Self-described agnostics are hurting America?*

This post was prompted by the entry That Old Chestnut over at the SGU blog. I started typing a comment for the blog post, but it quickly expanded beyond the scope of just a comment.

I've given the atheism versus agnosticism issue a great deal of thought recently. I think I've hit upon several different problems that I believe cause this confusion: different definitions, different questions, real world applicability, social pressure and pronunciation (didn't expect that one, did you?).

Atheism and agnosticism do not have to be defined to be mutually exclusive.

I prefer to use mutually compatible definitions rather than mutually exclusive definitions of atheism and agnosticism. My compatible definition says atheism is not believing theistic claims are true and agnosticism is believing it's not possible to know whether theistic claims are true or false. The exclusive definition I see often used says atheism is knowing that theistic claims are false and agnosticism is believing it's not possible to know whether theistic claims are true or false. In my experience self described atheists are more likely to use the compatible definitions and self described agnostics (and theists) are more likely to use the exclusive definitions.

The exclusive definition seems unreasonable to me. I can easily not believe a claim at the same time that I admit that it was formulated in such a way as to be unprovable. There are many examples of this out there already including the Invisible Pink Unicorn (BBHHH), an orbiting teapot and the dragon in my garage.

There is far more to it than that, of course. My point isn't to craft the definitions that will finally settle the argument, but to draw attention to the compatible versus exclusive definitions problem. I think that is a far more pressing problem than the specific definitions of the individual terms. For more definition fun, look up the word "non-theist". A word I find totally superfluous. Or even the rare "adeism".

The answer should match the question.

Agnosticism is a perfectly acceptable answer to a perfectly acceptable question. The problem is that the question it answers is not the question that's usually asked. Atheism answers the "do you believe in any gods?" question. Agnosticism answers the "do you believe it is possible to know whether or not there are any gods?" question.

Unlike some people on the internet, I do not view agnosticism as a weak position. It is commonly viewed as such because it is often used to answer the former question rather than the latter (which, again, is rarely asked). Using it in that way is being evasive. It seems disingenuous to me to try and pass off an answer to a question you weren't asked as an acceptable answer to the question you were asked.

Agnosticism does not apply to real life very easily.

Allah, just to pick a god, wants you to pray 5 times a day towards Mecca. I'm guessing anybody who describes themselves as agnostic doesn't do that. Why don't they do that? Is it because they don't believe in Allah? Or is it because they believe it is impossible to know if Allah exists or not?

This would be a good place to say that I don't really see enough difference between not believing in gods and believing that there aren't any gods. Whether you don't believe in Allah or believe that there is no Allah, you're still not praying 5 times a day towards Mecca. It's like the old saying "actions speak louder than words". A person might describe themselves as agnostic all they want, but their actions will reveal whether they believe theistic claims are true or false.

The idea that theism is not compatible with life in the modern world is not a new one. Educated, enlightened individuals figured that out back when the 18th century was the modern world. I have come to see that in many ways agnosticism is like the modern equivalent of deism. Agnosticism doesn't really work when applied to the usual gods of the common religions. The ones that impregnate virgins, send down angels, set dietary requirements, count the number of daily prayers, etc. Agnosticism only works when applied to more laissez-faire deities. Laissez-faire deities like those proposed by deists.

For another example, take Pascal's wager. In real life everyone decides which theistic claims to believe in and which ones not to believe in. No theist is eating a communion wafer while wearing a set of temple garments after praying 5 times a day towards Mecca. And no agnostic is eating half a communion wafer while wearing half a set of temple garments after praying 2.5 times a day towards Mecca. There aren't enough hours in the day to play it safe and honor the rituals and strictures of every religion, choices have to be made.

There is tremendous social pressure to be religious in this country.

When someone asks you "do you believe in god?", it has long been established in American society that the only socially acceptable answer is yes. Replying with no is a recipe for disaster in most of the country. There is tremendous social value in giving any answer that isn't immediately understood as a negative response.

That social pressure can lead people to interpret the question into something they can give a vaguely positive response to. It's easy to take the word "god" and define it in such a way that it's fuzzy enough to be unprovable. What if god were some computer program and we were all running in it? What if god just kicked off the big bang and then wandered off somewhere? What if the big bang was god and we are all but parts of god trying to rediscover ourselves? I can't think of any way to test those assertions.

But here is where real life intrudes again. When the person asking "do you believe in god?" is carrying a bible and wearing a cross, I think it should be pretty easy to figure out which god it is they're talking about. When you answer their question with "I'm agnostic". You hear yourself saying "I can conceive of something i can call god that I cannot know exists or not". But they hear you saying "I don't know that that Yahweh doesn't exist". And that is probably not what you truly believe and doesn't really answer the question that was asked of you. I just don't think that's being honest. (Or I think that's being dishonest. Again, I don't see that much difference between the positions.)

Look at the state of religion in America today. Christians and Jews are not ashamed to say that they do not believe that Mohammed was a prophet of Allah. Jews and Muslims are not ashamed to believe that Jesus was not the son of Yahweh. But not believing in the theistic claims of any religion is something that must be hidden from society. Like it was something shameful. I think that an America where people are truly free to believe or not believe in any and all religions is something to strive for. I think that giving any answer to the "do you believe in god" question that is not unambiguously negative, when you otherwise clearly lack any such beliefs, is not being helpful. I'm not saying that self-described agnostics are hurting America. But, to be honest here, I am strongly implying it.

Pronounce it "a-gnostic" not "ag-nostic".

I believe (but I don't know!) that part of the problem is that agnostic is commonly pronounced "ag-nostic" rather than "a-gnostic". That doesn't make much sense to me as atheism is commonly pronounced "a-theism" rather than "at-heism". This makes it clear to most people, by use of the "a-" prefix, that atheism is a negative position. Agnosticism doesn't have this problem as there isn't an "ag-" prefix in the English language, much less one that means a negative position.

Of course, when I say negative position, I do not mean that atheism implies that you should grab a gun and shoot as many people as possible before killing yourself because there won't be any theistic ramifications for your actions. I mean that atheism implies a belief that theism is false. I don't think most people recognize "ag-nosticism" as implying anything, really. And even "a-gnosticism" just implies a belief that gnosticism is false. Which doesn't mean much of anything since there aren't many gnostics around today. I think there might be some subtle psychological aversion to atheism just because of the negativity in it's "a-" prefix.

I have no data on this pronunciation matter; I just never understood the "ag-nostic" pronunciation.