The Antichristian Phenomenon

Agnosticism seems very popular at the moment. I think it is mostly so for the wrong reasons. I get the feeling that a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics are doing so only to take a kind of moral high ground that, to them, equivocates with a neutral position on the issue at hand. I have seen many agnostics say something like this:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should be agnostic

I find three things at fault with this position,  which I will elaborate on in the following paragraphs. I will sometimes refer to above position as “popular agnosticism” to distinguish it from actual agnosticism. I will end with what a proper application of agnosticism might be, but also argue why I think it’s pretty useless all-round.

• Agnosticism is not a position on the existence of God

It seems that agnosticism has been snuck in to form a trilemma on the issue of God’s existence. To many people, the possible positions on this issue are either atheism, theism, or agnosticism. This is a false trilemma for two reasons. Firstly, because no ground is left over for agnosticism. You either believe God exists (theism), or you don’t (a-theism – I emphasize on purpose). So what is left over? Nothing! This has to do with the second reason that it is a false trilemma, namely the untrue notion that agnosticism even is a position on the existence of God. It simply isn’t, as it is a position on what knowledge is attainable. Going a little bit into etymology, “gnosis” means “knowledge” which means that “agnosticism” can be roughly translated to the position that something is not knowable. Agnosticism can be compatible with both atheism and theism – I don’t accept theism but I don’t claim to know that theism is false: I am an agnostic atheist.

Agnosticism isn’t somewhere in the middle on the spectrum between atheism and theism. I would even argue that there isn’t a spectrum at all on this level of the issue. There is a simple proposition: “God exists”, and you can either agree (theism) or not (atheism). There are no other positions, by virtue of the logical principle of the excluded middle. Both theism and atheism are positions that one can have, and it doesn’t matter how good or bad the reasons are for you having them.

• Popular agnosticism is used for dodging the question

So now that we have established that agnosticism isn’t even a tenable position in regards to the existence of God, it will become increasingly difficult to critique the position because the original paraphrase I gave is making less and less sense. At the moment, we can substitute the definition of agnosticism into the citation and read:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should have the position that it is unknowable whether God exists or not

But that shows another flaw, because (a)theism isn’t necessarily the belief that God’s existence is (dis)proven. It thus misrepresents the positions of theism and atheism, and shows perhaps a reluctance to commit to either theism or atheism. I do not believe anyone can be exactly on the fence between the two possible positions. Even if it is just a gut feeling, you can choose between the two. It is childish to say “no, I won’t choose either of the possibilities”. And of course there is no proof, as I have previously written and explained that proofs only exist in formal systems. Personally, I think a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics because they are reluctant to bear the stigma of the atheist. Though I understand this, I still think it is a form of cowardice.

• Popular agnosticism is special pleading

Popular agnosticism is also a form of special pleading, as it is only used with reference to the issue of God’s existence. You don’t hear about faerie agnostics, or Santa Clause agnostics. Popular agnosticism is used uniquely for the God-question. But why is it so? There are no grounds on which the question “Does God exist?” is different from the question “Does Santa Clause exist?” other than the subject of the inquiry. You can’t prove Santa Clause exists, or that he doesn’t exist any more than it is the case with God. Why then still reserve this for God? It is blatantly a case of special pleading.

Proper agnosticism

So when is it useful to have a position of agnosticism? First of all, we have to have a decent definition of when something is considered knowledge - before we can say whether something is possible to be an item in what we consider knowledge. What is knowledge is is a question home to the philosophical field of epistemology, and very briefly I can ambiguously suggest that knowledge is the product of empirical investigation and rational discourse of the empirical results. Knowledge doesn’t even have to be complete – as long the knowledge fits whatever observations have been made so far, and are reasonably not the antithesis of other knowledge that is “better established” – and it can even turn out after more observation that prior knowledge is false and that it requires to be superseded with new knowledge: a new set of ideas, rules, or paradigm (knowledge isn’t necessarily true). It is perhaps shortest to say that knowledge is produced by science, the best application of the aforementioned methodology.

