Quo Vadis

[Strappado]

There must have been zillions of threads on the web asking whether or not people are Atheist or Agnostic, but I rarely see topics about the routes people take on the "journey"

At the now closed Dawkins forum, I started a thread with a poll asking where people came from. I wanted to see if agnosticism was a short stop on the road from theism to atheism, or if the traffic went both ways so to speak. Since the Dawkins forum in any case had mostly Atheists I knew it was going to be slanted (even if we forget that an internet poll is essensially worthless, although fun).

 

I thought I'd go ask some former theists if you think this makes any sense. A lot of the deconversion stories I've read show how people gradually lose their faith, and it seems like an often emotional thing because you have rational arguments battling with things you hold dear or maybe things that scare you. So I personally think that agnosticism is a result of that religion is still holding a grip on people, because it's hard to shake off ideas that you have been taught or even indoctrinated with since you were kids.

 

Anyway, those of you who are Atheists, did you take a break at Agnosticism at first? And those of you who are Agnostics, have you been to Atheism first, or not?

 

Before you start firing, I need to stress that Agnosticism and Atheism aren't mutually exclusive, but I'm not so much interested in terms here as I am in whether your perception is "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist" or if you think that precaution is a waste of time for whatever reason.

 

Fun non-scientific poll:

[Guest Valk0010]

theist---to---diest---atheist---starting to be a agnostic(its improvable to establish the existence or lack of existence of a god) but still not believing in a god.

[mwc]

Since there's no actual poll here I guess I have to take from one of the answers on the other poll?

 

In that case it's theist->agnostic->atheist.

 

mwc

[Shyone]

theist -> atheist. Slow, but with no intermediate stage.

 

With a little thought a logic, "Who really knows everything?" Logical agnostic, practical atheist.

 

I can't remember who said it, but basically, if there is some kind of god, his/her/its presence is so obscure, foreign and irrelevent that I'm not going to waste my time "seeking it."

[Astreja]

I took the scenic route:

 

• Nominal but non-believing mainstream/liberal Christian; read Bible on own initiative; went to Sunday School for three months or so.
  
• Mystic with a touch of nihilism
  
• Greek polytheist, but primarily interested in Athena
  
• Ecumenical polytheist, fascinated with the Hindu gods
  
• Slightly more mystical woo-woo
  
• Nominal atheist, but more agnostic or even ignostic
  
• Rather alarming flare of occultism with Golden Dawn stuff everywhere
  
• Failed proselytization attempt (refused to say Sinner's Prayer)
  
• Brief investigations of Christian Science and conservative Judaism
  
• Mahayana Buddhist
  
• Soka Gakkai/Nichiren Buddhist (10 bleepin' years! *shudder*)
  
• Big-ticket woo-woo, including Reiki training and All the Crystals There Are
  
• Norse heiðinn polytheist and part-time Krynnish archmage
  
• Brief stint as Queen of Earth (abdicated in 2002)
  
• Agnostic polytheist and strident anti-monotheist
  
• Finally figure out how mindfulness meditation works
  
• Humanist, agnostic weak atheist, and cultural Ásatrúar

[Guest Valk0010]

I took the scenic route:

 

• Nominal but non-believing mainstream/liberal Christian; read Bible on own initiative; went to Sunday School for three months or so.
  
• Mystic with a touch of nihilism
  
• Greek polytheist, but primarily interested in Athena
  
• Ecumenical polytheist, fascinated with the Hindu gods
  
• Slightly more mystical woo-woo
  
• Nominal atheist, but more agnostic or even ignostic
  
• Rather alarming flare of occultism with Golden Dawn stuff everywhere
  
• Failed proselytization attempt (refused to say Sinner's Prayer)
  
• Brief investigations of Christian Science and conservative Judaism
  
• Mahayana Buddhist
  
• Soka Gakkai/Nichiren Buddhist (10 bleepin' years! *shudder*)
  
