Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 26 Jul 2004 20:22:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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2423 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> > > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote:
> > > > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> > > > > Okay, okay, I'll buy that. But in casual conversation and in debates in
> > > > > general, can you give me a term to use that will be as readily understood
> > > > > as "atheist?"
> > > >
> > > > What's wrong with "agnostic"?
> > >
> > > I dislike that term because it's often seen as too wishy-washy, or a way to
> > > hedge one's bet. It can also carry a connotation of undecidedness, due not
> > > to a lack of evidence but a lack of conclusion. Additionally, if you say
> > > "I'm an agnostic" to 100 people on the street, I'd guess that better than 90
> > > of them would understand you to mean "I haven't made a decision re: which
> > > religion is right for me, but I think that one of them is."
> >
> > I definitely agree-- to be agnostic is really to be undecided. And if you really
> > simply "don't believe in God", but *would* if given sufficient reason, then I'd
> > say agnostic matches pretty well.
>
> Not the way I understand what an agnostic is. An agnostic holds that the
> ultimate truth about God existing or not existing is not knowable. That's not
> undecided, though many undecided people misuse the term "agnostic" to describe
> themselves. An agnostic is holding a firm position, undecided people aren't
> (contrast 1) You can't prove to me that God does or does not exists, with 2)
> Maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't, Idunno). Describing an agnostic as
> "undecided" is like calling a scientist undecided about the theory of relativity
> because he can change his conviction based on later evidence.
For the sake of a disclaimer I should probably underscore that my use of
"undecided" in this context was to address a popular connotation of the word
agnostic, rather than a literal denotation.
Dave!
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