Agnosticism
It seems to me we have been fed an untruth. It is one that seems common across a wide range of people and I think very few ever question it. We are taught that the opposite of a believer in God is an Atheist.
I think it isn’t true; I think an Atheist, someone who ‘knows’ there is no God, is also a believer. I think, on a line with believers in God at one end, the other end is an Agnostic. Atheists are believers just as much as those they so vehemently oppose. And just as we see various sects of particular branches of religion get riled with another sect over minor points of dogma, the two branches of believers get very heated with each other.
It’s an ongoing debate, one that never seems to convert anyone, never seems to run out of ire and agro, and seems ultimately unsolvable by mere humans.
Are Creationists right or are Evolutionists? The argument has raged since Darwin and has recently gotten even more fiery in the US with the Intelligent Design fracas. Creationists tried to remodel their beliefs into a pseudo-scientific structure in an attempt to get ID taught in schools as an alternative to Evolution. They ran into a wall by, in my opinion, over-reaching themselves – they demanded it be taught in Science classes.
Now the Theory of Evolution has the problem of being called a Theory. What most people without a science background fail to see is that a Theory, in Science, has a different meaning to how it is used out in public. The Theory of Gravitation is such a Theory – nobody flies off the surface of Earth because Gravity is a theory – the theory bit is just our explanation of it.
Evolution is the same. We have proof of changes in genomes and various life forms. We know for a fact it happens. The Theory bit is whether the random mutations in a genome can account for the variety of life we see when we look around.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:26 am
Most atheists define atheism as “a lack of belief in a god or gods.”
Someone who is a hard/strong atheism is one that would fit your definition.
For instance, I would consider myself an agnostic atheist. Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive–meaning that someone can be both.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Thanks for dropping by Micah…
I think that while some may like to see themselves that way, by definition, Atheism is a belief. If they are really in the camp of simply lacking a belief in God, then they’d need to ask themselves if they truly believe there is NO God or if they don’t know. If they don’t know, they are Agnostic.
I’ve been surprised over the years at just how many people who claim Atheism are actually Agnostic.
Personally, I think I’m Agnostic with a Christian Atheism -
I am pretty damn sure the Christian version of God doesn’t exist.
I have my thoughts, as expressed in earlier posts here, about the subject of God in general, but they aren’t beliefs, just what I see as the most likely possibility based on the world I see around me.
The dangers of ‘belief’ are, I think, many & easily fallen into so i try to find & root out beliefs & turn them either into ‘don’t know’s’ or into something with some evidence behind it.
Namaste Micah