# What's the deal with agnosticism, anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090 "2003-08-27T23:47:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![horhay\_achoa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@horhay\_achoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horhay_achoa)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/41 "2003-08-28T21:02:41Z")
I might be agnostic. Is there a name for someone who doesn’t really think or care about it one way or the other? I believe that there was “something” that was hear before anything else. I have no clue what it was, but I call it “god”. So I say I believe in god when I am asked. Whatever it is that is impossible to explain…that is god, to me. I don’t know if it created us, or the universe, or anything else, but it knows something that we don’t because its been here forever. I don’t think about it much past that. Is that Agnostic? ---
**Author:** ![Beryl\_Mooncalf\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9f8e36/32.png) [@Beryl\_Mooncalf\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beryl_Mooncalf_1)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/42 "2003-08-28T21:06:56Z")
Groo answered > [@](#): > > I actually pray on occasion, but it’s usually just trying to confirm with a “senior executive of the universe” that we’re clear on which circle of hell I get to go to… Is it that you don’t have the courage to stand up for your views, or that you don’t understand what your views are, or… do you just enjoy being a hypocrite? ---
**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:** [August 28, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/43 "2003-08-28T21:43:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Trinopus \* > \*\*Allow me to “slip through the cracks,” a bit… > > I am a “firm” atheist when it comes to the Big-G God – the one that is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, created the cosmos, knows the future, etc. To me, that package of concepts is logically self-contradictory. > > But I’m only a “weak” or passive atheist when it comes to lesser gods: spirits, feys, sprites, etc. (I often use the example of “Q” from Star Trek…) Such beings _might_ exist, somewhere beyond our experience; I simply haven’t ever seen any evidence of it. > > \*\* That sums up my position nicely as well. I’m a strong atheist as regards the god who made the flood, and a very weak one as regards the deistic god. > [@](#): > > \*\* > re the OP, if someone says, “ cannot be known,” then isn’t that the same as saying “ is false?” i.e., if I show you a mathematical conjecture, and state, “This can never be proven,” then isn’t it, by default, false? (Even Goedel only went so far as to demonstrate that unprovable true conjectures exist; his proof doesn’t extend to specifying one!) > > Trinopus \*\* No, not being able to prove something doesn’t mean it’s false. In computer science, the equivalent to Goedel’s conjecture is the halting problem. You can’t prove that a computer program (actually a Turing Machine) will ever halt. The proof is very similar to Goedel’s. It’s been a while, but I think Turing is the one who did it. Despite this, obviously most programs do halt, and you can even prove that some programs don’t halt. So, given unknown program P, you can’t say that you can prove it halts, but it very likely will halt. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/44 "2003-08-28T21:48:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RoundGuy \* > \*\*You mean a Charlton-Heston-Ten-Commandments type exodus? With the pillar a fire and raising-your-hands-and-parting-the-Red Sea and all that? Sure, I think that would be pretty good evidence of a God. > > But still, the difference in my opinion, is that an atheist will say, _it is impossible for that to happen_. But an agnostic says, _maybe, maybe not_. \*\* I’m interested in if it did happen. I have heard some atheists say that they wouldn’t believe in a god even so, that’s dogmatic in my book. I myself could be convinced with a preponderence of evidence. I think the chance of any such thing happening is vanishingly small, though. I suspect lots of agnostics would agree. ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/45 "2003-08-28T21:51:25Z")
I decided I was an agnostic at 12. Found out about atheism and agnosticism from sci-fi books. I read a definition similar to #2 and decided it made no sense so I applied definition #1 to myself. I’ve since become a heretic. What if God treats our belief in His/Her existence just like science. He/She gave us brains, He/She gave us free will. Figuring out the obvious is our problem. The problem is we have free will to run mind games on each other. Religion is mostly childhood brainwashing. What if the commandment: Thou shalt not use the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Is a commandment against organized religion? You left out Apatheism: Don’t know, don’t give a damn. Dal Timgar ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/46 "2003-08-28T23:36:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Voyager \* > \*\*No, not being able to prove something doesn’t mean it’s false. In computer science, the equivalent to Goedel’s conjecture is the halting problem. You can’t prove that a computer program (actually a Turing Machine) will ever halt. . . . > \*\* But what if you declare that you _can’t_ ever prove it? Isn’t that the same as declaring it to be false? Suppose someone says, “No one will ever know if this program will halt.” How is that different from saying, “This program will never halt?” re some of the other discussion here, wouldn’t modern mind-control techniques, coupled with drugs, sensory deprivation, and other conditioning, allow an operator to instill a belief in a user? Does that mean that an expert torturer can do something God cannot? Trinopus ---
