While I was watching a documentary on the history of religion recently, my sister said to me “but aren’t you an Atheist?”¹ At the time I replied, “no, I’m Agnostic”. It has made me think, however, about the nature of Atheism and Agnosticism.

While I generally describe myself as “agnostic”, and avoid describing myself as “atheist”, I could be viewed as both, depending on your definitions. As there seem to be many different views on what Atheism and Agnosticism entails, let me be very clear about what I take the meaning of these words to be.

Belief

Definitions for both Atheism and Agnosticism rely on the notion of “belief”, which itself can be contentious at times. For my purposes, when I say “belief”, I refer “to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true”² Belief, here, does not imply any lack of certainty – even though it might sometimes in common usage.

Atheism

Atheism, it seems, can mean many things – but broadly it seems to fit one of two definitions:

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God³, or
2. a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods⁴

The first definition is the one which I had always taken (I’ll call this “hard” Atheism), and it is why I have never described myself as an “Atheist”. To me, to hold a belief that these is no god is just as illogical as a belief that there is a God – possibly even more so. While it may (hypothetically) be possible one day to prove that there is a God (perhaps he shows himself in some incontestable way, or we find a scientific method for exploring “heaven”) proving the universal non-existence of something is impossible (we can prove something doesn’t exist in one place – say, a box that’s empty – but proving universal non-existence is very different).

The second (“soft”) definition of Atheism, however, is one I’d not been aware of until the last year or so. It seems this definition is common among Atheists, but in my experience it is certainly not the generally understood definition of Atheism. In this definition, Atheism is not the opposite to theism or religion, but an absence of it. It is in this sense that I am an Atheist, although without qualification, I still feel the word “atheist” misrepresents my views.

Agnosticism

This is where we get to Agnosticism. Agnostic means, literally, “without knowledge” and as such an Agnostic holds they they have no knowledge about the existence of God. This is not necessarily a “fence sitting” position, however, as Agnosticism (like Atheism) can be viewed in two subtly different ways:

1. a religious orientation of doubt⁵, or
2. a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God⁶

Certainly using this first definition (“soft” agnosticism), one could argue that the holder of this world-view is “fence sitting” – possibly still exploring or reasoning to discover the truth, or perhaps unable or unwilling to. But again, the second definition offers an entirely different position. A “hard” agnostic does not simply doubt the existence of God (and may, in fact, have faith that there is a God) but makes the claim that it is impossible to ever know if God does or does not exist.

When I describe myself as “Agnostic”, I make the claim that it is impossible to know if any of the Gods described by traditional religions exist. I am also, however, open to the idea that perhaps “God” (if he exists) is nothing like that described by traditional religion, and therefore may one day be provable. For me, the problem with the traditional notions of God are that proponents of these Gods leave no way to ever truly prove his existence – as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke goes:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

The Christian God, therefore, will always be out of the reach of science because as soon as it becomes answerable by science (no matter what the outcome), God will be relegated (by some, at least) to an even further “far away place ” so as to ensure the existence of God can never be proven.

So in this sense, I am a “hard” agnostic when it comes to Gods like that of Christianity (only because no one is willing to say exactly where this God might exist) but a “soft” agnostic when it comes to other possible higher powers. Either way, the existence of any such higher power seems unlikely (but certainly not impossible).

1. I’ll ignore the obvious issue with the suggestion that Atheists aren’t allowed to have an interest in religion… for now.
2. Schwitzgebel, Eric, “Belief“, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
3. WordNet Definition: Atheism
4. WordNet Definition: Atheism
5. WordNet Definition: Agnosticism
6. WordNet Definition: Agnosticism

1. Read The Big Religion Chart,
   or
2. Read this:

TAOISM – Shit happens
CONFUCIANISM – Confucius says: “Shit happens.”
BUDDHISM – If shit happens, it isn’t really shit.
ZEN – What is the sound of shit happening?
HINDUISM – This shit happened before.
ISLAM – If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
PROTESTANT – Let shit happen to someone else.
CATHOLIC – If shit happens, you deserve it.
JUDAISM – Why does this shit always happen to us?
JEHOVAH’S WITNESS – Let us in and we’ll tell you why shit happens
HARE KRISHNA – Shit happens. Shit happens. Shit happens.
PAGAN – Shit is part of the goddess, too.
SCIENTOLOGY – This book gets rid of your shit.
EXISTENTIALISM – Everything is shit, so let’s be depressed.
NIHILISM – Everything is shit, so let’s blow it all up.
SATANISM – I made this shit happen and I’m glad about it.
SOLIPSISM – This shit happens to me alone, but I am the cause of it
ATHEISM – I don’t believe this shit.
AGNOSTICISM – What is this shit?
NEW AGE – For $300 I can help you achieve Shit Happens Awareness

