# Technically, is agnosticism the only valid option? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460 "2015-05-21T00:49:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/341 "2015-06-10T00:49:40Z")
I think that “this is what I believe but I acknowledge that I can’t really know” is the only valid position but within that one can be atheist , agnostic , or atheist. One can say , I believe there is a god and live my life according to that belief, or , I believe there is no God and live my life according to that belief , or some thing in the middle. I’d ad that I thought no those believers who assume they know what God wants or thinks are generally a pain in the ass. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/342 "2015-06-10T04:00:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > if we’re talking about gods made up by human cultures, we can investigate their origins and the claims made about them, and in every case be pretty certain there is no god there. I think we both agree on that. I think **Smartass** would agree with that. > > But if I make up a god that is concerned with some other world, and who has never had anything to do with us, what can we say about it? By default we don’t believe in it, of course. Given that the universe looks naturally made, we can even believe it doesn’t exist. But be certain? Know? Not at all. Not that this lack of knowledge should affect our behavior one little bit. To me, this seems like “footnote” nitpickery. We saw an example of this in another thread, when someone said “Everyone should be free to chose his/her own gender,” and the nitpick came back, “What about someone who is clinically insane?” Well, okay, no, insane people don’t have the full range of rights that the mentally competent do. But if we had to append a footnote to that effect to every general-issue post we make, likewise anticipating every such nitpick, we’d have twenty pages of boilerplate legalese at the bottom of every post! So, yes, a proper agnostic is also agnostic about Joea, the Sky God of Mars, and Joeb, the Sky God of Jupiter, and Joec, the Sky God of Uranus, and Joed, the Sky God of Alpha Centauri A, etc. You are correct in principle. But why make the distinction explicit? The point has already been made. The agnostic is not only agnostic about Jehovah/Allah, but about Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, etc. The “etc” suffices. I don’t see that anything is gained by piling on additional specified dependencies to that “etc.” For instance, you left out “future” gods. You left out “mathematical abstractions” that might be taken as gods. (The Square Root of Negative One is a god of insanity, while Zero is a trickster, always trying to persuade you to divide by him.) You left out the Marvel Comic Book Universe “Gods,” such as the Living Tribunal. Really, all of these just go into the catch-all “etc.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/343 "2015-06-10T05:35:51Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > So, yes, a proper agnostic is also agnostic about Joea, the Sky God of Mars, and Joeb, the Sky God of Jupiter, and Joec, the Sky God of Uranus, and Joed, the Sky God of Alpha Centauri A, etc. You are correct in principle. > > But why make the distinction explicit? The point has already been made. The agnostic is not only agnostic about Jehovah/Allah, but about Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, etc. The “etc” suffices. I thought we were talking atheism here, of the “certain there is no gods variety.” Agnostics have it easier. Assume you define agnosticism as the belief that god is unknown and unknowable. The unknown part works fine for all possible gods, with no enumeration necessary. I don’t understand the unknowable part, but if you buy it for human gods the rest follow also. Agnosticism wrongly defined as lack of belief also has no problem with alien gods. You certainly lack belief in something you’ve never heard of. I talk about alien gods only to emphasize how silly the belief that one knows no gods of any type exist - if anyone every held it. Only considering gods of earth seems very pre-Copernican to me. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/344 "2015-06-10T05:36:56Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I think that “this is what I believe but I acknowledge that I can’t really know” is the only valid position but within that one can be atheist , agnostic , or atheist. One can say , I believe there is a god and live my life according to that belief, or , I believe there is no God and live my life according to that belief , or some thing in the middle. I’d ad that I thought no those believers who assume they know what God wants or thinks are generally a pain in the ass. I can’t really know or I don’t really know? I buy the latter. The former depends on what gods there are, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/345 "2015-06-10T06:09:18Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I thought we were talking atheism here, of the “certain there is no gods variety.” Oops! Sorry! I’m having difficulty following the thread of this thread. But all I have said works for atheists too. We, too, can write an “etc.” at the end of a sub-list of our disbeliefs. I don’t believe in Jehovah/Allah, Oden, Zeus, etc. The “etc.” is just about as widely inclusive as you wish. > [@](#): > > . . . I talk about alien gods only to emphasize how silly the belief that one knows no gods of any type exist - if anyone every held it. Only considering gods of earth seems very pre-Copernican to me. Well, it comes out of definitions. If one defines “gods” as “entities possessed of magical or supernatural powers,” and then goes on to say, “I do not believe that magical or supernatural forces exist in any form,” then I don’t really need to enumerate all the possible gods that there might be. The syllogism includes them. (Of course, one then runs into Clarke’s Law, but never mind for now.