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Originally Posted by Kenneth  Before recently, I leaned atheist for the past few years of my life. But a little studies in the philosophy of logic has me gravitating towards agnosticism. So what kind of agnostic am I (if I am one at all...) if I deny 100% the existence of all the gods, both dead and alive, that human cultures have invented, yet I remain agnostic towards the general idea of a God who may have been the force behind the point of singularity (Big Bang), and hence the existence of the universe ultimately?
I get confused when one time I read that agnosticism is really about the existence of God being "unknowable," and then I read that agnostics can be atheistic about some gods. It seems more reasonable to me that God is not so much "unknowable" as it is that our methods for detecting him are still so primitive. Isn't it more likely that we just don't have the technology and know-how to detect a God if he exists, rather than to say that he's "unknowable"? What does that mean exactly? At one point in time, humans didn't know about evolution and the Big Bang, but eventually time and its corresponding advances in knowledge enlightened our understanding. Maybe some day it will enlighten our understanding about God, or show us that God never existed... | First, read Huxley's statements on agnosticism; that will clear up a lot for you. You also have a misunderstanding of atheism; you cannot deny the existence of gods merely by being an atheist when all that is required to be an atheism is to not believe in god. What you're describing is strong-atheism.
You cannot say you deny the existence of any god, Christian, deist or whatever and call yourself an agnostic unless you want to be a hypocrite (and many "agnostics" are indeed). You will have a great task at hand proving there are any religions invented by human cultures.
I think you're right about God not being inherently unknowable and I agree that we are merely missing data on the creature if indeed exists. What it means to be unknowable I can express like this, say if modern scientists visitied another universe where all life was silicone-based. If a silicone based life form was crawling right in front of them would they have the tools to recognize it as life? Perhaps God is right in front of us, all around and some of us just don't have the tools.
Welcome to the board,
Vinter
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And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.” |