• Big-ticket woo-woo, including Reiki training and All the Crystals There Are
  
• Norse heiðinn polytheist and part-time Krynnish archmage
  
• Brief stint as Queen of Earth (abdicated in 2002)
  
• Agnostic polytheist and strident anti-monotheist
  
• Finally figure out how mindfulness meditation works
  
• Humanist, agnostic weak atheist, and cultural Ásatrúar

 

Well you certaintly did the gamut

[Ouroboros]

Christian -> Agnostic -> Atheist

[Petrel]

I thought I'd go ask some former theists if you think this makes any sense. A lot of the deconversion stories I've read show how people gradually lose their faith, and it seems like an often emotional thing because you have rational arguments battling with things you hold dear or maybe things that scare you. So I personally think that agnosticism is a result of that religion is still holding a grip on people, because it's hard to shake off ideas that you have been taught or even indoctrinated with since you were kids.

I find this insulting. I deconverted for solely rational reasons with no residual emotional fallout and have no superstitions whatsoever. I consider myself agnostic, but don't see that there's much difference between agnosticism and atheism. If presented by a Christian with a dichotomy of theism or atheism I'll let them consider me an atheist.

 

I'm probably an agnostic atheist. There might be some supernatural entity, but it's not any of the deities our species has worshiped.

[Strappado]

I thought I'd go ask some former theists if you think this makes any sense. A lot of the deconversion stories I've read show how people gradually lose their faith, and it seems like an often emotional thing because you have rational arguments battling with things you hold dear or maybe things that scare you. So I personally think that agnosticism is a result of that religion is still holding a grip on people, because it's hard to shake off ideas that you have been taught or even indoctrinated with since you were kids.

I find this insulting. I deconverted for solely rational reasons with no residual emotional fallout and have no superstitions whatsoever. I consider myself agnostic, but don't see that there's much difference between agnosticism and atheism. If presented by a Christian with a dichotomy of theism or atheism I'll let them consider me an atheist.

 

I'm probably an agnostic atheist. There might be some supernatural entity, but it's not any of the deities our species has worshiped.

 

As I said in the first post, Agnosticism and Atheism are not mutually exclusive, but what I'm after here is whether or not you think the phrase "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist" is right or not.

 

I personally don't agree with it, because I will then have to ask: Well, can we know anything at all? It seems to me that Agnostics give too much leeway to God, but take most other things for granted like the rest of us. I would want to flip the coin and say that if I know anything, then I know that there are no gods, because the whole concept is a priori against the laws of nature. And, if we are going to throw the laws of nature out of the window, then, there are a lot more things than gods that are uncertain, but this is never taken into consideration by agnostics. It's more of a postmodernist idea that we can't know anything at all.

 

So I think agnosticism therefore is a case of special pleeding since it singles out gods as something we can't know anything about.

And why is this, I then ask? Is it because it's easier said than done for many people to shake off religion? Or is it to appease the majority who are still theists? I don't know, and that's why I ask.

[Shyone]

I thought I'd go ask some former theists if you think this makes any sense. A lot of the deconversion stories I've read show how people gradually lose their faith, and it seems like an often emotional thing because you have rational arguments battling with things you hold dear or maybe things that scare you. So I personally think that agnosticism is a result of that religion is still holding a grip on people, because it's hard to shake off ideas that you have been taught or even indoctrinated with since you were kids.

I find this insulting. I deconverted for solely rational reasons with no residual emotional fallout and have no superstitions whatsoever. I consider myself agnostic, but don't see that there's much difference between agnosticism and atheism. If presented by a Christian with a dichotomy of theism or atheism I'll let them consider me an atheist.

 

I'm probably an agnostic atheist. There might be some supernatural entity, but it's not any of the deities our species has worshiped.

 

As I said in the first post, Agnosticism and Atheism are not mutually exclusive, but what I'm after here is whether or not you think the phrase "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist" is right or not.

