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doug wrote:
As an avowed agnostic I have to put in my two cents. Agnosticism is the position that the true, ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable. In that sense,
I don’t see agnosticism as an oversimplification.Any other position requires one to either confirm or deny the existence of God (and a whole bunch of other things), and my brain won’t allow me to do either. Accepting that I can never objectively know anything about God does simplify things…What I meant by oversimplification is that for me personally “I don’t know” is just not a very satisfying answer, not that everyone else should feel the same way. To me agnostics are generally non-religious people without much faith or interest in sprituality which is fine if this suits their preferences. Almost everyone could be considered agnostic when it comes to knowing for sure about God or an afterlife. Some people are comfortable to just accept this and not worry about these unknowns anymore but personally I would rather speculate about the unknowns and try to guess the real answer to some of these questions. Basically, I am not an agnostic because I think the probability of God is higher than the probability that everything just happened this way by chance.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Basically, I am not an agnostic because I think the probability of God is higher than the probability that everything just happened this way by chance.
And I would say that Iamagnostic for precisely the same reasons. Well okay, maybe not forthose reasons, but I see the two things as 100% compatible. Everyone has a framework/lens/assumptive reality with witch to interpret the world.
doug wrote:Agnosticism is the position that the true, ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable. In that sense, I don’t see agnosticism as an oversimplification.
Remember that having a framework does not imply oversimplification, but it is necessary simplification. The brain doesn’t like to process random pieces of data so it looks for patterns. If it finds patterns or narratives then much of the raw data can be dismissed. Sometimes it looks for patterns where there are none. Sometimes it superimposes patterns and tries to make the data fit. The idea is that everyone does this in every area of life and it is not a bad thing.Doug, you state that the ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable and you are probably right from your perspective and framework. But what about Joseph Smith? Would a personal visit from God and Jesus change the “Unknown and likely unknowable” position. I imagine it would.
Roy wrote:
Doug, you state that the ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable and you are probably right from your perspective and framework. But what about Joseph Smith? Would a personal visit from God and Jesus change the “Unknown and likely unknowable” position. I imagine it would.That is assuming that JS actually had a visit. Even if we give JS the benefit of the doubt, according to JS own words, he had a “vision” which is very different than a visit, and that kind of experience would actually do this kind of thing that you described…
Quote:…The brain doesn’t like to process random pieces of data so it looks for patterns. If it finds patterns or narratives then much of the raw data can be dismissed. Sometimes it looks for patterns where there are none.
Sometimes it superimposes patterns and tries to make the data fit. The idea is that everyone does this in every area of life and it is not a bad thing. I believe JS did exactly that…he had a vision, and he used his prior knowledge and faith and reasoning to make the pieces fit in an attempt to make it all make sense. Perhaps in his mind he KNOWS — but that still does not make it factual. There are many people who claim they KNOW something and they actually believe they do on a personal level,
but that doesn’t make it any truer or real. GBH admitted that he has never spoken directly with God. None of the Apostles and Prophets have ever claimed to have spoken directly with God, they get their revelation the same way we get ours – through inspiration, feelings, visions, dreams, intuition…IMO, the ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable – and that would include those good men that we call apostles and prophets
Just to follow-up on what cwald said, it’s interesting that we don’t have any details at all, really, in the only vision recorded in our canon of things outside this earth’s sphere. Even Moses’ grand vision of / interview with God only showed him the expanse of human history and the extent of God’s creative work – and that’s assuming a degree of accuracy to the transmission of the vision itself. Hence, my tag line here at StayLDS.com.
doug wrote:As an avowed agnostic I have to put in my two cents. Agnosticism is the position that the true, ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable. In that sense, I don’t see agnosticism as an oversimplification. Any other position requires one to either confirm or deny the existence of God (and a whole bunch of other things), and my brain won’t allow me to do either. Accepting that I can never objectively know anything about God does simplify things, in a sense, because it provides another place to file things. Unfortunately the ‘I don’t know’ file is getting pretty full. I am astonished from time to time when I note the things that once seemed obvious to me that I no longer have any attachment to, and it makes me wonder where I am heading.
