NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/atheism/24095

Text File | 1992-12-21 | 3.4 KB | 73 lines

Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au!darice
From: [e-mail] (Fred Rice)
Subject: Re: Strong vs. Weak atheism
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet system)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <ednclark.724641730@kraken>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 04:57:34 GMT
Lines: 61

In <ednclark.724641730@kraken> [e-mail] (Jeffrey Clark) writes:

>Actually, I thought an agnostic was someone who didn't beleive in anything.
>That is they are not entirely sure that next time they let go of their pencil
>that it will definitely fall down even do the said pencil has performed this
>behaviour every time that agnostic can remember (remembering of course that
>any memory may have been artificially induced). Agnostic is not sure that
>New York exists because she has never been there and even if she had it may
>have been destroyed or the visit was just a fantasy of hers. A great
>description of what I thought was an agnostic is given in the fourth book of
>Douglas Adam's trilogy, HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I don't know if
>you Americans have heard of it, but if you haven't, it ranks up their with
>Monty Python as the best of British comedy (and I severely recommend you get
>hold of a copy). The particular character described was in fact the Ruler of
>the Galaxy, though he himself wasn't sure about the fact, and the two main
>characters decided that the Galaxy was in good hands.

>Therefore an agnostic is not just unsure about the existence of God or Gods
>or Goddesses, but is unsure about anything. Of course therefore they would
>say that one can never be sure of anything even whether or not other people
>can be sure about something. Therefore a true agnostic would not say
>1) -> "I don't know and you don't either"
>2) -> "It is unknowable"

>but would say

>1) -> "I don't know and I don't know if you know either"
>2) -> "It is currently unknowable for me"

>Of course anyone who actually lived like this would quickly die: The last
>breath I took like all the others I remember, were not poisonous, but then
>those memories may be artificially induced or the air may change between my
>last and next breath.......

Hmmm...

I had come across the two definitions of agnosticism discussed here in
other postings, namely
(1) "I don't know if God(s) exist(s), and I'm not looking too hard", and
(2) "It is impossible to know if God(s) exist(s)."

I had not come across the definition in the posting above.

I would call the philosophical outlook described in the above posting as
"Philosophical Skepticism", i.e. the philosophical viewpoint that
nothing is knowable (except, perhaps, one's own thoughts).

Of course, if anyone actually put a viewpoint of Philosophical
Skepticism into practice, s/he would probably quite quickly be thrown into a
mental asylum!  (But it wouldn't cause them too much worry, because they
wouldn't know if the mental asylum actually existed or not....)

Actually, at this moment in time, I consider myself to be a
follower of the viewpoint of Philosophical Skepticism.  But I actually
live my life as a Realist (as most of us do).

(This does not make me an atheist.  I suppose I am actually an agnostic
theist.)

 Fred Rice
 [e-mail]