 

I personally don't agree with it, because I will then have to ask: Well, can we know anything at all? It seems to me that Agnostics give too much leeway to God, but take most other things for granted like the rest of us. I would want to flip the coin and say that if I know anything, then I know that there are no gods, because the whole concept is a priori against the laws of nature. And, if we are going to throw the laws of nature out of the window, then, there are a lot more things than gods that are uncertain, but this is never taken into consideration by agnostics. It's more of a postmodernist idea that we can't know anything at all.

 

So I think agnosticism therefore is a case of special pleeding since it singles out gods as something we can't know anything about.

And why is this, I then ask? Is it because it's easier said than done for many people to shake off religion? Or is it to appease the majority who are still theists? I don't know, and that's why I ask.

There are some gods we can exclude based on logical inconsistencies and mutually exclusive qualities. There are some we can dismiss for historical reasons, or because their "realm" has been shown to be natural.

 

The Romans had a statue dedicated to "The Unknown God." This would be the ones they hadn't heard about, or couldn't know about because there had been no "revelation."

 

Since we are not omniscient, it wouldn't be possible to exclude all "gods" but that gets back to the "definition." If the god is undefined, then there is not really much to say, is there?

 

But If I had a god that 1) does nothing, 2) says nothing, 3) does not live in any sense of the word, 4) and exists as a physical object (like a hat, for instance), then you would have to say that god exists. It's just not what you would think of as a god.

 

Likewise, if someone says they believe in a god that is evil and without whom the universe would not exist, I don't have to believe it, but I would have to be honestly "agnostic" about it.

 

In that sense, agnostic just means I don't know. Nothing more, nothing less. If someone says, "You can't disprove it, therefore you must believe," I ignore them with all of my ignorance.

[par4dcourse]

My definition of agnostic is the belief that there's no evidence to prove or disprove a deity.

 

I'm more of the scientific/mathematical bent believing that since there's no evidence for a deity, there's no need for proof there isn't. Hence: Atheist.

 

It took me a decade of thinking to come to that conclusion, but I wouldn't consider myself agnostic during that time.

 

theist>a whole buncha stuff>atheist

[mwc]

In that sense, agnostic just means I don't know. Nothing more, nothing less. If someone says, "You can't disprove it, therefore you must believe," I ignore them with all of my ignorance.

 

From the online etymology dictionary:

ignore

1610s, "not to know, to be ignorant of," from Fr. ignorer, from L. ignorare "not to know, disregard," from ignarus "not knowing, unaware" (see ignorant). Sense of "pay no attention to" first recorded 1801 and not common until c.1850. Related: Ignored; ignoring.

ignorant

late 14c., from O.Fr. ignorant, from L. ignorantia, from ignorantem, prp. of ignorare from in- "not" + Old L. gnarus "aware, acquainted with," from Porot-L. suffixed form *gno-ro-, related to gnoscere "to know" (see know). Form influenced by ignotus "unknown." Cf. also uncouth. Colloquial sense of "ill-mannered" first attested 1886.

know

O.E. cnawan (class VII strong verb; past tense cneow, pp. cnawen), from P.Gmc. *knoeanan (cf. O.H.G. bi-chnaan, ir-chnaan "to know"), from PIE base *gno- "to know" (cf. O.Pers. xšnasatiy "he shall know;" O.C.S. znati, Rus. znat "to know;" L. gnoscere; Gk. *gno-, as in gignoskein; Skt. jna- "know"). Once widespread in Gmc., this form is now retained only in Eng., where however it has widespread application, covering meanings that require two or more verbs in other languages (e.g. Ger. wissen, kennen, erkennen and in part können; Fr. connaître, savoir; L. novisse, cognoscire, scire; O.C.S. znaja, vemi). The Anglo-Saxons used two distinct words for this, witan (see wit) and cnawan. Meaning "to have sexual intercourse with" is attested from c.1200, from the O.T. To not know one's ass from one's elbow is from 1930. To know better "to have learned from experience" is from 1704. You know as a parenthetical filler is from 1712, but it has roots in 14c. M.E. Know-how "technical expertise" first recorded 1838 in Amer.Eng. Know-nothing "ignoramus" is from 1827; as a U.S. nativist political party, active 1853-56, the name refers to the secret society at the core of the party, about which members were instructed to answer, if asked about it, that they "know nothing." The party merged into the Republican Party.

wit

(v.)