All this talk about markets reminds me of a quote from Peter Lynch who quipped that if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. I think I have been trying to set the ‘data’ free to see where it leads, not in the expectation that I will find ultimate truth, but just that maybe I will find something that works for me. So far the experiment has been mostly successful. Most people don’t think that way, and pretty much all of my difficulties are due to the incongruity of trying to interact effectively with those people.
I really liked this post Doug. The quote about torturing the data made me laugh… I often tell my students it isn’t that you can’t make an argument…it is how hard you need to work to do so that should tip you off!
I agree with you that agnosticism is not an oversimplification. In fact, think the limitations of our perception and cognition impels us to acknowledge we are all agnostics–just some more self-aware than others.
Enoch wrote:doug wrote:Agnosticism is the position that the true, ultimate nature of things is unknown and likely unknowable. In that sense, I don’t see agnosticism as an oversimplification. Any other position requires one to either confirm or deny the existence of God (and a whole bunch of other things), and my brain won’t allow me to do either.
I agree with you that agnosticism is not an oversimplification. In fact, think the limitations of our perception and cognition impels us to acknowledge we are all agnostics–just some more self-aware than others.When I think of agnostics I identify this more with the connotations of not really believing in God and either not liking religion or not really caring about it rather than being a case of honestly admitting that you don’t know the answer to questions that it seems like no one really knows about for sure even though many have strong opinions one way or the other. It is absolutely a simplification to basically give up on considering these questions simply because the evidence is inconclusive, people need to make decisions based on incomplete information all the time so they make their best guess.
DA, being open with the idea that one is making her best guess without really knowing is exactly what many agnostics would say they are doing – not denying either of the posibilities, but rather just stating their uncertainty. If I was being a parser, which we all know I never do
😳 , I would separate agnostics into two groups: atheistic agnostics and deistic agnostics – obviously based on which way their tendencies lean. Do they think there probably is a God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know – or do they think there probably is no God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know? Either way, I’m fine with them identifying as agnostic.I define myself as an agnostic theist–I really do believe in God for several reasons, but I don’t know how to define God. The idea that God is a conscious, concerned, more actualized being is a hope for me rather than a belief, even though I feel that hope is justified. I would consider myself to a agnostic deist. Enoch – just curious, why would you classify yourself as agnostic THEIST? Just the word you used, or is there a concrete difference in your opinion?
cwald wrote:That is assuming that JS actually had a visit. Even if we give JS the benefit of the doubt, according to JS own words, he had a “vision” which is very different than a visit, and that kind of experience would actually do this kind of thing that you described…(snip) …I believe JS did exactly that…he had a vision, and he used his prior knowledge and faith and reasoning to make the pieces fit in an attempt to make it all make sense. Perhaps in his mind he KNOWS — but that still does not make it factual. There are many people who claim they KNOW something and they actually believe they do on a personal level, but that doesn’t make it any truer or real .
You are exactly right but, you see, we are interpreting the accounts of people we have never met from a different time and we are using our own life experiences as a filter to understanding. However we view the first vision experience has absolutely no influence on what actually happened. Our doubts do not make it any less true or real. And what actually happened cannot be known (objectively) with the tools currently available to us. If God or an angel appeared to us to tell more, well that might drastically change our interpretation through new and added life experiences. But until then we carry on with the life experiences available to us.
Enoch wrote:With Brian, I have to strongly agree that it comes down to what kind of truth you are looking for. Remember, for most of the world’s history people didn’t concern themselves with “what really happened.” Most people don’t even now, not really. How many people are aware that we constantly edit and spin our own memories?!