**Author:** ![MrO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/47 "2003-08-28T23:49:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > \*\*Agnosticism is a form of skepticism, unlike atheism, which is a form of dogmatism. Thus, the agnostic says “I do not know.” Now, the “academic” agnostic would say “I do not know because that knowledge is impossible to know.”, just as an “Academic Skeptic” would say. A much more hardcore agnostic, one who truly holds to skeptical method, would not make such an incredible leap of faith and adopt the dogma that one cannot know. Such an agnostic admits to personally not knowing but is not so arrogant as to claim that nobody can know. \*\* Admittedly, I just got out of bed a few minutes ago and I may not be fully awake, but it seems to me that you’ve completely reversed the standard definitions. Are you saying that a weak atheist (who says “I find no evidence to support the existence of gods, so I lack belief in them; you can believe whatever you want”) is dogmatic, while a strong agnostic (who says “I don’t know and you don’t either, since this knowledge is unavailable to us”) is merely skeptical? That the weak atheist is more arrogant than the strong agnostic? If not, I’ve misunderstood. If so, we are involved in two separate conversations, using incompatible definitions. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rooves \* > \*\*I consider myself Agnostic simply because athiests seem to carry with them the connotation that they’re out to prove the non-exsistence of God, where I’m not. \*\* How often do you encounter atheists who claim to be out to prove the non-existence of gods? I for one make no such claim. I just find the existence of gods to be so unlikely that I can’t scrape up any belief in them. Any of them, actually, according to any definition I’ve heard. I am a US citizen. Americans have a reputation, in many parts of the world, for being loud, gun-carrying, flag-waving, religious puritans. This in no way describes me. Does this make it okay for me to reject the label “American”? To me it doesn’t. Atheists _may_ have a reputation for being dogmatic and even “faithful” about their disbelief, but that isn’t what it means to be an atheist. The main reason I participate in these discussions at all is to dispel the incorrect assumption that atheists are like that. It’s true that usage determines the definition of a word, and that definitions do change over time. If the way I’ve defined these words, atheist and agnostic, is unacceptable, then my question is: What label would you use to describe someone who (a) can find no evidence or reason to believe in gods, and therefore doesn’t believe that they exist, (b) does NOT claim that they absolutely do not exist, since there isn’t any real proof for that claim, © admits that he or she doesn’t know absolutely one way or the other, since there is so far no proof or even strong evidence one way or the other, and (d) makes no claim about what is possible for others to know through personal experience or revelation, but has some doubts about such knowledge claimed by others? ---
**Author:** ![MmmDonut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@MmmDonut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MmmDonut)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/48 "2003-08-29T00:25:26Z")
I am an agnostic. Depending on my mood, I can be more inclined or less inclined to believe in the existence of a God. In my opinion, the difference between me an an atheist is that the their gut feeling tells them that God does not exist. That is not the case with me, therefore I am not an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![cajela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cajela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cajela)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/49 "2003-08-29T01:24:23Z")
