{"id":179,"date":"2004-11-23T09:23:02","date_gmt":"2004-11-23T14:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=179"},"modified":"2004-11-23T09:23:02","modified_gmt":"2004-11-23T14:23:02","slug":"atheistic-or-agnostic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200411\/atheistic-or-agnostic\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheistic or Agnostic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while back, agnosticism was a big fad. It was cool and all to have doubts about religion, but totally not cool to be extremist<\/i> about it. There could be a God, or they could be no God eh? To take a stand – theism or atheism – implies taking a belief; to trascend the realm of logic and provable assertions. Besides, there’s nothing wrong in covering your bases what?
\n
\nNow, I must admit that I find agnosticism sillier and more contemptible than theism. I find it quite annoying really. (Though not as bad as Das-Kapital thumping marxists I must admit)
\nIf you face this too, and seek a cure to the grave societal evil of agnostics springing up time and again and demanding a logical discussion<\/i> about agnosticism et al, just point them to this excellent interview<\/a> with Douglas Adams. One of his answers – <\/p>\n

People will then often say \u201cBut surely it\u2019s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?\u201d This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I\u2019ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.)<\/p>\n

Other people will ask how I can possibly claim to know? Isn\u2019t belief-that-there-is-not-a-god as irrational, arrogant, etc., as belief-that-there-is-a-god? To which I say no for several reasons. First of all I do not believe-that-there-is-not-a-god. I don\u2019t see what belief has got to do with it. I believe or don\u2019t believe my four-year old daughter when she tells me that she didn\u2019t make that mess on the floor. I believe in justice and fair play (though I don\u2019t know exactly how we achieve them, other than by continually trying against all possible odds of success). I also believe that England should enter the European Monetary Union. I am not remotely enough of an economist to argue the issue vigorously with someone who is, but what little I do know, reinforced with a hefty dollop of gut feeling, strongly suggests to me that it\u2019s the right course. I could very easily turn out to be wrong, and I know that. These seem to me to be legitimate uses for the word believe. As a carapace for the protection of irrational notions from legitimate questions, however, I think that the word has a lot of mischief to answer for. So, I do not believe-that-there-is-no-god. I am, however, convinced that there is no god, which is a totally different stance and takes me on to my second reason.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me \u201cWell, you haven\u2019t been there, have you? You haven\u2019t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid\u201d – then I can\u2019t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we\u2019d got, and we\u2019ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don\u2019t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don\u2019t think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. <\/p>\n

Note:<\/b> This is another instance of induction at work. Both theism and atheism are induced hypotheses. But sometimes, you do not just believe\/have faith<\/i> in an induced hypothesis, you are convinced of it.
\nFrequently this is the simplest hypothesis that fits the observation [called the Occam’s razor]
\nFor example, a child sees one human speak with his mouth. It sees another human speak with her mouth. The kid also speaks with its mouth. It is then convinced<\/i> of its induced hypothesis that all humans speak with their mouths. It does not merely have faith<\/i> that it is so. Douglas Adam’s question of whether moon is made of rock or cheese is another excellent and egregious example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back, agnosticism was a big fad. It was cool and all to have doubts about religion, but totally not cool to be extremist about it. There could be a God, or they could be no God eh? To take a stand – theism or atheism – implies taking a belief; to trascend the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}