From: smaurer@artin.helios.nd.edu (sean maurer)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Agnosticism
Date: 15 Apr 92 08:17:04 GMT
Organization: University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame

I spent two hours trying to clean up this paper so I could post it with
decent margins and correct puncutation. I couldn't. If anyone knows
how to copy a paper from Microsoft Word on the Mac, to vi editor or
to email without having wrap around 80 char. please email me. None of
the consultants could help either. Sorry.

[I've done some cleanup in Emacs.  Don't worry too much about margins.
That's easy for me to fix.  But I'd appreciate not having all quotes
come out as R and S and all apostrophe's as U.  --clh]

Sean P. Maurer
Humanities 186
April 10, 1992


And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"...and it *WAS* dull.  Genesis 0:0

Agnosticism
 or Why I am an Agnostic


Explanation for Prof.Moran: My justification for this paper: I realize
this has very little to do with the Gospel of John, other than my use
of its contradictions, but it was reading it that inspired this.

...if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe;
if you wish to be a devotee of the truth, then inquire... -- Nietzsche

	Since the term Agnostic was coined by Thomas Huxley (1870), I
think it is appropriate to start by quoting him.
 	
	...it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the
objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence
which logically justifies that certainty.  This is what Agnosticism
asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to
Agnosticism.  That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is
the contrary doctrine that there are propositions which men ought to
believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation
ought to be attached to the profession of disbe lief in such
inadequately supported propositions.
	At one time I believed in a god of sorts in a matter-of -fact
sort of way -- just like I believed in Santa Claus.  My parents
eventually told me there was no Santa, and at age fourteen or so I
concluded that the concept of god was quite pointless.  Religion is
just like Santa Claus, except no one ever tells you God (s) doesn't
exist, and God (s) never has to deliver presents so the hoax is never
unveiled.  When someone proposes that Astrology is the guiding force
of our lives they are scoffed at.  What is the difference between far
away stars controlling our actions and a nebulous god who does the
same?  What is god but a star who we havenUt found out to be only a
mixture of hydrogen and helium?  In explaining my beliefs, I am first
going to focus on the concepts of the Christian god and then discuss
gods in general.
	There are two possible versions of God.  One who created the
universe and now sits back and watches it go like a top or a set of
dominoes, the other a personal god who knocks down the walls of
Jericho and answers personal prayers.  For all practical purposes what
is the use of the first one? He may as well not exist if we will never
see him again other than as a original cause.  The second version
seems wrong to me because he violates all the laws of the universe.
It makes the world intractable.  If miracles can happen, we can't rely
on any constants remaining so.  We canUt look at evidence and assume
that it didn't just appear out of thin air as part of a miracle.  A
god that intervenes destroys our ability to discover order in the
universe.  A god that doesn't intervene is indistinguishable from a
god that doesn't exist.

--
Sean Maurer smaurer@artin.helios.nd.edu