No, **Rooves** , I’m not out to prove the non-existence of god. All I am doing is putting the claim for god in the same class as any other existence claim. Leprechauns, IPUs, viruses that cause cancer, life on Mars, my shoes, other people, etc etc. If you say it’s there, then give me evidence. In some of those cases I think the evidence is pretty good. Some it’s medium, I don’t know yet. Others, no, there is no evidence, i don’t believe them. I’d really like to see some of the agnostics explain their position vis a vis that walking toaster of **gex gex** ’s. There are two points to agnosticism that I just don’t get: 1. BELIEF: Is there _anything_ the type 2 agnostics are willing to say they just flat out don’t beiieve? The walking toaster? Odin? The IPU? If so, what makes “I don’t believe in god” somehow more radical a statement in your eyes than “I don’t believe my toaster runs around the room while I’m out”? 2. EXISTENCE: OK, some people say they don’t believe in particular gods, like the big bearded guy in the sky. And then that they are agnostic about “god”. But when pressed, the god they are agnostic about somehow disappears. It is invisible. Doesn’t interfere. Doesn’t answer prayers or perform miracles or manage the weather; nor does it manage traffic control for colliding galaxies, even. It isn’t anthropomorphic. it isn’t comprehensible. It isn’t anything specific at all. It seems to be immaterial and inert. So what makes something like that “exist”? It seems to me that many agnostics define these two words differently when they’re talking about god than when they’re talking about anything else. I don’t mean the people out there who are genuinely questioning a faith or genuinely uncertain. They haven’t decided if they believe or not. That makes sense to me. Including the apatheists, though why they’re reading this if they’re so apathetic I’m not sure 🙂 The ones I don’t understand are people like **Futile Gesture** , **jharmon** , **vl\_mungo** who seem (correct me if I’m wrong) to say that if you can’t know, that’s evidence enough to be agnostic. But you also can’t know about the invisible toasters sent by the spirit of my dead Auntie Mabel that right now are hovering behind your back - and I bet you don’t beiieve in that. What’s the deal? ---
**Author:** ![Jon\_the\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jon\_the\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jon_the_Geek)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/50 "2003-08-29T01:45:27Z")
Well, I know my toaster doesn’t run around my apartment while I’m at work. I work from home 🙂 Seriously, I think it’s very, very, very unlikely that my toaster runs around the apartment when I’m away, since the preponderance of evidence tells us that that’s impossible. I guess I believe that it’s POSSIBLE, though. I’ve seen no evidence claiming that a creator of the universe is impossible (well, ok, some evidence, but simply stating that time didn’t exist “before” the Big Bang, and thus there couldn’t be anything “before” the Big Bang, doesn’t work for me; if a god can exist outside of physical reality, it can exist “before” the big bang and start everything going). I guess I’m technically a faerie, invisible dragon, and IPU agnostic, as well, but if they don’t do anything, they don’t matter to me, so I don’t think about them. I guess what I’m mostly agnostic about is an afterlife, and that’s where god would be far more active than I think he is in this universe. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t know what he wants (with current evidence), so I’ll quit worrying about it (except to discuss it in threads like this). All that said, I’m fairly certain that nobody has it right. I don’t believe in any religion. I expressly believe some of them have it wrong, others I just assume don’t have it right. ---
**Author:** ![RoundGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@RoundGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoundGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/51 "2003-08-29T03:38:22Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d really like to see some of the agnostics explain their position vis a vis that walking toaster of gex gex’s. The walking toaster is a strawman. Put a video camera on it, guess what, it doesn’t move. (surprise, surprise) > [@](#): > > It is invisible. Doesn’t interfere. Doesn’t answer prayers or perform miracles or manage the weather; nor does it manage traffic control for colliding galaxies, even. Well, of course not. If God did these things, we’d have evidence of his existence and wouldn’t be arguing about it. I guess I’m not understanding the point of your post. ---
**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:** [August 29, 2003, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/52 "2003-08-29T04:27:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Trinopus \* > \*\*But what if you declare that you _can’t_ ever prove it? Isn’t that the same as declaring it to be false? > > Suppose someone says, “No one will ever know if this program will halt.” How is that different from saying, “This program will never halt?” > > Trinopus \*\* Not quite. It means that you cannot say, for all programs, that I can prove if this program halts or not. In your example, if a person says that, the program might halt in the next instant. That is not forbidden by the proof at all. If the program halts, then you know it does, which is not contradicted by the proof. The real problem is that if the program does not halt at time t, you don’t know for sure, in general, that it won’t halt at time t+1. The analogy to the point at hand is that god hasn’t shown up yet doesn’t mean he won’t sometime later, but if he does show up we should know it. As for your other point, I’m sure a theist will say god can make us believe but chooses not to. