Agnostic Guide Chapter 18 – The Middle

Here I Am

Agnosticism isn’t a middle ground between theism and atheism. However, I often feel like I’m stuck in the middle of belief and disbelief even though I come down on the side of disbelief as a de facto atheist. "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you." I’m criticized by both sides since I primarily define myself by our collective knowledge instead of what I believe today. I just don’t think anyone’s belief position is as important as our views of knowledge.

Sure, agnosticism means holding the creation question open to a certain extent. I have no problem doing that while rejecting the current set of theisms. We should continuously judge available information for anything rising to the standards of knowledge as verifiable truths. In practical terms, an agnostic comes to an atheist conclusion generally any time they think about it even though atheism may not be viewed as the final answer.

Theism isn’t a final set of described beliefs so how can atheism be a final answer? One day we may finally understand some grand truth not currently dreamt of in our philosophies. Ignosticism is the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts. Applying ignosticism to a scientifically researched variation of pantheism might give us a universal truth about some sort of universal intelligence. I don’t think it’s very likely, but the truth for me in agnosticism tells me it’s a possibility.

If the universe itself is our creator then it could have used an intellect flowing through energy in a way we may never understand. I’m just a simple human but it’s the kind of idea where I say “sure, maybe there’s something to The Force in Star Wars and George Lucas might be a true prophet.” I’m mostly joking about The Force, but there’s something about the idea which just feels right even though it’s probably an illusion of my simple human senses. I do know I don’t have faith enough to become a Jedi.

I don’t have the intellect or senses to know how all of existence simply came to be if it didn’t always exist. There’s new evidence pointing to an existence without beginning and a quantum equation predicting the universe has no beginning. If this can be proven then hopefully the whole theism/atheism belief scale disappears in a puff of logic. Atheism isn’t needed without theism. We could always have agnosticism as long as humanity isn’t omniscient.

I still feel stuck in the middle because other people try to tell me I’m not believing or disbelieving correctly. People criticize agnosticism despite the evidence we’re all just making it up in the absence of verifiable truths. I can understand theist criticisms since they rarely deal in verifiable truths but atheist criticisms are confusing to me since there isn’t an atheist dogma for us to violate.

Some theists argue with me that they know things about god or an intelligent creator through their faith and I should accept this unproven knowledge they’ve gained. They think I’m more open-minded than self-identified atheists even though I don’t share in their theism either. I’m still an unbeliever, infidel, and heretic but they sometimes get surprised and upset when I won’t see their truth.

On the other side, some atheists try to argue agnosticism is useless so I should fully embrace atheism. They push atheism as an obvious final answer since the current major theism of their focus is unproven. They insist we should define ourselves based on our rejection of other people’s specific beliefs. They say nobody can justifiably call themselves agnostic and sometimes get upset when I won’t see their truth. Would that be an atheist attempt at dogma?

Penn Jillette is a famous atheist who has said we’re both agnostic and atheist depending on the question. He’s right, but I differ with atheists like him concerning which question is more important. Some atheists say we shouldn’t call ourselves agnostics because they think we’re better defined in terms of what other people believe. For me, that gives more legitimacy to those human defined beliefs if we only define ourselves as a rejection of the beliefs.

The same logic that we shouldn’t call ourselves agnostic could be used against humanists. Humanists put their own focus and emphasis on humanism even though they’re also de facto atheists. I’m a bit of a humanist so maybe I’m an agnostic atheist humanist. It’s just too many terms to try describe my viewpoint so I pick the one that means the most to me as a self-identity for religion.

You could go even further and say human defined theisms are unproven and false so everyone is really atheist. Saying there are no true theists means they should just admit the truth and call themselves atheist. See how silly it gets when you try to force definitions on other people instead of just letting them describe themselves?

