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Is agnosticism intellectual cowardice?

of course there's tons of similarities between most all religions/cults (even ignoring that the world's dominated by teh 3 abrahamic's). if you look at *why* man looks for things like religion, and look at the mindset of those who promote religion, it's obvious there'll be incredible overlap. for the most part they're all different flavors of the same <lol i'll be nice and leave these words out ;P >
 
Sweet P said:
I haven't read all the replies to this thread, but I consider agnosticism to the most reasonable approach to spirituality/religion. Nobody can prove the existence of a god or higher power, but nor can anyone prove the non-existence of one either. The way I see it, atheism requires almost as much faith as theism does. I'm an agnostic, simply because I believe the existence and nature of a higher power is unknowable by reason, and cannot be verified by anything except subjective experience. It's certainly far from "intellectual cowardice."
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intellectual cowardice implys that a conclusion/answer can be known by rational means. in regards to spirituality, the belief necessary for non-belief is equal to belief in a higher power. faced with the vast infinte unknown asking that question is accompanied with, i don't blame people for flipping the metaphorical coin. Can't say i never was in that position.

Belief breeds comfort, and if you function better choosing using non-rational means (theism, atheism), then by all means choose to do that. just know its a personal, private decision everyone is entitled to, and don't act in a way that infringes upon that right. thats why organized religion is so abrasve to me.

To me, it was very hard to admit to myself that the unknowable was more pervasive then i assumed. Judging others not on their beliefs, but their actions in regards to how their beliefs affect that is the only way to pass critisism on the two dualogies, theism/atheism. but that isn't really about what someone believes, but how they act.

you can go your whole life believing what you want, the minute you use your subjective beliefs to rationalize actions in a way unkind/unreasonable to others is when you cross the line.

All religions have their fair bit of truth, and when jesus said act upon others as they would act upon you, and love thy neighbor, he was dead on. Too bad more people diddn't get that message.
 
daytryptr said:
All religions have their fair bit of truth, and when jesus said act upon others as they would act upon you, and love thy neighbor, he was dead on. Too bad more people diddn't get that message.
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yup. most religions have a great deal of proper morality, it's just a shame that it's bundled up with bad advice and superstition :/
 
The question of what a god might be is way, WAY more interesting and fruitful than the question of whether one exists.

ebola
 
I don't see how one can properly discuss/consider/etc one aspect without the other.
 
HERMETIC-mini.jpg
 
^ What does this piece mean/represent?
Two backs of the same coin? Faceless un-confrontable something something?
Also it kind of looks like it says "God-damn", if you read across "god-adam" lol.
I am intrigued.
 
It could mean whatever you want it to. It's art. However to me it symbolizes a person misrepresented as a false image in a mirror. God is judging a misrepresented figuration of Himself. "For behold the Kingdom of Heaven is within you" etc, etc. Also it looks like the book is "Hermeticism"... "As above so below".
 
*Squints* Fuck you've got an eye! Hermeticism aye... *stares blankly into distance*
Lol what would I do without google.
Thanks! <3 <3
 
Sounds more like spiritual nihilism to me.

Quite different, less-charged with insults; more accurate title imo.
 
The greatest difficulty in discussions on the existence of a deity is the intellectual chasm between theists and non-theists. This is not an inference that atheists have greater mental capacities, just that the ability to question the existence of a god is not fathomable to many who have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into whatever their religious beliefs are. That is the cowardice. The validity of anyone's argument for or against anything demands the acceptance of questioning that information from which it was formulated.
 
I would say it's not.
You can't apply logic to something where it cannot be applied. Concepts like Gods and Spirits, by their very nature, live beyond our own realm of existence. Maybe Native Spirit animals don't exist, Maybe Christian God or Islamic God doesn't exist, maybe the Greek Pantheon doesn't exist, but you cannot concretely prove that Spirits, Gods or a singular Creator does not exist.
In my mind, it's not intellectual cowardice, it's simply realizing that logic cannot be applied to something exists beyond its realm. Calling it fence sitting is totally wrong, at least to me, because I have chosen a place to stand, that there is no real way to know.
many people in the past have dabbled in Magic rituals, and have come to supposedly become briefly clairvoyant, or had encounters with angels and demons. We only have the first hand accounts of the people engaged in the ritual, maybe they really did contact magical entities, however on the flip, most often they had run their bodies dry through fasting, sleep deprivation, ingesting toxins, and drug use. was it just an hallucination, or did they really contact the 'other side', or some strange combination of the two?
 
let me tell you something my spirit guide told me while i was on plateau sigma: tomorrow, if you want, you can rationalize this experience away - that's what rationalization does. thing is, just because you can rationalize anything THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT IRRATIONAL THINGS NEVER HAPPEN.

in some cases, inventing 'logical' explanations for things is a way of being afraid of saying 'i don't know, and maybe there is no answer'. if you're a real scientist, you understand that for some questions, you just have to leave the question mark, rather than inventing some crap that's nonsense and makes you feel better.
 
"The only thing I'm 100% sure of is that I can't be 100% sure of anything". Following that thought, agnosticism is not intellectual cowardice. I don't think Dawkins was addressing the abstract aspects of belief, as I believe he's intelligent enough to know that if you can't disprove something, you can't say that it doesn't exist for sure. I believe his focus is on the societal aspects of beliefs, because as said in OP, agnosticism is like sitting on the fence - it's too mild to cause much change. You have to be more radical, e.g atheist, to oppose organized religion and thereby improve society. So in this sense it is some sort of cowardice, but certainly not intellectual.
 
A damn shame that you've got to act more radically to cause for a change nowadays. Eh, delusion.
 
You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

-Rush
 
I adhere to naturalistic pantheism.

The universe is the physical form of God, math/logic is the metaphysical form of God.

All is God, and we are all God's parts.

Redfine God this way, and the only question is philosophical in nature.
1. Is the universe a projection of my own imagination (in which case I am God, solipsism)?
2. Is the universe a projection of our collective imagination (in which case, we are all God, reality is based on a consensus of beliefs of conscious inhabitants, collective consciousness yadda yadda)?
3. Is the universe self-manifesting and an independent entity (reality/universe never changes)?

1 is unfalsifiable, and thus irrelevant to science.
2 is only possible if consensus of belief/reality is still bound by math and logic (no changes to the "rules" agreed upon unless they're consistent with previously established beliefs/rules/observations observed by conscious inhabitants of reality).
3 is what appears to be true.

2 is the most interesting to think about, consequence wise; 3 is the most likely.

2 is what appears true psychologically (subjectively) when you look at psychosis or echo chambers people put themselves into. They build their own reality bubble they've created with those they choose to agree with. Cognitive biases, etc, preventing them from observing the "true" reality (which is what everyone outside of their bubble agrees on).
 
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