Talk:Agnosticism/Archive 8

Last paragraph of the last section is a misleading conclusion to the article.
I feel that it is inappropriate to place the highly religious Pope Benedict XVI's similarly religious opinion at the end of the whole article. The opinion itself is sort of an a priori statement about how people should think and act, which puts a very polarized spin on the context as one reads through. It certainly should not be removed from the article altogether, but I think a more neutral quote, point, or fact should take this ending position. --Zhukant (talk) 04:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Further, this view in no way originates with him - it is merely a repetition of a Vatican Council PRONOUNCEMENT from about 1870 -- As I have pointed out before, the opposing viewpoint is more correctly attributed to Pope Pius IX and the First Vatican Council -- and it is THAT material which seems to have been removed from the article. That pope is the same one that decreed Papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, and that 1868 council is the one that assented to the doctrine of papal infallibility. --JimWae (talk) 19:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Agnostic.
I am agnostic. I do not believe that there is a god of any type. I know that people say that there is but how can that be when there is so much bad in the world? I am 17 years old and if there is a god please convence me show me one thing that god has done. I know people believe life is a gift from god but its more of a curse for most. So show me. I have been going to church for well my whole life and still am not convenced that there is one.

1-7-09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.29.123.12 (talk) 15:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this isn't a forum. This is page is intended for discussion of the Wikipedia article on agnosticism. Go somewhere else. 64.85.242.203 (talk) 02:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Qualifying agnosticity

 * Many mainstream believers in the West embrace an agnostic stance. As noted below, for instance, Roman Catholic dogma about the nature of God contains many strictures of agnosticism. An agnostic who believes in God may never fully comprehend what it is he believes in. But some believing agnostics assert that strengthens their belief rather than weakens it.

I consider this unfunded, weasel talk, and factually wrong.

It may or may not be that "many mainstream believers ... embrace an agnostic stance". I doubt that you find any real "agnosticism" in roman-catholic doctrine. And lastly, I ask for a distinction between agnosticism and religious mysteries, saying that god is an entity no one may "fully comprehend" and that it was preposterous for humans to think to be able to comprehend it fully. I see there are fuzzy boundaries between the one and the other. But the weasel stance here (the ones say they may never fully comprehend..., while the others assert....) is IMO not worth the wikipedia. --137.193.139.90 (talk) 02:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Footnote #1
It seems to me that sentence preceding footnote #1 is inaccurate.

"It is often mistakenly put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism.[1]"

The article referenced in footnote #1 specifically says: "Agnosticism is the position of believing that knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God is impossible. It is often put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism."

The copied sentence in reference #1 does not seem to indicate that agnosticism as a middle ground between theism and atheism is a mistaken presentation of the state of belief. It only indicates exactly what it says, without any statement of accuracy of inaccuracy. If reference #1 is going to be used on that statement, then the statement should be an accurate representation of the reference. Or, if the statement is to remain it will need another reference which supports it.

Thank you. --71.96.84.94 (talk) 00:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Vacillation
The lede says authoritatively (without ref)
 * "Agnosticism does not preclude religious belief; that is to say, an agnostic can be a theist or an atheist, but can be 'agnostically' so."

Then just a bit later (much less authoritatively, but WITH a ref this time):
 * Some authors assert that it is possible to be both an atheist and an agnostic[4] and some nontheists self-identify as agnostic atheists.

The repetition & the vacillation needs to be resolved--JimWae (talk) 06:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Logic
You either believe in God without a doubt, or you don't believe in God without a doubt, or you have doubt. An Atheist doesn't believe in God without a doubt. An Agnostic has doubt. Therefore, if you have ANY doubt AT ALL, then by definition you MUST be an Agnostic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.149.184.22 (talk) 15:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC) - Logic, revisited. - "You either [fish] in [a lake] without a [boat], or you don't [fish] in [a lake] without a [boat], or you have [a boat]. [A Fisherman] doesn't [fish] in [a lake] without a [boat]. [A Skiier] has [a boat].  Therefore, if you have ANY [boat] AT ALL, then by definition you MUST be [a Skiier]." The notion that belief and doubt are mutually exclusive and have nothing to do with one another is too narrow and subjective to be used as a means for coming to know or understand many things about religion or theism. What you are illustrating is something more like faith, which isn't even confined to the tenets of any particular religion of philisophy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.176.93.130 (talk) 18:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Religous scholars
This section is downright awful. I've made some efforts to fix it but a complete rewrite is probably in order. First of all, this isn't a section about "religious scholars" per se; the section is attempting to present the position of the three Abrahamic religions against agnosticism. If that's what the section is for, let's be more explicit about it. This is not a scholarly debate; it's a theological one in which scholars, clerics and evangelists assert positions. A better title for the section might be "Criticism from theists".

Second, here is no logical flow to this section. It's just a jumble of arguments against agnosticism. It is this lack of logical flow that suggests that a rewrite is in order.

Thirdly, not all religious scholars or, for that matter, all religions make the same arguments against agnosticism. We need to be much clearer about who says what.

--Richard (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Richard. Your comments can help improve this section. Let me just explain the basis for the present structure so we can move on from this starting point.

Re your first comment: The title of this section reflects the title of the preceding section on Famous Agnostic Thinkers. So the section is trying is follow the existing structure of the article.

