atheist, agnostic, strong atheist, weak atheist — are overlapping. Some people’s beliefs fall into the junction points of these terms, some don’t. So why get perturbed if someone uses “atheist” to mean “strong atheist” (certain there is no deity) and “agnostic” to mean “weak atheist” (not believing or disbelieving)? Philosophers aside, that’s how the terms are most often used.
I’m not enraged or anything, I just think that equating all atheists with strong atheism is like equating all religious people with Christians, just because they’re statistically the most prevalent. And again your paraphrase of the Wiki mischaracterizes my position–I don’t incline toward “belief” in anything. The actual description is “An agnostic atheist is atheistic because he or she does not believe in the existence of any deity and is also agnostic because he or she does not claim to have definitive knowledge that a deity does not exist.”
You may not think this describes you, but I tend to agree with Julian Sanchez “that self-described agnostics are, pretty much to the last man, just polite atheists: functional unbelievers eager to telegraph that they don’t wish to be jerks about whatever you believe.” Which doesn’t sound like me at all–I’m *way* more comfortable making a value judgment about the relative merits of non-belief vs. belief, when it comes to the supernatural.
As you say, there’s maybe a single sheet of paper between the two of us, as a practical matter. Although, as Taibi says, there’s really nothing practical about any of this.
The problem is that atheism and agnosticism are measures of two different things. One deals with faith, the other with truth. Being agnostic has nothing to do with whether or not I believe or disbelieve in God, but everything to do with whether or not I think God can or cannot be proven. So to use the term agnostic as shorthand for “I’m on the fence about my belief in God” is a mischaracterization that drives me crazy, since I would characterize myself as an agnostic who leans towards a belief in God.
Yeah; I tend to think belief in God isn’t something that’s really capable of rational proofs. I’m not on the fence — I don’t believe in God — but I don’t think that that statement is something which is really subject to logical proofs. In other words, there’s no logical way to prove that my disbelief in God is truer than somebody else’s belief. So sometimes I call that agnostic and sometimes I call it atheist, but I wouldn’t describe it in either case as being on the fence, nor as an effort to be polite.
Cole, sure, you’re not enraged, but you were perturbed: “I have no interest in being defined using frameworks I explicitly reject.”
What else? Yeah — “As you say, there’s maybe a single sheet of paper between the two of us.”
I don’t say that, just that, per the Wikipedia definition, you’re an agnostic. I’m told you can change their definition if you like.
If that’s so, better do something about their definition of atheism. The first sentence: “Atheism is the position that deities do not exist, or the rejection of theism.” The next sentence: “In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.” But why get hung up if people use the term in its more narrow sense, which is also the sense favored by the authority you chose to cite?
I’ll restate a point: “Looking at all the relevant Wikidefs, it would appear that the terms involved — atheist, agnostic, strong atheist, weak atheist — are overlapping. Some people’s beliefs fall into the junction points of these terms, some don’t.”
This business that “don’t believe” doesn’t equal “disbelieve” … if you feel strongly about the point, save yourself some trouble and say, “I don’t believe or disbelieve in the existence of deities.” But, from here, the Wiki definition of “agnostic atheism” is using “does not believe” in its commonly accepted sense, as “disbelieve.” That’s why the definition treats “agnostic” and “atheist” as separate elements.
Screw it, I’m becoming a Pentecostal.
Okay, but be sure to look it up first.
I find it strange that you did exactly the same thing in the post about Hilzoy, and when challenged, said this:
“The mistake Hilzoy and I made was to talk about religious belief as if that were synonymous with the majority religious belief in the US, which is Christianity.”
Yet when I object that you’ve made a similar overgeneralization regarding atheism–mistaking the most televised form of atheism for the entire concept–and that there’s a whole, named strain of atheistic thought that avoids the atheism-as-religion hypocrisy, your response is to stick to your guns and tell me that I’m not what I say I am. And increasingly, to make fun of me about it. It just doesn’t seem consistent.
1) I am not a Jew or a Christian. I am an agnostic. I’ve got my own views about how the term is used.
2) It’s one thing to be a religious minority, it’s another to be pedantic. What on earth is at stake here? How can you possibly be offended if I use “agnostic” and “atheist” in the same way as the vast majority of other people who use the terms?
3) If you didn’t like my joke about looking up Pentecostal, you might as well say so.
I happen to be an agnostic, and like Bryan, I would have to say that the isuue is one of concept. Agnosticism is about what can or cannot be categorically asserted. All that we are saying is that religious language is essentially unverifiable. One simply cannot “prove” that there is a being called “God”; neither can one disprove that there is a being called “God”.