This is different from the stricter requirement in the original paraphrase, which demanded proof and not mere evidence. If we were to say that knowledge needs proof to be established, then we are agnostic about everything outside of formal systems. To me, such a requirement of knowledge renders agnosticism as a useless term that communicates nothing because it can be applied to (almost) everything. So if we were to take my understanding of knowledge, we can say that agnosticism can apply only to things that fall outside of the scope of science: outside of empirical investigation. If we can not empirically pursue a question then we can’t produce knowledge about it: we are agnostic about it.

An example of proper agnosticism is when “God” is defined as something that would prohibit scientific inquiry. If God is a being who is omnipotent, it is immediately outside the scope of science, because this God can play with the empirical evidence all it wants. Anything and nothing can be indicative of the existence of such a being. Hence, we are inherently agnostic about it. Parallel to agnosticism about this, I have never heard any argument that would make such a being logically necessary to exist, hence I am also atheistic towards it. But when you would suggest that “God” is a bearded man living on clouds in the sky, it is open to scientific inquiry. There has never been seen such a man, thus I am a gnostic atheist about this particular concept.

I knew my first post would be considered fairly aggressive by some, so I’ve decided to explain in further detail what I mean when I say to combat religion. Unlike religion I have no problem spelling out what I mean. I’m not going to use vague metaphors like the Bible that engenders people to come up with some bizarre notion that you need to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. If you need to “interpret” something that’s stated clearly then the original statement wasn’t made very well at all.

Okay, when I say we need to combat religion, defend ourselves, etc. I don’t mean we necessarily have to physically combat them. I am not Gandhi and I don’t believe in pacifism, nor do I believe in turning the other cheek. What I do believe is needed is a clearly defined retaliation protocol. Well what does that mean? Basically it means we’re not the first to strike. Nor should we have to be. As soon as a Christian visits physical violence upon any member of us they are simply showing their abhorrent hypocrisy in full. If they truly believe they are working for “peace” via war, or being a loving being as they say their God is, they are hypocrites. They have just committed an act of violence to support their idea of love, last time I checked that doesn’t mesh well.

But like other pacifistic approaches does that mean we don’t have a right to defend ourselves? Of course not. I fully believe everyone has the right to defend their person and does not need to kneel in supplication to another (well, unless you really want to). Most people like power and like standing above others, but that doesn’t give you a right to force anyone. So I say we should be able to follow the tenets of physics that say “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So if someone punches you in the face, it does not give you the right to kill them immediately, I say it does give you a right to put them out of commission until they stop hitting you though. Why am I saying all this? Because I fear for my personal well being from extremist religious sects or persons. I don’t think anyone should have to be afraid because of something they believe, especially when it’s not visiting violence upon other people. I know some people say that violence doesn’t solve anything, and they’re right. Fighting doesn’t make a problem go away, but the reality of the situation is that some people will resort to violence. So what is the best course of action for the attacked?

I think if the righteous choose to enact violence it should be them who does it. We should stand above them and combat them on an intellectual level. I personally see no need for violence; I think it is the action of a petty and base person that resorts to such as a response to a comment regardless of how ignorant or intellectual. I think the greatest weapon our group has is our intellect. We should harness that power and focus it more than anything else. Our knowledge is both our sword and our shield and that’s what separates one side from the other, as far as I can tell. While most religious people have knowledge of a single text (usually they don’t even have this), we will pull from myriad sources.

Yes, this is a sort of elitism, but only because there is a tragic divide in understanding. It is not elitism in the pure sense because we are not hording our knowledge just for ourselves, we want to share it! We want all of humanity to be informed on a great number of topics, not just one. Information and ideas are the greatest threat in any struggle. Communication between groups is of the utmost importance and the reason I fear that violence is a likely response is because they cannot see things from our perspective. Sure, some of the religious believers certainly can, but there is a great deal out there who cannot. These are the people all should fear. This leads to war and war is not always a beneficial outcome. I welcome any comments on this concept, I know it may seem somewhat harsh, but I think it is a realistic perspective on the situation.