"know," O.E. witan "to know," from P.Gmc. *witanan "to have seen," hence "to know" (cf. O.S. witan, O.N. vita, O.Fris. wita, M.Du., Du. weten, O.H.G. wizzan, Ger. wissen, Goth. witan "to know"); see wit (n.). The phrase to wit, almost the only surviving use of the verb, is first recorded 1570s, from earlier that is to wit (mid-14c.), probably a loan-translation of Anglo-Fr. cestasavoir, used to render L. videlicet (see viz.).

viz.

1530s, abbreviation of videlicet "that is to say, to wit, namely" (mid-15c.), from L. videlicet, contraction of videre licet "it is permissible to see," from videre "to see" (see vision) + licet "it is allowed," third person singular present indicative of licere "be allowed" (see licence). The -z- is not a letter, but originally a twirl, representing the usual M.L. shorthand symbol for the ending -et. "In reading aloud usually rendered by 'namely.' " [OED]

vision

late 13c., "something seen in the imagination or in the supernatural," from Anglo-Fr. visioun, O.Fr. vision, from L. visionem (nom. visio) "act of seeing, sight, thing seen," from pp. stem of videre "to see," from PIE base *weid- "to know, to see" (cf. Skt. veda "I know;" Avestan vaeda "I know;" Gk. oida, Doric woida "I know," idein "to see;" O.Ir. fis "vision," find "white," i.e. "clearly seen," fiuss "knowledge;" Welsh gwyn, Gaulish vindos, Breton gwenn "white;" Goth., O.Swed., O.E. witan "to know;" Goth. weitan "to see;" Eng. wise, Ger. wissen "to know;" Lith. vysti "to see;" Bulg. vidya "I see;" Pol. widzieć "to see," wiedzieć "to know;" Rus. videt' "to see," vest' "news," O.Russ. vedat' "to know"). The meaning "sense of sight" is first recorded late 15c. Meaning "statesman-like foresight, political sagacity" is attested from 1926.

Whew.

 

mwc

[mwc]

Shoot. I posted all that and forgot the last two:

agnostic

1870, "one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known." Coined by T.H. Huxley (1825-1895) from Gk. agnostos "unknown, unknowable," from a- "not" + gnostos "(to be) known" (see gnostic). Sometimes said to be a reference to Paul's mention of the altar to "the Unknown God," but according to Huxley it was coined with ref. to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic).

 

"I ... invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic,' ... antithetic to the 'Gnostic' of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant." [T.H. Huxley, "Science and Christian Tradition," 1889]

 

The adj. is first recorded 1873. Agnosticism also is recorded from 1870.

Gnostic

1580s, from L.L. gnosticus, from Late Gk. gnostikos, noun use of adj. gnostikos "knowing, able to discern," from gnostos "knowable," from gignoskein "to learn, to come to know" (see know). Applied to various early Christian sects that claimed direct personal knowledge beyond the Gospel or the Church hierarchy. The adj. meaning "relating to knowledge" (with lower-case g-) is from 1650s.

I would say the term has changed and it has become synonymous with "not knowable" rather than something closer to what we might call "ignorant" (which is what started me on this to begin with...it was supposed to be a bit circular but I screwed up).

 

mwc

[Petrel]

I thought I'd go ask some former theists if you think this makes any sense. A lot of the deconversion stories I've read show how people gradually lose their faith, and it seems like an often emotional thing because you have rational arguments battling with things you hold dear or maybe things that scare you. So I personally think that agnosticism is a result of that religion is still holding a grip on people, because it's hard to shake off ideas that you have been taught or even indoctrinated with since you were kids.

