Terrence, an interesting post, but let me correct one thing that you implied. The implication is that "agnostic" refers to a person who is unsure of the existence of God. Untrue.
The word was coined by Thomas Huxley as a joke. He was referring to his inability to define the nature of God, not the existence of God. It was intended as a play on words on the Gnostics.
Some religious philosophers divide the universe of people into two major parts: those who believe in a god (theists), and those who do not have a positive belief in a god (athists). If you do not assert the existence of a god, then by this line of reasoning you are an atheist. According to this view all infants would be atheists.
Now those who do believe can be further subdivided according to whether they believe it is possible to know the nature of god. Those who do are gnostics, and those who don't are agnostics. Thus, it is entirely possible to be an agnostic theist.
Now one final thought. If presented with two plausible explanations for the same phenomenon -- explanations that differ markedly in their complexity, a pragmatist would wield Ockham's razor and eliminate the more complicated one. Look at the complicated, convoluted and self-contradictory assertions required to explain the biosphere according to religion, and compare that to the synthetic theory of evolution. Where would Ockham's razor be wielded? |
