Ponder This
Well-Known Member
I'm pantheist. I've arrived at that, after growing up theist, going through periods of agnosticism, back into theism, and then seeing "Jesus" through the universe, nature, and everyday people. It isn't for everyone. But the idea of atheism always felt like a con, and now that I understand my own faith, saying "I don't know" seems to me like a very intellectually honest position. "I don't know" may become "I don't care" which is still honest. It may also come to belief, but honestly, I don't care about belief or not, I care about honesty.
Suppose I were to proclaim, "I know there are no unicorns because I haven't seen them, and science says they shouldn't exist." This is very intellectually dishonest because firstly, I the theoretical person making this claim, has not been to other areas outside New Jersey. Not to remote regions of the Earth, not to hidden underground areas inside the Earth's crust with a gooey center where unicorns are just hanging out chilling, and not to different planets also capable of bearing life. And there is also the idea that unicorns exist but in a different time (long ago, or perhaps what horses will one day evolve into), are able to conceal themselves. And there are some who believe that the reason writers came up with such an idea is because they are attuned to alternate dimensions. Further, while pegasus is definitely out, because of laws of aerodynamics, there isn't a single law of science restricting animals from growing horns from their head. So the idea that science disproves it is also wrong. There also isn't a law of science disproving God, but there are rules of causality enough that a random uncaused universe is untenable as an idea. "I don't know" is a fine answer, since whatever did cause such order could be literally anything.
Why unicorns, btw? Because I'm a fan of the movie The Last Unicorn, of course.
"I don't know if unicorns exist," is honest. Just as "I don't know if God exists" is honest. But once you start getting into "I know that... isn't so" you get into a weird situation where you are expected to be omniscient yourself. That is, the only way you could disprove unicorns did not exist beyond all doubt, is if you were God yourself, and if we extended that idea to God, we'd run into a paradox.
Even theists only go so far as to say they "believe" something exists or not. So why don't there seem to be as many agnostics as atheists? I'd like to see far more of you guys.
Agnosticism isn't a bad position to take, but I'm going to be frank about why it isn't very large as a thought movement. Taking the position of 'I don't know' not only appears weak to most people, but the way agnostics treat it as a starting point or even a virtue is not intellectually useful.
'I don't know' isn't a virtue or a starting point, except if one is honest- a start toward trying to gain the knowledge they feel is lacking. Agnosticism has almost made a gospel out of 'I don't know', and some of them do actually behave like that's a place to remain. That one doesn't need to pursue any knowledge to try to 'know'.
There comes a point where agnosticism can be for an individual, a form of intellectual laziness.
Within agnosticism there is a difference between people who say, "I don't know" and people who say, "I can't know". Maybe people who don't know should be motivated to know and maybe most people are disinclined to remain in the zone of "not knowing" for too long because they crave resolution to uncertainty.
But if agnosticism is going to be a position that a person takes and defends, then what they are defending isn't merely that they "do not know", but that they "can not know". If it is possible for them to know, then they are simply defending their laziness as you say. If it is not possible to know, then the tendency is to not care about it because nothing comes of spinning ones wheels round trying to know the unknowable.
There are many things that historically people have tried to figure out but that don't seem to lead anywhere. I think the Buddha talks about this somewhere... things that can be contemplated that don't lead to enlightenment but instead lead to the endless spinning of the mind.