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Location: Northeast, United States

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Q&A re Agnosticism

I have identified myself as a strong agnostic. My use of this label is probably not entirely correct (for a good discussion, see here), but I haven't found an acceptable alternative. By "strong agnostic," I mean I hold as true the proposition that, while some people may know that a god or gods exist, it is impossible for anyone to know the nature of such a god or gods.

This self-identification led to the following Q&A on the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb:

Theist: "Just a quick question about your 'strong agnostic' stance. What is it that makes you believe that 'the nature of a god or gods is unknowable to' YOU. Since you are willing to accept as 'evidence' personal experience what kind of personal experience or knowledge would it take you to move from 'strong' agnostic to let's say a 'willing' agnostic?"

Skeptic: "I've reached this conclusion for several reasons: First, when I was a theist (I was raised Roman Catholic and I've also tried Unitarianism, Quakerism, and Episcopalianism), I didn't have the kind of personal experience or revelation that I am able to take as evidence of a deity. There was no private experience I had then (AFAICR) that I have not also had as a non-theist. Therefore (since I'm nearly 50 years old), I don't anticipate having such an experience in the future. (It's possible, but my past tells me it's unlikely.) Second, even if I do have a private experience sufficient to cause me to believe that a deity exists, I find it almost impossible that the experience would tell me anything reliable about the deity other than that he exists. (I use 'he' for convenience here.) This is because (like any sane person) I would need to check my private experience against other data, including the spiritual experiences reported by others. Since those reports point in varying directions that are mutually exclusive in their details, I would have to discount the details of my own experience. I would thus be left with the one general inference that a deity exists."