Agnosticism and Atheism, Posted On rantsnraves.org

For some time now I have vacillated between calling myself an Agnostic and an Atheist in conversation with those persons in my life who are interested in my belief system, but not nearly as “sophisticated” in their thinking about such things as we are within the Freethinking internets community.

What I mean by sophistication is that we like to neatly define our thinking in logical terms often not employed widely, or very useful in our daily lives.

Bertrand Russell explained this idea of “sophistication” on the subject in his famous piece Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?

Quote:
Proof of God
Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
(Russell, 1947)

I think that it is more true to say that I am an Agnostic because I certainly do not think that at this point in time human persons are able to know whether or not there is some kind of higher power akin to an intelligent first cause.

But perhaps this is simply my own “inability of imagination” as was suggested by Daniel Dennett in his import work Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. In that book many of you know that Dennett called the process of Evolution an algorithm that does not require any intelligent input to do what it does, it simply does what it does, and it does it every time (Dennett, 1996).

While I agree with Dennett that a good analogy of what takes place in Evolution Theory can be viewed as philosophically analogous to an algorithm, my question to him and to any other person willing to think about such things is “by what means was the algorithm established?”

I ask “by what means was it established” because I recognize that not all algorithms were created by programmers; some, such as mathematical algorithms like long division were discovered and would work perfectly even if no human being on earth knew the formula. Thus so, life, I think, would originate under the constraints of its own formulae, whether or not human beings had the capacity to think about it—“it does what it does, and does it every time.”

Nevertheless, this still leaves me with the question of “by what means?” or more simply, “how?” This is the ultimate question for and I believe that it is precisely why, despite each new, discrete and interesting thing I read out of quantum physics or other interesting science well beyond my capacity, that I return, time and time again to the position of Agnosticism among those who care to understand my belief system more thoroughly, or “sophisticated” people on the internets.

What is an Agnostic?
http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-tex...l/agnostic.htm

On the other hand, I am an Atheist given that there is no belief system incorporated on the earth that I would not disbelieve prima facie without extraordinary evidence contrary to my disposition towards disbelief of such things. Therefore, I am with Russell here in describing myself to most people on the street as an Atheist.

I am still skeptical about Atheism as an appropriate response to the question “How?” We know that everything exists; we know that everything is evolving, going extinct, in motion, changing, expanding, etc. But do we really know “how” it all began? For me this is a major weakness for the “strong” Atheist who holds that there is evidence for a natural origin of the universe and against the existence of any gods, no matter how abstract the concept.

The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins <-- I have not read Dawkin's latest book, sorry

The Impossibility of God, Martin and Monnier <--anthogology of phil argument contra god, interesting to say the least

Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett

Darwin's Black Box, Behe <--- can 'o wormz right thar

Also, various essays on "Skepticism" from Bertran Russell, which are all basically superior to the previously mentioned books imo.