Enoch wrote:I agree with you that agnosticism is not an oversimplification. In fact, think the limitations of our perception and cognition impels us to acknowledge we are all agnostics–just some more self-aware than others.
Old-Timer wrote:DA, being open with the idea that one is making her best guess without really knowing is exactly what many agnostics would say they are doing – not denying either of the posibilities, but rather just stating their uncertainty.
If I was being a parser, which we all know I never do , I would separate agnostics into two groups: atheistic agnostics and deistic agnostics – obviously based on which way their tendencies lean. Do they think there probably is a God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know – or do they think there probably is no God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know? Either way, I’m fine with them identifying as agnostic.
I agree with all that has been said and liked it so much that I choose to quote it. I would only add that while being self aware of uncertainty is generally a good thing, dogmatically insisting that because we don’t “know” then it is impossible to “know” is not.
Roy wrote:I would only add that while being self aware of uncertainty is generally a good thing, dogmatically insisting that because we don’t “know” then it is impossible to “know” is not.
Hmmm? – something to think about for sure.
To echo Roy, as I’ve said elsewhere with regard to certainty and uncertainty, insisting that others can’t be certain because we aren’t certain (“Nobody can know! Be more objective!”) – and that a true understanding of Truth is impossible – is the exact same position as what we decry when others with whom we disagree do it (“Everyone can know! Just have more faith!”) to us. It’s hard to let go of certainty – and it’s just as hard for those who embrace uncertainty for themselves to do in relation to others as it is for those who embrace certainty for themselves. One coin; two sides.
Old-Timer wrote:DA,
being open with the idea that one is making her best guess without really knowing is exactly what many agnostics would say they are doing – not denying either of the posibilities, but rather just stating their uncertainty.If I was being a parser, which we all know I never do…I would separate agnostics into two groups: atheistic agnostics and deistic agnostics – obviously based on which way their tendencies lean.
Do they think there probably is a God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know– or do they think there probably is no God but just aren’t comfortable saying they know? Either way, I’m fine with them identifying as agnostic.Right, I’m not saying it is necessarily inaccurate for someone that believes in God to call themselves an agnostic I guess I just don’t understand why anyone that believes in God and is remotely interested in religion would really want to call themselves an agnostic. To me that sounds almost like someone who believes in altruism and objective morality calling themselves a “hedonist” simply because everyone is motivated by pleasure and pain to some extent they just define these things differently than the bad hedonists. Even if this is technically accurate the problem is that the hedonist label has negative connotations of people being selfish and irresponsible in an unhealthy way so it is just not a very respectable thing to admit to much less be proud of.
Maybe agnosticism sounds like a good or sensible position to us in part because we have been encouraged for so long to claim that we know things we really don’t so it is refreshing to finally admit that we don’t really know what we thought we did. However, the problem is that when religious people hear the word agnostic many will not think very highly of it at all because as far as they’re concerned you might as well be an atheist in that case. Many atheists don’t really respect this position either because they see it as basically a cop-out for indecisive fence-sitters that can’t make up their mind. My point is that sometimes labels mean more to people than their basic textbook definition which is why I don’t really identify that much with agnostics even though I agree with their basic point that it’s alright to admit we don’t know what to think sometimes.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Maybe agnosticism sounds like a good or sensible position to us
in part because we have been encouraged for so long to claim that we know things we really don’t so it is refreshing to finally admit that we don’t really know what we thought we did.However, the problem is that when religious people hear the word agnostic many will not think very highly of it at all because as far as they’re concerned you might as well be an atheist in that case. Many atheists don’t really respect this position either because they see it as basically a cop-out for indecisive fence-sitters that can’t make up their mind.My point is that sometimes labels mean more to people than their basic text-book definition which is why I don’t really identify that much with agnostics even though I agree with their basic point. This is right on. Both for the reason why I call myself an agnostic, as well as the consequence for doing so has caused, and how others respond, both in and out of the church, when I have the conversion.
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