To Noah’s point earlier in the thread…I think most “believers” (in God!) would agree that God is not logically provable. Therefore using that as the def. of agnosticism doesn’t make sense. The def. is more like, I’m committed to the belief that we cannot know if God exists or not–therefore I refuse to have a belief (or stake a claim) in either direction. Even agnosticism is a “belief” of sorts–a belief that no decision on this point can be made…
This is Kierkegaard’s point about belief, I think…that no logical proof is possible. It takes a “leap of faith” to believe in God. But it’s totally a “leap”–no way to arrive there gradually or logically.
Pascal’s wager is related (right?). That if you bet on atheism and you’re wrong, you’re screwed…but if you bet on faith at least there’s a reward if you’re right.
Hey Eric. Well, actually, lots of believers think God is logically provable, or at least that it working through proofs is a worthwhile and meaningful endeavor. Guys like Aquinas or Kant or William Paley or any number of other folks; huge theological history of trying to prove the existence of God. Kierkegaard is on the other side of that debate…but that’s why he bothers to talk about leaps of faith and what not. He’s arguing with the rationalists, and saying they’re full of shit (I don’t actually think they’re full of shit necessarily myself, but Kierkegaard does.)
And I wasn’t equating agnosticism with a thinking that there was no rational proof. I was saying that arguments are one thing and belief is another. I don’t have belief, but that lack of belief isn’t based on logic; it’s just a lack of belief, the source of which can be explained in various ways (psychological, historical, mystical, whatever) but isn’t about rational argument. I was responding to Cole, mainly, who was suggesting that I agnosticism was a choice made out of politeness; I was trying to explain (not very clearly perhaps) why I can both not believe and not feel like that disbelief should necessarily have any effect on other’s beliefs, or lack thereof.
And Cole and Tom…maybe we should just drop it?
Hi Eric. Noah stole my thunder, but I’ll just add that my personal experience has been that many, if not most, evangelicals are shocked that others don’t see the existence of God as self-evident. IMO, they use a lot of circular reasoning, but to them it is perfectly logical.
My agnosticism is based on the fact that I don’t see any scientific way to prove or disprove the existence of God. At the same time, I have a belief that God exists based solely on intuition and faith.
Hey Bryan. Not to tell you what to call yourself, but…if you have a belief that God exists, that would make you a believer, wouldn’t it? Or do you feel your intuition doesn’t rise to the level of belief?
I think you and Tom are using the vernacular meaning of agnosticism, which is somebody who doesn’t have any belief, one way or another. Agnosticism, by definition, is not about belief. It’s about what can be proved. I’m an agnostic theist and Cole is an agnostic atheist, so yes I believe that there is a God, but I hold that it can’t be proven. If somebody has a proof, I’m willing to listen.
I don’t know what the formal term is for somebody who is on the fence of belief in God, but that term is not agnostic (although that somebody can also be agnostic). Personally, I think deep down, everyone either believes in God or doesn’t.
BTW, looking over the entry for agnostic in the wikipedia, I should probably identify myself as a combination of apathetic agnostic and agnostic theist.
“I think you and Tom are using the vernacular meaning of agnosticism, which is somebody who doesn’t have any belief, one way or another.”
I use the term in two ways. It turns out that together they make up the definition of agnosticism found in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Yeah, that’s what this thread has reduced me to. I am typing out definitions from the dictionary.
“agnostic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or nonexistence of God or a god.”
While I’ve got the book out:
“atheist: one who believes that there is no deity.”
Good enough for me!
Ha! I guess this means that a person can be an agnostic agnostic.
The problem I have with being called agnostic is that it implies that one is somehow suspended in doubt. Many non-religious people, particularly those like me who grew up non-religious families and (for the most part) communities, don’t really feel any doubt about the existence of God; it simply isn’t a question they spend any particular time thinking about. This is no different from a Christian, say, not really having a thought-through position on Taoism but nonetheless happily living their lives as if Taoism wasn’t true.
Yeah, that’s basically my situation, though in recent years I thought about it a bit more and formulated a position on the metaphysics involved. It didn’t take me long, fortunately.
Technically, the usual definition of agnostic does cover someone like you, it’s just that people read in a bit. They assume that you started as someone who might have believed and wound up as an agnostic, which implies the arrival of doubt in your mental scheme. To combat this assumption you must rely on delivery and body language: “Yeah, I mean, God … you know, [shrugs] whatever.”
Ok…maybe there is some history of “logical proof” of God’s existence…but I still think most contemporary Christians (for instance) will tell you that “faith” is just that…faith…not a logic problem. If it was logically provable, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to give your life over to God, to not care about the paltry concerns of the material world, etc. I could be wrong about this (although having known a fair amount of fundamentalist types fairly well, I’ll stand by it).
Back to the original point, briefly. I just talked to a guy who’s in the middle of Eagleton’s book. Eagleton himself is an atheist. His critique is of a certain kind of public atheist (Richard Dawkins and etc.) who give atheism a bad name.
Contemporary Christianity is obsessed with the link between reason and faith, just as Christianity has been for hundreds of years. Where do you think the evolution debate comes from? If you don’t need logic, you don’t need to debate that stuff.