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/53 "2003-08-29T14:27:13Z")
> [@](#): > > How often do you encounter atheists who claim to be out to prove the non-existence of gods? I for one make no such claim. I just find the existence of gods to be so unlikely that I can’t scrape up any belief in them. Any of them, actually, according to any definition I’ve heard. …and also to cajela Sorry for implying that athiests actively persue converting people. In answer to MrO, Mostly just on the internet. (not sdmb) For some reason, I see people proclaiming their athiesm as if they were taking some kind of real risk. (again, not here)That trail has been blazed. To me there really isn’t much of a difference. I wouldn’t call someone wrong if they called me an athiest. I’m just an athiest who likes to keep his options open. ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/54 "2003-08-29T16:41:34Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by RoundGuy_ > The walking toaster is a strawman. Put a video camera on it, guess what, it doesn’t move. (surprise, surprise) Of course it doesn’t. It only moves when you can’t detect it doing so. A bit like god, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![groo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@groo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/55 "2003-08-30T14:16:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beryl\_Mooncalf \* > > Is it that you don’t have the courage to stand up for your views, or that you don’t understand what your views are, or… do you just enjoy being a hypocrite? Hmm. I make a statement like \*\* … I’m not sure one way or the other … \*\* and you bring courage and hypocrisy into the picture? WTF? This thread caught my eye because I’m still trying to figure out what my views are wrt this god stuff and was wondering if other people who considered themselves agnostic might be expressing their views. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2003, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/56 "2003-08-30T19:11:44Z")
> [@](#): > > That trail has been blazed. On the internet, yes. There are still quite a few bitter atheists who live and work in the closet, so to speak. Not that that it is any excuse for bitterness. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/57 "2003-08-30T20:06:02Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m guessing, though, that agnostics such as yourself would maintain that while you’re at work your toaster could very well be running around the kitchen. Why shouldn’t they? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with admitting that unobserved phenomena which leave no evidence of their occurance is beyond the purview of what I am able to comment on the truth of. Given that in the scenario it leaves no evidence, and hence has no impact on anything I interact with, the scenario is possible, but currently irrelevant, and no more worth considering than any other of the millions of other things my toaster could be doing in my abscence. ---
**Author:** ![godzillatemple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@godzillatemple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godzillatemple)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/58 "2003-08-30T20:34:31Z")
One question I have for those agnostics who claim that one _cannot_ prove or disprove the existence of God is whether they apply the same standards of knowledge to other alleged supernatural phenomena such as psychic powers, ghosts, etc. If, however, they think that it is possible to prove the existence of psychic powers or ghosts, why the double standard when it comes to God? Barry ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/59 "2003-08-31T11:18:36Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by Apos_ > Why shouldn’t they? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with admitting that unobserved phenomena which leave no evidence of their occurance is beyond the purview of what I am able to comment on the truth of. As a philosophical exercise, maybe. However “nothing is real” becomes a little pointless outside the realm of thought experiments. > [@](#): > > Given that in the scenario it leaves no evidence, and hence has no impact on anything I interact with, the scenario is possible, but currently irrelevant, and no more worth considering than any other of the millions of other things my toaster could be doing in my abscence. Couldn’t the same summation be applied to the existence of god? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090/60 "2003-08-31T16:51:57Z")
> [@](#): > > However “nothing is real” becomes a little pointless outside the realm of thought experiments. Maybe, but that has nothing to do with what I said. Try again. > [@](#): > > Couldn’t the same summation be applied to the existence of god? Yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-agnosticism-anyway/198090.md?page=4)