I find this insulting. I deconverted for solely rational reasons with no residual emotional fallout and have no superstitions whatsoever. I consider myself agnostic, but don't see that there's much difference between agnosticism and atheism. If presented by a Christian with a dichotomy of theism or atheism I'll let them consider me an atheist.

 

I'm probably an agnostic atheist. There might be some supernatural entity, but it's not any of the deities our species has worshiped.

 

As I said in the first post, Agnosticism and Atheism are not mutually exclusive, but what I'm after here is whether or not you think the phrase "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist" is right or not.

 

I personally don't agree with it, because I will then have to ask: Well, can we know anything at all? It seems to me that Agnostics give too much leeway to God, but take most other things for granted like the rest of us. I would want to flip the coin and say that if I know anything, then I know that there are no gods, because the whole concept is a priori against the laws of nature. And, if we are going to throw the laws of nature out of the window, then, there are a lot more things than gods that are uncertain, but this is never taken into consideration by agnostics. It's more of a postmodernist idea that we can't know anything at all.

 

So I think agnosticism therefore is a case of special pleeding since it singles out gods as something we can't know anything about.

And why is this, I then ask? Is it because it's easier said than done for many people to shake off religion? Or is it to appease the majority who are still theists? I don't know, and that's why I ask.

 

I don't think that agnostics think the way that you think we think, or I am not sure that the way you think is entirely accurate. You seem very uncomfortable with uncertainty. I'm not. I'm a scientist, I evaluate things according to observations of their physical properties, but I know that there are a lot of things that we do not currently know and a lot of ways in which our understanding of natural laws is flawed (are you going to throw up your hands in despair if I tell you we know pretty much zilch about the inside of a black hole?) Which doesn't mean I think that there's a god, I just don't think that we must know absolutely everything or we can know absolutely nothing. That mindset really makes no sense to me.

 

We can know a heck of a lot. One thing we do know is that the natural laws that we understand the best appear to be well-behaved, suggesting if there is something tampering with them it does so infrequently and never in a manner that can be properly documented (those sneaky supernatural entities!) If there is something that somehow manages to be outside the physical realm, we can't observe it to analyze it, so we can't really say that it doesn't exist. There are all sorts of things that might exist--alternative universes, branes, supraluminal particles. . . Some of these we may be able to make conclusive claims about eventually, others we may never know. Either way it doesn't matter to me, nor am I interested in going searching for these things. The existence or non-existence of tachyons does not have much impact upon me, and if supernatural entities do exist they don't appear much interested in the physical realm so are additionally irrelevant to my day-to-day life.

 

So no, it's not that I'm a weakling who's incapable of throwing off my chains or that I'm sucking up to the deists. It's simply that I recognize untestable claims are untestable. So I consider myself agnostic.

[Franko47]

 

 

[*]Brief stint as Queen of Earth (abdicated in 2002)

 

 

 

 

Hey, those were good times when you were Queen of Earth.

 

 

Anyway, I think that I've always been an agnostic with an unusual imagination; now an atheist with an unusual cat.

[Crazy Donna]

I was a Christian, then I realised that I was spending all this emotional effort and energy trying to please a god who, if he had created me, had obviously KNOWN I would go down this path and doubt my faith, and had obviously hardened my heart to him (a la the Pharaoh of Egypt) so he would have an excuse to send me to hell for an eternity (just like he needed to have an excuse to send all those plagues on Egypt, and wasn't going to let a soft hearted Pharaoh get in his way).

 

Such a being, to do such a thing, would be the most evil thing I could imagine. The idea of it makes me physically ill.

 

I then realised I could not worship a god that treated humanity like that.