• Heed the word of God – An amusing commentary about George Bush’s claims that God is speaking to him
• I Believe In Evolution, Except For The Whole Triassic Period – From The Onion: “Scientific reasoning can explain nearly every stage of life from the Big Bang to the present day. I say ‘nearly’ because the period commonly known as the Triassic period was quite obviously the work of the Lord God Almighty.”
• The Atheist Delusion – A satirical response to Richard Dawkins’ “God Delusion”
• The Official God FAQ – Visit this page to find out everything you need to know about God
• God is Imaginary – 50 simple proofs – It is easy to prove to yourself that God is imaginary. The evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs
• World Religions Religion Statistics Geography Church Statistics – A collection of statistics and religious geography citations
• You Know You’re An Atheist When…
• Ars takes a field trip: the Creation Museum – The new “Creationist Museum” in Kentucky – “This walk through history museum will be a wonderful alternative to the evolutionary natural history museums that are turning countless minds against the gospel of Christ”

I came across a post by Paul Hartigan on Open Source Theology recently which outlined 7 reasons that make it hard to believe in traditional christianity. I think his arguments can be summarised by two very common theological issues, and one I’m not sure I’ve thought of before, but is important none the less:

1. The problem of evil – why does God allow bad things to happen? Even worse, why does God allow bad things to happen in his name?
2. Conflict between claims made by different religions (and even conflict between branches of Christianity), some of which seem entirely illogical (“how can Christ be both God and man”)
3. Problems with the belief that the universe (as large as it is) could somehow “revolve around” one short period in history, or one particular person on earth. In other words, what could possibly make us (the followers of religion “x”) so special? (Jesus in a universe of 125 Billion Galaxies)

I think Paul makes some very valid points, and these can be further generalised to almost all religions (not just Christianity). The problem of evil definitely causes issues with and idea of a God that is both omnipotent and benevolent, which it seems many religions (the Abrahamic ones, at least) claim God is. There are definitely other ideas about what God could be that would render the problem of evil void – but these ideas are not generally labelled “God”. It’s partly for this reason that I take issue with the traditional views of God, and probably why I try (although often fail) to not use the word God when discussing my views of spirituality.

Conflict between religions is definitely an issue that I’ve had problems with myself, as I tried to address in my posts “Religious Eclecticism” and “The Eclectic Agnostic’s Wager“, but it doesn’t cause issue for specific spiritual beliefs, the conflict occurs when you must accept the whole package. Taking the simplest ideas or teachings from any religion, and it’s likely you’ll find the same idea or teaching in another (although, almost certainly from a different perspective). The “golden rule”, or “ethic of reciprocity” is found in many variations by many spiritual leaders, for example.

On the third point – there seems to be an eclectic way of accepting the leaders of all religions without needing to think that the universe revolves around any one teacher or religion. What if every person is inspired by (or, “is”) “God”, and the ones we call spiritual leaders are just more in touch with that connection? Each person would interpret this connection through their own life experiences, and each would therefore describe the same “truth” in different ways.

What do you think would happen if we could get Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius and every other spiritual leader in a room together – would they see mostly eye-to-eye, or would there be massive disagreements? Personally, I’m sure each would have his own (human) views that differ from the others, but I believe they would each agree that every one of them is fighting for the same cause.

Yes, I have a problem with religion – because each one seems to take the word of their prophet, God or leader as the one true interpretation of “God’s message”. I certainly don’t have an issue with the teachings of any of our great spiritual leaders, I think they were all attempting the same thing – to make this (and possibly the next) world a better place. We need to stop fighting about which religion is right or better, and just learn from each of them.

Edit 11 June: Right after posting this I came across another article which expands on the 3rd point perfectly – An Exercise in Perspective.

Pascal’s wager goes something like this:

Living your life as if God exists will bring infinite benefit (you go to heaven) if, in fact God exists. If it turns out that God does not exist, then you haven’t missed out on much. If, on the other hand, you were to live as if God didn’t exist, but you turned out to be wrong, then you’d suffer infinitely (hell and damnation). Even if you were right about God not existing, the benefit you’d gain while you were alive would be minimal compared to eternal damnation. In a more graphical format, Pascal’s wager looks like this:

The Wikipedia article on Pascal’s Wager notes a few rebuttals to this wager, most notably that Christianity is not the only religion which claims God will judge you based on your beliefs. Pascal also assumes that God rewards belief, and even if he did one might assume that God wouldn’t be too happy with simply accepting his existence based on the probability of damnation as this is not a “true belief”.

While I don’t claim to have the answers to all these problems, it seems that, given many of the world’s major religions share some fundamental aspects (belief in one ultimate power, be it Allah, God or Brahman, for example) it might be easier to accept a more general belief in a higher power than in the God of a specific religion. Let’s look again at the options discussed in my last post:

1. The teachings of all religions are wrong
2. The teachings of some religions are wrong
3. The teachings of all but one religion are wrong
   or
4. All religions are right

If all but one religion is “wrong”, then we have such a small chance of choosing the right one, it hardly seems worth it. Similarly, if all religions are “wrong”, then we have even less chance unless we try something radically different. If all religions are right, however, or even if many of them are acceptable to God, then by following the fundamental teachings of as many as possible, you would increase your chances of entering heaven.

Dear “God ….” fans,

I’ll be speaking to the Atheist Society in a couple of weeks.

“Atheists’ Distortion of the History of Science”

Tuesday 12 June 2007
8 pm
Trades Hall
54 Victoria St (crnr Lygon Street)
atheist_agnostic@lycos.com

You will have heard much of my argument before, but this time I’ll be attacking my fellow atheists’ for distorting history. It should be fun.

Neil

If you’re interested, email the above address, or just turn up!