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/346 "2015-06-10T16:32:39Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, it comes out of definitions. If one defines “gods” as “entities possessed of magical or supernatural powers,” and then goes on to say, “I do not believe that magical or supernatural forces exist in any form,” then I don’t really need to enumerate all the possible gods that there might be. The syllogism includes them. > > (Of course, one then runs into Clarke’s Law, but never mind for now.) Again, you are talking belief, and when you talk of not believing (or even believing in the nonexistence of the supernatural) there’s no problem. In fact I agree with what you said. The problem is when someone substitutes certainty or knowledge for belief. And then defines atheism that way. And then says atheism is stupid because we can’t be certain of these things. It may be nitpicking but I’ve seen this trick pulled for years. ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/347 "2015-06-10T20:25:36Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > No, because he limited his answer to earth gods. (We all fall into the trap of limiting what gods are possible in some way.) You asserted that you believe he’s doing that, but I haven’t seen him make a statement that confirmed your belief. In fact, I think he pretty much said that he believes the alien and Deist gods are as ridiculous as Jehovah. Now, we can nitpick his justification for believing it, but I do think that’s what he said he believed. > [@Voyager](#): > > To know no gods exist means you know none of the gods of that planet where intelligent life flourished three billion years ago exist. A tall order indeed. Agreed, but I thought we were talking about belief, not about “knowing”. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/348 "2015-06-10T21:05:44Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > You asserted that you believe he’s doing that, but I haven’t seen him make a statement that confirmed your belief. In fact, I think he pretty much said that he believes the alien and Deist gods are as ridiculous as Jehovah. Now, we can nitpick his justification for believing it, but I do think that’s what he said he believed. > > Agreed, but I thought we were talking about belief, not about “knowing”. > > -VM “Knowing of” is not the same as “Knowing that”. When I say that I know _of_ no evidence of gods, I am not saying that I know _that_ there is no evidence of gods. See the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/349 "2015-06-10T21:11:12Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Again, you are talking belief, and when you talk of not believing (or even believing in the nonexistence of the supernatural) there’s no problem. In fact I agree with what you said. > The problem is when someone substitutes certainty or knowledge for belief. And then defines atheism that way. And then says atheism is stupid because we can’t be certain of these things. > It may be nitpicking but I’ve seen this trick pulled for years. You’re moving from one discussion to another. My syllogism from supernatural powers is why I don’t need to explicitly name every god in which I do not believe. For that, and other reasons also, I am convinced that I “know” (the meaning of that word can also be debated) that there are no gods. The syllogism is not the whole basis for my certainty; it’s only the stated basis for the generalized form of disbelief, without having to footnote alien gods, future gods, mathematical gods, Tolkien’s gods, and so on. Two rather different issues. ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/350 "2015-06-10T21:34:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I was just saying that you were tying agnosticism to knowledge, which is correct. Nothing to do with multiple gods. I think this points to what I have believed (rightly or wrongly, still not sure) to be the difference between atheists and agnostics. I’ll try it this way: I would say that I “know” that the Jewish/Christian God (along with numerous others) doesn’t exist. However, I also think that those formulations of God are puerile and absurd, so the fact that they are imaginary–for me–isn’t convincing on the general topic of Possible God Beings. So, I would say that I believe these ridiculous ones don’t exist but I am undecided on whether there might be one or more PGBs that do exist. On the other hand, my perception is that atheists feel more strongly that science has established no need for a PGB to explain anything, so they believe that no PGBs exist. I have been introduced to a notion of “weak atheist” that seems to hold no position on a great many PGBs, like the Deist god, which is referred to as “lack of belief”, and I take to be different from “rejecting the possibility”. I find it difficult to distinguish between the “weak atheist” position and my own. The only point I can find that would separate weak atheist from agnostic would apply to those agnostics who believe the existence of PGBs to be “unknowable”. Since that’s not my belief, this way of distinguishing “weak atheist” from “agnostic” isn’t very useful to me. > [@Voyager](#): > > Interesting. Have you seen bias against agnostics? Absolutely. Even in this thread I’ve seen agnostics referred to as cowardly