Philosoft

Certainly not, but neither do I think by calling oneself an "agnostic," a person actually means, "I literally do not know whether or not I believe in God."

Absolutely. I think this is an important part of any philosophy.
I'll get back to you on this one.

Bill

In the view expressed by Professor Drange's essay, you can NEVER merely define yourself (or "label" yourself) as either an atheist, agnostic, or noncognitivist with respect to "God talk" without first defining what the word "God" actually means. In this sense, if the word "God" refers to "Jesus Christ" or "The Holy Trinity," then I'm an atheist, as I firmly believe there is more than sufficient evidence to disprove the existence of "Jesus Christ" or "The Holy Trinity" as being "God."

But with more-fuzzy definitions of what the word "God" means, particularly limiting the definition of the word "God" to merely being coincident with the so-called "First Cause" of the existence of our universe, there the evidence is not so clear, and based upon either Jim Still's essay on Wittgenstein or my own essay based upon the argument for anti-realism, agnosticism is logically mandated with respect to any such "fuzzy God concept."

In other words, there are claims made with respect to Christianity that are clearly not only falsifiable, but are in fact falsified in light of modern scientific knowledge, so as to be able to declare the Christian idea of "God" to be false. But with respect to a far simpler claim of the existence of a "First Cause" of our universe, there is no presently-reasonable way to falsify the claim that such a "First Cause" exists, and thus (with no pertinant evidence to evaluate) agnosticism with respect to a "First Cause" is virtually mandated. (See, for instance, the two essays I refer to in the above paragraph.)

Accordingly, while I'm clearly an atheist to any Christian, to my friends here in the freethought movement, I'm about as committed an agnostic as will ever exist.

== Bill

Bill

The answer to your question is clearly "yes!" In fact, I suspect that there are a plethora of such answers, as a clear reading of Professor Drange's essay on this topic will disclose. Please read Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism by Professor Ted Drange. (While Professor Drange and I might disagree on the definition of "agnostic" he proposes, he remains a good and solid friend, and a strong supporter of the Internet Infidels!)

== Bill

beastmaster

Well, maybe not. Skepticism is important.

But, unlike your theoretical person, if *I* ever started calling myself an agnostic, it would be because, quite literally, I no longer understood enough about god to form an inference as to its probable existence or non-existence. And I can realistically *imagine* that happening -- it's not just a trivial, theoretical footnote. God is a very slippery concept and I can see it completely slipping away out of my grasp.

Philosoft

See, I don't think atheism necessarily entails a universal "inference as to it's probable... non-existence." I feel comfortable defining atheism as any lack of belief, regardless of the strength of the conviction. It enables one to outright reject most conceptual manifestations of the J-C God, while maintaining the ability to alter one's belief system based on future evidence.
Absolutely, and I think most staunch atheists would acknowledge this possibility.

Conchobar

Agnosticism is a rational assertion that one needs not have an opion on every silly hypothesis made by various self-appointed prophets, when there is no evidence for or against the hypothesis.

Conchobar

starling

Will clarify this in another thread, but a better question might be "Is there God?"

When someone answers "yes" to that question, then they are some form of theist, organized religion or something else. When someone answers "no" to that question, they are an atheist. Then there's people like me, who look at that question and can't answer yes, or no. I call that agnostic.

The law of noncontradiction doesn't state that everything has to be in black and white. It just says you can't simultaneously believe in God and not believe in God. I might have my doubts about the validity of that law, but those doubts would be outside the realm of logic since all logic depends on the notion that (a and not a) is false.

That's just the thing. Agnostic literally means "not aware." (A- for the not, gnostic for the awareness). As near as I've been able to learn, obscure sects/cults aside, gnosis is the awareness or inner knowledge of some sort of universal truth or spiritual guidance. Agnostics do not have that.

The problem with that question is both atheists and agnostics are going to say the same thing: "No." It's a fallacy of false dilemma: "No" can refer to both lack of belief or belief in lack. The response "I'm agnostic" is usually what I use when I'm tired of being grouped in with people who believe things, atheist or not.

Normal

It is wrong to assume agnostics do not believe in god. An agnostic person can have personal belief in god yet claim to be unable to determine if a god exists.

CX

Huxley coined the term "Agnostic" in the 19th century to describe the position that states that the question of god's existence is insoluable. In other words that we cannot, in principle, know whether god exists or not. In a sense it was a tongue cheek dig at the intelligentisia of the era who pretended to some special knowledge of the world.

There's more here

LadyTricia

Believe it.

I call myself agnostic for the time being because I am not in a position to thoroughly research. I am in a strict fundamentally Christian home, and I am not allowed to believe anything different without being punished. So I will call myself agnostic (or a freethinker, to be safe) until I go to college and progress from there.

I know I have an abnormal situation (sort of), but I can certainly understand the reason why other people would be called agnostic.

~Tricia