I usually don’t spend my time responding to anonymous comments. I figure if somebody sincerely believes what they write, they can sign their name.

In this case, however, I want to respond because the discussion could be interesting. I don’t hold out much hope, from the hostility demonstrated, but who knows.

In response to my post about agnosticism, the commenter wrote:

Nice post, John Scott. Nice blog, also. You’re an absolute perfect example of why I find your juvenile, hypocritically selective, and intellectually dishonest position of agnosticism so ridiculous. Yeah, keep sitting up there on your imaginary moral highground, while dishonestly suspending what is absolutely impossible to suspend — a belief or lack of belief either way.

Ignore for the moment the name calling. This person has a point he wishes to make. It is that agnosticism is an impossible position to hold insofar as one will invariable believe that either god or gods exist, or he will believe that gods do not exist.

I must say, that’s a very interesting point. I think it speaks to the state of mind of atheists in general. Now, this could sound like a dig at atheists, but it isn’t: Could it be that atheists are uncomfortable with not knowing? The insecurity of ignorance, perhaps, causes emotional or mental anguish, and the response is to decide one way or the other?

Personally, and honestly, I don’t know whether gods exist. Or souls. Or any of that supernatural stuff. You look at the suffering in the world, the murder and rape and mayhem and children being beaten, maimed, abused, sold, mistreated, and you must think, “no way could god exist.”

But there’s the other things. Driving off a cliff and walking away, unscathed, from a crumpled car. The kindness of humans (the ones who aren’t on the Internet ). The perceived impossibility of the origin of life.

So honestly, I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want there to be a god or want there to be no god. After 37 years on this planet, and the disappointments that come with life - divorce, betrayals, guilt, friends dying, family dying, diseases, injustices - does any sane person want to continue existing?

I don’t know.

And the question I would ask is not, “How can you not believe one way or the other?” but instead “How can you believe?”

After living life for just a short time, don’t most of us know that what appears to be obvious today is obviously wrong tomorrow? How can you say, “Yes, I know that god doesn’t exist!” when we really don’t know much of anything?

Will we be alive tomorrow? I don’t know. Do I have a soul? I don’t know. Am I a good person? I intend to be, but honestly I do not know. Does my daughter love me as much as I love her? I don’t know.

We don’t know. If you’re uncomfortable saying that, then believe one way or the other. If you want to believe that god doesn’t exist, fine. If you want to believe that god does exist, fine.

But either way you decide, one should hope that you respect the right of others to choose their beliefs for themselves. When you attempt to legislate your atheism and impose it on others, then you’ve crossed the line. The same goes for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and any other belief system.

Atheist intolerance is no less evil than religious intolerance.

Intellectual Honesty and the Epistemology of Atheism

In order to address another comment by the same person, we have to address epistemology. The comment reads:

By the way, what’s your opinion on the current Raelian Revolution? Sure hope you’re consistent, and DISHONESTLY suspend your belief or lack of belief on that one, too! ‘Cause after all, you can’t DISPROVE it. We just don’t, and CAN’T know. Honestly, it would be downright refreshing to finally see an agnostic who doesn’t selectively apply logic to the countless list of UNPROVABLE extraordinary claims, while conveniently excluding themselves from the asinine accusations they so frequently bombard atheists with. I hope you’re not one of those blatantly hypocritical agnostics who single out atheists, and these crazy things we put on a pedestal called “deities”, while dismissing every other unprovable claim that comes down the pike. Shit, you are aren’t you? Well, there goes my Christmas wish.

What this person is saying is that agnostics are inconsistent. They say “I don’t know” when it comes to god, but when somebody brings up the Flying Spaghetti Monster, our agnosticism goes out the window.

If that were indeed the case, the agnostic would be demonstrating a spectacular hypocrisy.

I believe it was about a year ago, an atheist asked me how I could not know whether god exists, but I can say without doubt that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist.

My response was, that we don’t know whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists or not. Who the hell could say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist? Unless you have in your possession knowledge of everything that exists, you cannot conclusively say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist.

Now that may sound like nonsense to some of you. But if you have a background in epistemology, you’ll know that I’m not being silly; I’m just defending the theory of knowledge from corruption.

Let’s define truth as “an attribute that attaches to a statement that is accurately representative of reality as it exists”.

Let’s define knowledge as cognizance of a truth.

With those definitions in mind, when somebody says that they know something, in the context of science or philosophy, they are expressing an idea as representative of fact. As such, intellectuals have an obligation to seek a scientific basis for that truth.

If you don’t want your opinion to be subject to scrutiny, then express it as an opinion. A mere belief. “I don’t believe that god exists” is wholly up to you.

“The truth is that gods do not exist”, is the kind of statement that deserves and will receive scrutiny and a healthy dose of criticism.

And atheists think it’s about atheism. It isn’t. It’s about standards of truth and intellectual honesty. If you say, “the truth is that Flying Spaghetti Monsters don’t exist”, you’ll get the same criticism. It’s not a defense of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It’s a defense of a higher standard of truth.

If we allow unsubstantiated claims and beliefs and opinions to share the label “truth”, then we’ve abandoned all semblance of intellectual honesty and we might as well just start burning witches at the stake again.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Atheism, Epistemology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.