From: mayne@pipe.cs.fsu.edu (William Mayne)
Subject: Re: Atheism and religion
Reply-To: mayne@cs.fsu.edu
Organization: Florida State University Computer Science Department
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 02:44:40 GMT

In article <18g2diINNg3u@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>
>As to the gods, my beliefs are as follows.  (1) I have found no
>evidence that they exist.  (Or at least, no evidence with any
>strength...
>
>(2) Because of (1), I do not believe in the gods, i.e., I do not
>assert that any god exists.  Rationality is, in part, believing
>things for which there are evidence, and not believing things
>that lack evidence.  (But Copeland would do well to remember that
>lack of evidence is not, generally, evidence of a lack.)
>
>(3) I *do* believe that a god -- assuming one exists, has
>moderate godly power, and wants us to know of its existence --
>could easily give us incontrovertible evidence of their
>existence.  Such evidence is easy to imagine.  Religions that
>assume the former must somehow explain lack of the latter.

True, and a compelling argument against Xianity, whose god
supposedly wants us to be saved, yet determines who is saved
solely on the basis of belief in a particular myth.

>Because of (2), I call myself an atheist.  Because of (3), I do
>*not* call myself an agnostic, i.e., someone who believes that
>knowledge of the gods is theoretically impossible.

I disagree that that is what "agnostic" generally means. If that
is the meaning then I assert that there are no agnostics except
for a few who profess complete skepticism about everything. Although
keeping an open mind is good such complete skepticism is virtually
useless, since it devalues all knowledge. A definition of "agnostic"
which excludes almost all who call themselves or are called agnostics
strikes me as pedantic, even if a dictionary definition may be
construed to support it. This makes the word almost useless for
practical purposes.

I suggest a weaker meaning of agnosticism: the belief that given
all available evidence it is impossible to determine with certainty
(a rather weaker certainty than absolute skeptics demand) to determine
whether or not a god or gods exist. I mean this to be a bit stronger
than just "I don't know." It includes the belief that no one has
enough evidence to be certain, i.e. that the subjective feelings
which are given by different people as an inner certainty of the
truth of various mutually exclusive religious claims are not reliable
evidence.

>[This doesn't make me] gutless, just more rational than those who
>make leaps of faith, whether toward gods for which they have no
>evidence, or for sweeping existential negatives which are also
>baseless. 

One edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations which I have seen
attributes to Clarence Darrow something close to "I am not ashamed
to be called an agnostic. It is no disgrace to say that I don't know
in an area where so many fools are certain."

>My third claim can be stated differently.  Either (A) there is no
>god, (B) the gods are not powerful enough to make themselves
>known to us, or (C) the gods do not want to reveal themselves to
>mankind generally.  (If all three assumptions fail, then there
>would be generally available evidence that there is a god.)  This
>conflicts, of course, with many varieties of Christianity and 
>other religions, and these varieties, I think, are proved wrong. 
>So I will assert that broad categories of religion are false,
>which is another sense in which I am an atheist, even though I
>will not assert that there is no god.  

As usual I agree with you.

Bill Mayne