Tuesday 12 December 2006

Agnostic believer

If an agnostic is defined as believing that you can neither scientifically prove nor disprove the existence of God, then I am an agnostic believer. It also follows that there are a large number of agnostic unbelievers in the world. Being "agnostic" doesn't define one way or the other whether you actually believe in God, so it's not really a valid answer to the question "Do you believe in God?".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess people use the word because it sounds more acceptable than "atheist".
PPS - It's less confrontational, because it expresses little about your beliefs.

1 comment:

MikeMac said...

A better system is the 7-milestone continuum (from Robert Dawkins' book, The God Delusion:

1- Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'

2 - Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.'

3 - Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. 'I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.'

4 - Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'

5 - Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic, but leaning towards atheism. 'I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.'

6 - Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'

7 - Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung "knows" there is one.'