atheists, suggestions that they only say they are agnostic as a way to pander to theists, and the ongoing assumption that if I say am agnostic, what I really mean is that I’m a Deist in denial. More generally, while my experience is far from exhaustive, I have noticed a pattern of atheists speaking of agnostics in sneering tones. > [@Voyager](#): > > So you don’t believe in any gods, but if you did believe in one the one you’d believe in would be invisible. Referring to a god that I “would believe in” is something I can’t really support. There is no PGB that I would be prepared to believe in for no good reason other than I found the description of it appealing. Similarly, if by invisible you mean “has not been seen”, then I’m okay with it. If you mean “cannot ever be seen”, then you’re not describing me. > [@Voyager](#): > > Okay. But it is logically possible for the god to make herself known to us, so if agnosticism means the belief that gods are unknowable, this goes against it. I agree, but I am not one of those people who believes that the existence of God is “unknowable”. However, it would be fair to say that I believe that if there is/are PGB(s) that exist, we’re not _likely_ to know. That is to say, I’m not holding my breath. Same with intelligent aliens…the universe is so damn big, there could be loads of them that are so far away that we’ll never be able to “know” about them. But I wouldn’t say, “I believe that we cannot know whether intelligent aliens exist.” > [@Voyager](#): > > They are different. The second is much stronger. But they are both types of lack of belief that you’ll have pizza. I have a quibble with this. I believe affirmatively that I won’t have pizza, that’s not a “type of lack of belief”. Rather, it is “lack of belief” plus something, i.e. _belief in_ something else. > [@Voyager](#): > > In case two, if you smelled some pizza, or you found you lacked other options, and wound up having pizza, the statement that you believed you would not eat pizza is still correct. The statement that you knew you would not eat pizza would be wrong. Agreed: In retrospect, I held an incorrect belief. Particularly if that belief was based on thinking I would have no opportunity to have pizza. > [@Voyager](#): > > Here are the options. > A person can be a weak atheist (lack god belief) and still think that knowledge of a god is possible, if one existed. > One can certainly be a weak atheist and think knowledge of god is impossible. I’m not sure how this would be justified, but the concepts are not contradictory. > One can certainly be a theist and think god can be known. Pretty common. > One can believe in a god, and believe that god cannot be known - a deist. > Since a deist has convinced himself that the only possible god is hidden and doesn’t interfere, this position makes sense. > Since all four possibilities exist, the concepts are orthogonal. I can’t find the word “agnostic” anywhere in this, so it doesn’t help me at all to understand how atheism and agnosticism are “orthogonal”. I do find the word “deist” here, which suggests that you are doing what so many people are doing in this thread, which is treating “agnostic” and “deist” as being logically equivalent. > [@Voyager](#): > > Sorry. Nor precisely for any god G I lack belief in that god. Changing god to gods in my statement is fine. My new definition certainly includes multiple gods - there is no requirement that the existence of god G contradicts the existence of God H. (Though it might.) Which is the kind of commentary that makes your version of atheism indistinguishable (to me) from my version of agnosticism. Just sayin’. > [@Voyager](#): > > Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Agreed. Sometimes you make distinctions I can follow. Sometimes you make distinctions I can’t follow. > [@Voyager](#): > > Any god worthy of the name could show himself…Uplifting philosophy, no? I like it in the sense that it isn’t built on the assumption that humans are the most important thing in the universe. I see so many posts that include something like, “If God exists, why hasn’t he shown himself to us?” And I think, how arrogant are we if we assume that any God that exists better make a priority out of checking in with us? > [@Voyager](#): > > No, the null hypothesis is not the hypothesis you are looking for evidence for - and trying to refute at the same time. The null hypothesis is that you’re actual hypothesis is wrong. It is the default opposition position to what you are trying to find experimentally. If you find evidence to support your actual hypothesis, then you can reject the Null. If you don’t, you can’t reject the null, but you haven’t proven it. And I’m pretty sure I have said nothing that contradicts this. Now, if we were poor scientists, we could fail to find evidence to support our actual hypothesis and choose to reject the null hypothesis anyway (because God is being tricky). However, in doing so, we would pretty much be rejecting the pragmatic foundation of scientific inquiry AND violating Occam’s Razor. My point is that using the null hypothesis–and, specifically, refusing to reject it without evidence–is an example of using Occam’s razor: Option 1: Since there is no evidence, I fail to reject Null, and continue to act is if the Null is “correct”. Option 2: Since there is no evidence, I assume God is testing my faith, and I reject the Null anyway. Using Occam’s Razor, Option 1 is the correct way to proceed. I don’t understand why this is a controversial point. > [@Voyager](#): > > The null hypothesis can be totally null (no gods exist) or what has been accepted. 