 

Somewhere on this path, I studied Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, the Greek Philosphers, and a few other things, from a secular, scholarly perspective, while I was at Uni. I looked at Buddhism, but couldn't get past the victim blaming mentality of karma and cyclic rebirth, which believes that the unpleasant experiences a person has are a direct result of their actions in a previous life. I've had a few unpleasant things happen to me in my life, and I know DAMN well I would never tolerate inflicting that kind of cruelty on others. It just is not in my nature. Eventually, I was just as disgusted with the victim blaming of Buddhism as I was with the abhorrent misogyny and inconsistency of the god of Abraham.

 

Studying all those religious doctrines and perspectives really opened my eyes and made me objective about the god of Abraham (the god of the ethnic cleansers) and now I can confidently say that I seriously doubt there is a god. The more I learn about the universe and biology, the more I realise that god, jesus, and the holy spirit are no more real than the Tooth Fairy or the Seven Dwarves. And if there is a god, I certainly wouldn't worship him. It would be my moral duty as a human being to reject any god who was so sickeningly cruel.

 

One bible verse in particular really undermined the image of a loving god, as far as I was concerned. It's Deuteronomy, 22:22-23, which states that if a woman has sex with someone in the country, the man is to be put to death, but if it happens in the town, they are both to be put to death. Apparently, she didn't scream loud enough for god's liking. That one really offended me deeply. No loving god could be that depraved that a person's life would depend on where they were when they had sex/were raped. Obviously, that one was written by men, and if that was written by men, then the infallibility of the bible was undermined. The whole lot was obviously written by men.

 

So there you have it. From pentecostalist christian to atheist.

[lunaticheathen]

Heh, I thought my trip has been wacky, but Astreja wins that contest...for now.

Mine goes something like this:

Methodist -> tried to be Fundie Baptist -> Pissed off and confused -> Baha'i -> Sorta Buddhist -> Stregheria (Italian Witchcraft) -> Celtic Witch -> Threw Shiva on top -> Started Pagan society on campus -> Huh? -> pissed off at lazy bums -> Thought about joining Kemetic Orthodoxy -> I'mma just layer this Pagan shit, screw "eclectic haters" -> Let's add Vodou!

I'm wondering what the next thing will be! X-D

[Guest I Love Dog]

Do I think the phrase "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist" is right or not?

 

I was baptized Anglican at a young age because my parents thought it was the "right" thing to do. They weren't particularly religious, never went to church except to family weddings, funerals and christenings. We never spoke about god or religion and I never went to church until I joined the cub scouts when I was eight years old, once a month to attend church parade. After a couple of years I became a senior scout and still attended church(it was expected) and I began to take confirmation classes, where in depth study of the bible and theology started taking place. My logical mind started to take shape and I questioned just about everything that was being taught to me. The vicar/priest had no convincing answers for the questions I put to him! At age 12 I decided that religion and god was just a load of nonsense invented by humans for control purposes. I had prayed for lots of things because the bible said that Jesus said that whatever you pray for will come true. Nonsense! So I went from theist to briefly agnostic then very rapidly to atheist and have not questioned my non-belief ever since.

 

To "know" something has many shades of gray. I THINK I KNOW what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight, but I don't KNOW if I'm going to live that long or if there's going to be a power blackout, in which case I won't be eating what I THINK I KNOW I'm going to eat tonight.

 

I KNOW that when I get out of bed tomorrow the first thing I'll do is take a pee, but I don't KNOW that I'll wake up or KNOW that I'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow!

 

I KNOW that the sun is a vast mass of burning gasses that keeps life on Earth sustained.

 

I KNOW that all life on Earth dies and breaks down into its elements and minerals and chemicals and that all life forms become food for other life forms.

 

I KNOW that the Universe is vast. I don't KNOW if there is life anywhere else in the Universe.

 

I KNOW that humans have invented thousands of gods in the past 6000 years(more than 30,000, and that's without the Hindus 30 million or so!) without proof or evidence for the existence of even one of them.