Re second: The logic of the section can be summarized as:
 * first para:epistemological error of agnosticism
 * second para: internal contradiction of agnosticism
 * third para: error of agnosticism re evidence
 * fourth para: effects of agnosticism and other causes

I see your point that there is room for improvement here.

Re third: the who, I believe, are mentioned in the footnotes. They are representative thinkers. I see your point though that the way this is presently written smacks of weasel words. This really needs fixing. Thanks. :) Marax (talk) 09:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I've started to work on the logical flow. Will have to come back to this later. Some time ago, I've fixed the weasel words with specific attributions. Marax (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

If that's strong agnosticism, than what is this?
So strong agnosticism is the belief that knowledge about gods and the supernatural is inherently unknowable. But what about the belief that ANY form of objective knowledge about ANYTHING is inherently unknowable by incurably subjective beings like humans? In other words: "The only certainty is uncertainty." Somebody that believes that nobody could prove the sky was blue, because nobody could prove that we weren't all seeing completely different colors that we all called blue because our teachers pointed at an object she believed was blue and labeled it that. Maybe if you swapped eyes with someone everything that was blue before is now green to you, you can't know for certain that's not the case. More than that silly example though it's really about the idea that two subjective beings could never see things EXACTLY the same way, so who can say which one is "correct?" That's the real idea behind it all. Of course, such a belief is always accompanied by pragmatism because it would be extremely debilitating to everyday life, and most people would say "why does it matter as long as we all agree?" but the idea is still there in a philosophical sense.

I've always believed that was strong agnosticism, and weak agnosticism only applied to the supernatural. "Not known, but could be known" isn't agnosticism at all.

TheBaron87 (talk) 16:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a forum, so we're not supposed to go beyond discussing the article. But if you believe everything is unprovable as an objective certainty then I'd say you're a skeptic or Pyrhonist (a subset of the class on anti-realists, ie "on the question as to if an objective reality exists you are skeptical"). I'm a Skeptic and a Christian - inasmuch as I know that reality exists I know that the God (Father, Son and Spirit) exists. Pbhj (talk) 15:31, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

maybethesim . ..
Maybetheism seems to me to be a better term for agnosticism, as it does not contradict itself:- see maybetheism for my reason. I think that this should be allowed to have a place on the agnostic page because it helps people make sense of things; with out using a contradictionary term! See this video:- Word Webs (talk) 01:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * "Maybetheism" returns very little in the way of Google search results; I notice the article is being considered for deletion. I had never heard the term before. I agree with you that the term "agnostic" is used in my confusing and contradictory ways, but many terms are; that is not a basis to rename the entire article with a neologism that you happen to think is clearer! If you can dig up some mainstream references to "maybetheism" though, I'd support including it in this article as another way of framing agnosticism. Dennis Boocho (talk) 03:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm going to have to promote this to esoteric publications or something- there is a Youtube culture that is close to intelectual fascism because of the problem with the definition of Agnosticism. Any suggestions welcome!- also- I did not wish to rename the entire article, just to include this term as part of it because I feel like it would be useful for people to consider when dealing with agnostic ideas. . . Word Webs (talk) 21:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Article overhaul (in progress)
I've sort of taken it upon myself to "adopt" this article for improvement, so I thought I'd explain some of the changes I'm making. As of this writing, I think the article has three main problems: (1) too many long quotations, (2) not enough historical background of agnostic thought, and (3) semantics that may be original research.

Re: #1 it should be pretty easy to paraphrase these long quotes. I've retitled the section from "Agnostic writers" to "History of agnostic thought" to hopefully change the emphasis a bit.

Re: #2, it seems like a previous editor made the decision to only include post-Huxley writings and ideas about agnosticism. I think this is a mistake. Wikipedia has many articles about words that did not exist until recently that nevertheless manage to explore the historical and philosophical predecessors of those terms. I'm going to try to flesh out the section on Greek philosophers, and also add a section on Rennaissance thinkers as well. If anyone has any suggestions for non-Western writings on agnostic thought, they'd be most welcome.

Re: #3, this mostly refers to the "Types of agnosticism" section. It doesn't cite any good sources and I'm not sure there are any. Like the "strong/weak" atheist designations, I worry that too much emphasis is placed on the semantics of these words, rather than their historical development and functional place in society and philosophy. Unless someone can provide a decent source for splitting up "agnostic" into these semantic categories, I think this section ought to be seriously abridged, maybe reframed as "related ideas" or "related terms." Dennis Boocho (talk) 05:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to work on the "Criticism" section. I notice that Dawkins' criticism of agnosticism is basically the same as some theistic criticisms—namely that it is functionally indistinguishable from atheism. I'd like to reframe criticism into two groups—those that disagree that agnosticism is correct (i.e. religious thinkers who think God's existence is certain and knowable) and those who think agnosticism is a convoluted or pointless distinction from atheism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennis Boocho (talk • contribs) 14:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Agnosticism
None of the other articles on major religious beliefs, be it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Atheism, has a criticism section in the main article. Instead they have criticism of Christianity, criticism of Islam etc. I think it is possibly to prevent the main articles from being battlegrounds of different religions. Would it not be preferable to move the criticism section to Criticism of agnosticism also? --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)