200 or more years ago the null hypothesis was that the Bible was correct about the origin of species, Darwin did not refute the Bible directly, but introduced a new hypothesis and demonstrated it. If you want me to follow this, you’ll need to more clearly state the hypothesis that the Null is being defined in opposition to. However, I’m okay if you want to skip the exercise, because I don’t think it’s critical to what we were talking about. > [@Voyager](#): > > Creationists today, on the other hand, spend a lot of time not demonstrating that the flood happened but instead they try to find tiny holes in evolution, and if they think they have done so, announce that this proves they are correct. They are trying to disprove the null hypothesis, not demonstrate theirs. You can see how this gets them into trouble. I think you’re conflating the null hypothesis wrt The Flood with the Null Hypothesis wrt Evolution By Natural Selection, so this paragraph–as regards the rejection (or failure to reject) Nulls is just confusing. Specifically, if your hypothesis is “Humans evolved by natural selection from other primates”, then the Null would NOT be “The Flood happened” or “The Bible is true history”. The null would simply be “Humans did not evolve by natural selection from other primates.” Having said that, I agree with the thrust of what you’re saying, but I see it as just evidence of human psychology: Creationists say, “The story in Genesis is true.” Scientists say, “There is no evidence to support your hypothesis. For instance, there is no way that The Flood happened.” Christians get pissed off and try to figure a way to turn the tables on the scientists, so they say, “Well, you haven’t proven that Evolution is correct. So there.” It goes downhill from there, because they a) have to pretend that a bunch of archaeological evidence doesn’t exist (or deliberately misinterpret it), and b) try to create an alternative theory (“intelligent design”) which, as stated, does not qualify as a theory because it leads to no testable hypotheses and has no body of supporting evidence behind it (and it’s the body of supporting evidence that resulted in Evolution being promoted to Theory status). To me, it is as simple as that. For the record, this is not in any way a legitimate scientific debate, because it rests on the Christians refusing to acknowledge the way the word “theory” is used by scientists. It’s a political exercise that relies on dissembling to keep the argument going in a way that sounds convincing to the uneducated but just annoys people who understand science. The irony here is that by continuing to pursue this course, the people leading the charge are tacitly calling their “followers” idiots. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/351 "2015-06-10T21:41:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Agnostics have it easier. Assume you define agnosticism as the belief that god is unknown and unknowable. The unknown part works fine for all possible gods, with no enumeration necessary. I don’t understand the unknowable part, but if you buy it for human gods the rest follow also. I don’t personally include the “unknowable” part, and apparently there is a decent-sized faction of agnostics who are like me in that way. Also, I would not include the Christian god (or any other anthropomorphic gods of organized religion) in the set of “possible gods”. Not sure if this helps any… -VM ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/352 "2015-06-10T21:41:30Z")
Not on a message board talking about religion with atheists, but out in the real world, have you ever seen bias against agnostics, **Smartass**? ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/353 "2015-06-10T21:45:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If one defines “gods” as “entities possessed of magical or supernatural powers,”… You seem to be suggesting that this is a common way to define “gods”, and I don’t think it is. If it were, then people would have said that the Harry Potter movies are about a about a bunch of child gods. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/354 "2015-06-10T21:53:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The problem is when someone substitutes certainty or knowledge for belief. And then defines atheism that way. And then says atheism is stupid because we can’t be certain of these things. > It may be nitpicking but I’ve seen this trick pulled for years. Actually, what I keep seeing is atheists pulling this trick on agnostics. I say that I don’t have a belief for or against the existence of gods. Debate follows, and at some point I point out things that I can’t know (which is impacting what I believe), and the atheists immediately say we can’t really know anything and I might be a head in a jar. Then we have to get into pragmatism and the foundations of scientific thought and argue over what the Null Hypothesis is… My point: It’s not ME who is pushing the conversation in this direction. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/355 "2015-06-10T21:56:02Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “Knowing of” is not the same as “Knowing that”. When I say that I know _of_ no evidence of gods, I am not saying that I know _that_ there is no evidence of gods. See the difference? I don’t believe there is any confusion here. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/356 "2015-06-10T22:00:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not on a message board talking about religion with atheists, but out in the real world, have you ever seen bias against agnostics, **Smartass**? I’ve seen it in books and articles. If you mean the world of interacting with live humans, I rarely meet one that claims to be “atheist” and when I do, to the extent there is a conversation, I have occasionally had a person suggest that being a agnostic is a cowardly position. That said, it’s not something I keep close track of and I can’t give you any kind of numerical data, but I can confirm that I have witnessed it. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/357 "2015-06-10T22:04:53Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > I don’t personally include the “unknowable” part, and apparently there is a decent-sized faction of agnostics who are like me in that way. > > Also, I would not include the Christian god (or any other anthropomorphic gods of organized religion) in the set of “possible gods”. > > Not sure if this helps any… > > -VM Quite a bit, actually. If you define agnostic as saying gods are unknown, then all atheists are also agnostic, since how can you believe you know something you believe does not exist? All deists are agnostic by definition. Even many theists are agnostic by this definition, since God is so complex that puny humans cannot comprehend or know him. You got a big tent there, my friend. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/358 "2015-06-10T22:10:43Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > Actually, what I keep seeing is atheists pulling this trick on agnostics. I say that I don’t have a belief for or against the existence of gods. Debate follows, and at some point I point out things that I can’t know (which is impacting what I believe), and the atheists immediately say we can’t really know anything and I might be a head in a jar. Then we have to get into pragmatism and the foundations of scientific thought and argue over what the Null Hypothesis is… > > My point: It’s not ME who is pushing the conversation in this direction. > > -VM I’m not too fond of extreme skeptics since I had a Theory of Knowledge ruined by a couple of them who brought the class to a screeching halt. Theists are the ones who say “prove there are no gods. Can’t? Hah! Mine must exist.” Agnostics tend to say those with a lack of belief in Gods are not atheists. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/359 "2015-06-10T22:14:58Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > I’ve seen it in books and articles. If you mean the world of interacting with live humans, I rarely meet one that claims to be “atheist” and when I do, to the extent there is a conversation, I have occasionally had a person suggest that being a agnostic is a cowardly position. > > That said, it’s not something I keep close track of and I can’t give you any kind of numerical data, but I can confirm that I have witnessed it. > > -VM I don’t think we atheists have enough power to do much of anything to anyone. And an opinion that agnostics call themselves such to avoid the stigma of atheism is hardly bias. An example is Carl Sagan. If he ever gave evidence of god belief, it escaped me. But he called himself an agnostic, no doubt because back then it was a safer position for someone in the public eye as much as he was. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460/360 "2015-06-10T23:17:06Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > I think this points to what I have believed (rightly or wrongly, still not sure) to be the difference between atheists and agnostics. I’ll try it this way: I would say that I “know” that the Jewish/Christian God (along with numerous others) doesn’t exist. However, I also think that those formulations of God are puerile and absurd, so the fact that they are imaginary–for me–isn’t convincing on the general topic of Possible God Beings. So, I would say that I believe these ridiculous ones don’t exist but I am undecided on whether there might be one or more PGBs that do exist. But I trust you lack belief in them? I have no argument with your position here - it makes sense to know that some gods don’t exist (possibly weak version of know) believe that others don’t exist, and lack belief in still others. The differentiation is having belief in one god. Those who do are not atheists, those who don’t are. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, my perception is that atheists feel more strongly that science has established no need for a PGB to explain anything, so they believe that no PGBs exist. I have been introduced to a notion of “weak atheist” that seems to hold no position on a great many PGBs, like the Deist god, which is referred to as “lack of belief”, and I take to be different from “rejecting the possibility”. Having no need for that hypothesis is a good reason to believe there are no gods - but like all of science, it is a provisional belief. There are other reasons also. > [@](#): > > I find it difficult to distinguish between the “weak atheist” position and my own. The only point I can find that would separate weak atheist from agnostic would apply to those agnostics who believe the existence of PGBs to be “unknowable”. Since that’s not my belief, this way of distinguishing “weak atheist” from “agnostic” isn’t very useful to me. I think that this is what I’ve been trying to say. You are having trouble because your position looks a lot like weak atheism to me. Which does not mean that your position of being an agnostic is contradicted by this. You can be both - especially considering your definition of agnostic. > [@](#): > > Referring to a god that I “would believe in” is something I can’t really support. There is no PGB that I would be prepared to believe in for no good reason other than I found the description of it appealing. > > Similarly, if