There’s a number of common misconception about many systems of polar opposites.
The most prominent of these is to conceive of all pairs of opposites as purely binary, a philosophical hangover dating back at least as far as Aristotle, and still absurdly prevalent in our culture today – see any discussion of US politics, for example. In our heads, we know it’s not really that way. We think of night and day as opposites, but most of us are aware that there are periods of twilight at the transition between them. But in our hearts, there’s something satisfying about the simplicity of Us and Them – satisfying, but ultimately inaccurate , reductive and destructive.
Another, less well recognized one, is the idea that the middle ground of any argument consists only of the precise middle. It works in mathematics to think this way, but real life is somewhat messier. In fact, the best example of it I can think of comes from that messiest of all parts of real life: human sexuality.
Continue reading 98% Middle
It’s probably unfair of me to regard many atheists as being in denial. But I don’t think it’s at all unfair to think that many of them (and indeed, a great majority of all people, whatever they may or may not believe) are insufficiently rigourous in their exercise of logic and their application of semantics.
(I’d say I was a terrible snob, but that’s not true – I’m really very good at it  )
Continue reading A Question of Semantics
This might seem like a weird one – a religious position vs a philosophical one – but bear with me. To me, agnosticism is a philosophy, and one that contributes to my code of ethics (although that’s not something I intend to go into today). Because Solipsism poses a particular problem to agnostics, for one very simple reason. But first, to define my terms.
Continue reading Agnosticism vs Solipsism
Before I sat down to write this piece, I chanced to re-read Steven Grant and Scott Bieser’s brilliant graphic novel Odysseus The Rebel .
I mention this because it’s one of the few works I’ve read that really makes a big deal out of the aggressive apatheism of its title character. For Ulysses is indeed an apatheist – and given that the gods do have a verifiable existence within his story, something of a maltheist also, but it’s the former that concerns me here.
Continue reading Asking the next question
I have on occasion likened the extreme assurance that certain high profile atheists seem to feel about the rightness of their beliefs to the fundamentalism of many of those on the more theist side of the equation. And I make no apology for the fact that I probably spend more time arguing against atheists than theists here – in fact, I regard that as a major part of this series of posts.
But there’s a limit to that. The differences between atheist fundamentalism and theist fundamentalism are somewhat more significant than the differences between, for example facist totalitarianism and communist totalitarianism. For instance, of these four ideologies, atheist fundamentalism has by far the best human rights record.
Continue reading Battling Fundamentalisms
It’s been pointed out to me that last week, I failed entirely to actually clarify what I thought the difference was between beliefs and assumptions. So this week, I’m backing up a little to define my terms.
Like I should have done in the first place. Continue reading Belief and Assumption
Okay, so last week, I covered how I got here. But I know I didn’t really say where here is.
Understand, I can’t really say what all agnostics believe (or don’t believe) – I can only say what I hold to be true.
On the plus side, this isn’t very much, so this will probably be relatively short 
Continue reading Believing, Disbelieving, and Not Believing
The long and the short of the book is this: Jacobs attempts to live by the rules in the Bible as directly and completely as possible. In fact, it’s subtitled “One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible“, and that is a fairly accurate boast. The state of biblical interpretation being what it is, this is one of the most interesting books I’ve read in some time. How many people are willing to up-end their entire life, at least potentially, not what they do believe in, but for what they don’t?
| Jacobs, it becomes clear from the earliest pages of the book, is my kind of agnostic. In fact, he’s the kind of agnostic I’d be if I were more inclined to biblically literalist pranks (and considering how inclined in that direction I am, that’s saying something).
His own scepticism prevents him from really committing to the task insofar as having faith is concerned, but that’s what interests me (and him) most: his willingness to test his lack of faith, and how it changes over the course of his year. This is mad scientist experimenting on himself territory. Think of a ‘Super Size Me’ styled experiment conducted on a man’s soul rather than his digestive system, and you’re getting close to the idea. |
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Kudos are due to Jacobs both how thoroughly he throws himself into this research, how honestly he reports its effects on him, and how good a job he does avoiding the easy cheap shots against fundamentalists of all stripes.
All in all, this is a fascinating book that any agnostic (and anyone else, I would think) should find an interesting and thought-provoking read.
The most common characterisation of agnostics that I’ve come across, from both theists and atheists, is that agnostics are simply indecisive. (Rather amusingly, Richard Dawkins mentions this in “The God Delusion” – it seems that this is the one part of the Christian dogma he was taught in school that he has inexplicably failed to subject to his normal heroic scorn.) There is an overall sense that agnostics are somehow weak-willed, pusillanimous folk who really just need to show some backbone.
As if standing up to this pressure from both sides to make a decision – any decision being better than none, apparently – did not require considerable backbone.
We’re all familiar with managers and politicians who need to be seen to be making decisions, leading to an endless and pointless stream of changed decisions. The usual cure proposed is that they should make up their minds once and for all. (The idea that persisting in an error might well be worse than not making a decision – Iraq, anyone? – seems just a foreign.)
Let me ask you something: Why?
Why is it so important to make a decision, now, today, before all the facts are in? Generally speaking, in this life, anyone who wants you to do that is selling something – and hiding some nasty surprises in the small print. That’s what I would assume about any salesman or politician who tried to it on – why should I assume any differently just ‘cos it’s a preacher talking?
But let’s assume good faith (so to speak) on the part of those pushing us to make this decision.
I think they suffer from a failure of the imagination.
They don’t seem able to see that there might be more information on which to base decisions later on. They don’t want to admit that there will probably be more options to choose among if the decision is delayed (despite the fact that even the most cursory glance at religious history will show that there will most likely be some new splinter faith formed in the next five minutes or so).
Most insultingly, they don’t seem willing to acknowledge that choosing not to choose is a valid (or in extreme cases of this narrow-mindedness, a possible) choice.
It’s amazing how quickly, when challenged, Christians will retreat behind their platitudinous disclaimers. “God moves in mysterious ways” they’ll say. Or perhaps “we can never know the mind of God”. Or, of course, that old favourite, that it’s “ineffable”. Anything that doesn’t make sense is ineffable, which means that it does make sense, but only in the mind of God, so shut up and do as I tell you, you blasphemously questioning sinner.
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Continue reading Effin’ Ineffable
One of the most disturbing arguments against atheism and agnosticism that I come across on a regular basis is the idea that without some form of religious belief – and when I say religious, I note that the religions in particular that seem most amenable to this idea are Christianity and Islam – it is impossible to live a moral or ethical life.
Politely, this is balderdash. Less politely, the rest of this piece will consist of an unforgiving examination of why.
Continue reading Fear and Ethics
Or at least, I do. I think most agnostics would probably agree on that point – indeed, I daresay that not a few of us would add that those four words are pretty much the basis of the scientific method.
But doubt can leave one with little in the way of reliable facts. And action can only be based on reliable facts. Well, those or assumptions.
So starting here, I’m going to spend the next few entries of Militant Agnostic talking about the assumptions that I, as an agnostic, find it necessary to make in order to act with any particular certainty in this world. A lot of this is going to seem like philosophical hair-splitting to a lot of you, I suspect, but I make no apology for that. After all, I don’t see very many people at all apologising for their beliefs, so why should I?
Continue reading In Doubt We Trust
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