 

So, even though I am within a microscopic % of not believing that there is a god or gods, I feel that it's impossible to KNOW if there is a god or gods. So the statement is right(much to my everlasting sorrow!)

[Wizened Sage]

theist - agnostic - atheist

 

You asked, "It is impossible to know whether or not gods exist." Technically, yes it is impossible, but irrelevant. It is also impossible to prove there are no leprechauns, but all of our decisions are essentially statistical, and the odds of leprechauns (and gods) existing are so slim as to be negligible. It is possible that I may die before lunch, but that is so improbable that I will plan the menu anyway. I find I am much more efficient in life when I don't waste time worrying about one-chance-in-a-gazillion type "possibilities."

[OpheliaGinger]

Christian--Jewish--Agnostic--Atheist

[StevoMuso]

Christian -> Atheist. I am 100% atheist - there is absolutely no nagging "doubt" at the back of my mind that perhaps the credulous are correct and some impossible, invisible Being is floating around the universe (in fact I find the idea ludicrous).

[Astreja]

I'm wondering what the next thing will be! X-D

Try the Norse path next. We once had a rather lively meadmaking thread going in the Off Topic section of the forum.

[lunaticheathen]

Mmmmm, mead... X-D

Right now, I'm more drawn to Mediterranean/African traditions. But I'll drink mead with anyone!

[Vomit Comet]

It always irks me when hardcore atheists claim that agnostics are fence-sitting pussies. Bullshit bullshit bullshit!!!!

 

Not accusing anyone here, mind.

[Strappado]

You seem very uncomfortable with uncertainty. I'm not. I'm a scientist, I evaluate things according to observations of their physical properties, but I know that there are a lot of things that we do not currently know and a lot of ways in which our understanding of natural laws is flawed (are you going to throw up your hands in despair if I tell you we know pretty much zilch about the inside of a black hole?)

I'm not uncomfortable with uncertainty, I'm uncomfortable with bullshit. You mentioned a black hole, well, that's great. At least we know there are black holes. It's not a figment of someone's imagination. However, if some people were starting to say that there are giant marshmellows inside black holes, then I would protest. Not because I would be uncomfortable with not knowing what really is inside a black hole, but because I would be uncomfortable with bullshit. And I would certainly not be pleased if a substantial amount of our resources were used to search for marshmellows inside black holes.

 

There are all sorts of things that might exist--alternative universes, branes, supraluminal particles. . . Some of these we may be able to make conclusive claims about eventually, others we may never know.

That's true, but these are not old myths, and I'm all for giving them the benefit of doubt for a while, but I reckon that 2000 years down the road, some of them will be thoroughly discarded. (But for now, at least alternative universes, wormholes and faster than light travel make good sci-fi.)

 

However, I think it's wrong to say that gods by definition exist outside our physical world and that we by definition can not know whether they exist or not. This would be true for the deist god which is simply a stripped down Jehovah after they understood he wasn't really what he had been cracked up to be.

 

"Hello. I would like a god that doesn't have any bad qualities, nor should it be unbelievable or too fanciful. To avoid religious wars, let's say it never interacts with humans so there's nothing to quarrel about".

"Right, there you go. One deist god for you, sir"

 

"Real gods", however, interact with people and the earth, that's why there are stories about gods. If gods by definition existed outside human experience, then religious history would be quite different methinks. It's the old "god of the gaps" case. We filled most of the gaps that gods used to hang out in, but the universe is vast, and there is an inifinite number of gaps, and so they keep moving the goal post to the nearest gap until we forget that for instance "God" (which most people believe in) originally was afraid of iron chariots.

 

It's simply that I recognize untestable claims are untestable. So I consider myself agnostic.

Well, in that case "agnostic" is a redundant term since your attitude to uncertainty is not limited to gods. That is sort of my point. My beef is with agnostics who are uncertain about gods, but are happy to take most other things at face value. Maybe all agnostics are like you, however, but then that would be interesting to find out!