by invisible you mean “has not been seen”, then I’m okay with it. If you mean “cannot ever be seen”, then you’re not describing me. Well, if your definition of agnostic does not include god being unknowable, we can forget my effort to ask about this position. > [@](#): > > I have a quibble with this. I believe affirmatively that I won’t have pizza, that’s not a “type of lack of belief”. Rather, it is “lack of belief” plus something, i.e. _belief in_ something else. Your active belief that you won’t have pizza implies your lack of belief that you’ll have pizza. A lack of belief in having pizza does not imply an active belief that you won’t. > [@](#): > > I can’t find the word “agnostic” anywhere in this, so it doesn’t help me at all to understand how atheism and agnosticism are “orthogonal”. Agnosticism is in the knowledge part. > [@](#): > > I do find the word “deist” here, which suggests that you are doing what so many people are doing in this thread, which is treating “agnostic” and “deist” as being logically equivalent. It was an example. A deist might think that the deity is knowable through logic. Tom Paine, for example, was not an atheist, though he did not believe in the Western God so Teddy Roosevelt called him one. In _The Age of Reason_ he specifically rejected atheism because he could not explain the structure of the solar system without a divine hand. I’d guess he’d be an atheist today thanks to the scientific advances you mentioned. But even if I thought all deists were agnostics, that would not imply that all agnostics are deists. > [@](#): > > Which is the kind of commentary that makes your version of atheism indistinguishable (to me) from my version of agnosticism. Just sayin’. I agree. > [@](#): > > The null hypothesis is that you’re actual hypothesis is wrong. It is the default opposition position to what you are trying to find experimentally. If you find evidence to support your actual hypothesis, then you can reject the Null. If you don’t, you can’t reject the null, but you haven’t proven it. And I’m pretty sure I have said nothing that contradicts this. The trick is in how you pick the default. There are many opposition hypotheses. If you want to prove God G, the no God and God H are both opposition hypotheses - but only no god is a good null hypothesis (unless God H had been demonstrated previously.) > [@](#): > > Now, if we were poor scientists, we could fail to find evidence to support our actual hypothesis and choose to reject the null hypothesis anyway (because God is being tricky). However, in doing so, we would pretty much be rejecting the pragmatic foundation of scientific inquiry AND violating Occam’s Razor. My point is that using the null hypothesis–and, specifically, refusing to reject it without evidence–is an example of using Occam’s razor: > > Option 1: Since there is no evidence, I fail to reject Null, and continue to act is if the Null is “correct”. > Option 2: Since there is no evidence, I assume God is testing my faith, and I reject the Null anyway. > > Using Occam’s Razor, Option 1 is the correct way to proceed. I don’t understand why this is a controversial point. As I said, Occam’s Razor is a heuristic to help you choose between competing hypotheses. Many tree search algorithms have something similar to help you decide which of multiple paths to explore first. I’ve never heard your option 2 be considered as going against Occam’s Razor. It’s not used in evaluating results, but in choosing hypotheses to evaluate. I do see your Option 2 get used by creationists (the Devil put all those fossils there) but I’ve never heard a name for it. I don’t think it’s quite special pleading. > [@](#): > > If you want me to follow this, you’ll need to more clearly state the hypothesis that the Null is being defined in opposition to. However, I’m okay if you want to skip the exercise, because I don’t think it’s critical to what we were talking about. null comes first. Since we know we got here somehow, the kind of null hypothesis where there is nothing interesting to see (which works for gods) is inapplicable. Which to use? Well, special creation was widely accepted, and I suppose “proven” if you believed the theology books of the day. Part of that was the immutability of life. > [@](#): > > I think you’re conflating the null hypothesis wrt The Flood with the Null Hypothesis wrt Evolution By Natural Selection, so this paragraph–as regards the rejection (or failure to reject) Nulls is just confusing. Specifically, if your hypothesis is “Humans evolved by natural selection from other primates”, then the Null would NOT be “The Flood happened” or “The Bible is true history”. The null would simply be “Humans did not evolve by natural selection from other primates.” Creationists argue (incorrectly in so many ways) that proving evolution incorrect proves the Bible correct, and thus the Flood. Today evolution is the null hypothesis. Their fallacy is in not demonstrating that their creationist hypothesis is correct, but instead trying to demonstrate that evolution isn’t, which, as you say, does not actually support their hypothesis in any way. Disproving the null hypothesis (loose definition of proof) does not support a given hypothesis. Proving a hypothesis does disprove the null hypothesis. What would the new null hypothesis be if you disproved the old one? The answer is - beats the hell out of me. When the Michaelson Morley experiment did not verify that the speed of light was absolute, no one new what to think until Einstein came along to explain it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-is-agnosticism-the-only-valid-option/720460.md?page=19)