There’s certainly a mystical branch of Christianity which rejects appeals to faith…and fundamentalists can fall on various sides of that at various times and in various ways. But the theological tradition of trying to reconcile faith and reason is still very much alive…in some sense, it’s the lion’s share of what theology (pop or academic) is.
“Eagleton himself is an atheist. His critique is of a certain kind of public atheist”
That’s good; I’d rather have my assumptions borne out than confounded.
“Where do you think the evolution debate comes from? If you don’t need logic, you don’t need to debate that stuff.”
The creationism business comes from the need to sell voters and school boards on God-made-it-all during an age of science. Of course creationism may not be the whole of the evolution debate, just the bit I know about.
The thing about the “leap of faith” and all, I always thought that was just the intellectually respectable, or at least modish, approach to Christianity taken up by bright young people during the 1950s. I first came across it as a kid reading John Updike stories about when he was at Harvard. To me it makes by far the best justification for religious belief, but I’m not a believer.
The Jesuits certainly have got their logical “proofs” of God’s existence, and various believers I’ve spoken to have trotted out arguments that they found convincing. Actually it’s always the same argument, the gist of which is “Who do you think made the birds?”
No; people really, really care about the evolution debate (on both sides.) They organize around it because it’s a powerful issue. The same for abortion; they want political power to pass their agenda; they don’t create the agenda to get political power.
The reliance on faith alone comes from various places; it’s part of where John Wesley was coming from, for example, and it’s a part of almost any mystical approach to Christianity. It’s been around for thousands of years; John Updike doesn’t get the credit.
Yeah, if I understand you, the Born-Agains want to win school board elections so they can keep evolution from being taught; it’s not like they’re indifferent to the business, which they might be if they believed that faith and not reason really settled all questions. Is that the idea?
About the “leap of faith” I was referring to, that’s Kierkegaard. Don’t know how it differs from traditional justifications via faith, if at all, but the Kierkegaard business caught on intellectually over here around when existential became a hot word. So Updike didn’t come up with the idea, he just provided some examples of how it caught on.
Ok…but the debate about evolution also takes very strange turns. Gosse, for instance (Edmund?) tried to reject evolution by arguing that while evolution may well be much more logical than creationism, one must take the Bible more or less literally. Therefore, he argued that God planted all of the dinosaur fossils, etc. as an attempt to trick and tempt people into the sin of rejecting creationism. The “faith” comes first…then an (il)logic is constructed backwards from there to try to explain away the alternative logical explanations. This is in the latter half of the 19th century, not long after Darwin published _Origin_… Likewise, I think creationism is not couched as a logical argument for the most part. Just the reverse…they try to construct Darwinism as a “belief,” just as Christianity is a “belief.” Therefore, we shouldn’t “teach” Darwin, because it’s just one choice of belief among others. In some ways, they are right…but certainly there is more “logic,” “facts,” and “evidence” behind the Darwinian “belief.”
I suppose there is always an effort to construct a “logical” defense of belief, but this almost always begins with the _assumption_ of belief. In most “logical” reasoning, one is supposed to begin with “what we know” and proceed from there to a conclusion. You can’t begin with the conclusion that you are trying to prove. (Well, you can, but the idea is that you should not).
Of course, science too often begins with assumed conclusions…so the distinction between science and religion is tenuous (esp. with quantum physics, which seems more like mysticism).
I’m not arguing against religion, btw (it might seem like it above), just that faith comes first…the tortured logic follows that in most cases…and I think the most reasonable religious thinkers will (ironically?) admit that.
Kiekegaard’s something of a retro-mystic, I think.
Eric, what assumptions come first and how that works gets you into history and theory of science stuff which can be argued in various ways. But I’ll spare you all a recapitulation of my master’s thesis research.
I thought it was more like “evolution is just a theory, creationism is a theory, so teach both,” and along with the creationist theory come creationist facts or alleged facts. The idea is to make God-made-it-all look more scientific, not to make evolution look faith-based.
Of course the creationist line has changed over the years, so two different descriptions might be correct. In fact the term “creationist” may be outmoded by now; I haven’t kept up.
Edmund Gosse! Sweet.
The idea is to make God-made-it-all look more scientific, not to make evolution look faith-based.Yeah– they’re calling it “intelligent design” now, the same borrowed cred bait-n-switch as in that “What the Bleep” movie.
More clearly: Edmund Gosse didn’t make that argument; his marine biologist father Philip did; Edmund wrote about their relationship in the classic Father and Son.
Bill’s got the Gosse family tree right. That’s why I put the”?” after Edmund. Couldn’t be bothered to look it up.
Noah,
I read some of the MA thesis research, so I’m familiar with the history…at least a little. I still think, that “God’s existence” was taken as assumed by most for a long time–and the process of logically proving it already began with that (admittedly limited) assumption.