This is what happens when you concern yourself a bit too much with what other people believe and call themselves. I could see it as an issue if I tried to redefine the terms but I use the commonly agreed upon definitions for these words. I try to focus on agnosticism as my core viewpoint, but for some reason there are people who just won’t let agnostics self-identify as such based on historical agnosticism. They should just leave agnostics alone if that’s what we feel like using as our label. It doesn’t impact anyone else’s viewpoint.

Both religious and disbelief viewpoints are capable of being stupid and unreasonable in the areas where we lack specific knowledge to support our views. It’s yet another thing which makes me see agnosticism as the right viewpoint.

Atheist versus Agnostic

Two questions can be asked when it comes to religions. Do you have knowledge about “god(s)” and do you have faith or belief in “god(s)”? I want to stress that god isn’t just your own personal Jesus, God as the father of the Bible, or Allah or whatever other specific beings you may have a preconceived notion of when someone says… (cue menacing music) GOD. Theism crosses the gamut from those beliefs to the vagueness of pantheism and a general view of “god” as this universe with all of us existing as a part of god.

When I think of creation, I see a possibility this universe we know is just a small subset of a larger reality and existence. Perhaps this little universe is a created thing in a larger uncreated existence. Maybe we’re in The Matrix from those really cool movies. I just really don’t know enough to provide any knowledge with authority since I’m just a simple little human in such a large and mysterious universe. The kicker is nobody has any more authority in this area of study than anyone else. This includes ancient storytellers and scribes who wrote some really old books which some people think possess special authority. The people who wrote them were just people.

These are the kinds of thoughts which lead to me to believe the most important question is the one concerning what we know. What we personally believe is ultimately useless to humanity when we compare it to what we know. The whole reason for atheism is to be a disbelief response to theism. There would be no need for atheism without theism. I think agnosticism will always remain an important view for the big questions of existence, creation, and whatever may be our first cause and origin.

I’m not sure why there is an agnostic/atheist debate since they are both true to answering those different questions. I identify primarily with agnosticism because of the importance of knowledge for me. I share my view with the same amount of importance the primarily atheist people have for their view. Who cares which path we take in our freethought when the answer is roughly the same?

--- Theist: I believe in this!

--- Atheist answer: I don’t believe you!

--- Agnostic answer: There isn’t verifiable truth (knowledge) for your belief!

Yes, by definition, the agnostic is not explicitly expressing disbelief. However, if you’re agnostic and you profess a lack of knowledge then you are also expressing an importance for knowledge over belief. What type of logic or knowledge would then say it’s valid for an agnostic to agree with a theistic claim and engage in the blind faith needed for god beliefs?

I know it’s not a hard and fast rule that agnostics aren’t theists, but it makes no sense to me that the agnostic wouldn’t agree with the atheist when it comes to rejecting specific belief claims made by theists. They may not share an overall blanket rejection of theism as already disproven which some atheists may claim, but agnostics should come to the same conclusion as atheists for disbelief even if we get there by a different path.

If you’re an atheist and you’re arguing I shouldn’t be agnostic (it happens), then you’re just criticizing my path and methodology even though we’re arriving at the same general conclusions. Instead of criticizing folks saying “I don’t know” as being weak and lacking enough commitment to be an atheist, why don’t the “real atheists” just focus on people clinging to blind faith and theistic beliefs even though they admit they don’t really know. Those are the agnostic theists you should bother if you really feel the need to bug someone.

We Are All Agnostic

If you’ve survived all of the various labels in this book then I’ll end with what I believe is the best label for everyone. I believe every person is agnostic regardless of what each of us claims. None of us really know and anyone claiming to have the indisputable answers is wrong. They’re intentionally lying to themselves and everyone else.

The alternative to agnosticism is gnosticism, which would be a belief you have real knowledge of the metaphysical and the first cause as a supernatural being. If there really was such exact knowledge then it could be proven by other means without a reliance on faith alone. Since theists only have faith to stand on as their proof then humanity has no true and verifiable knowledge on this subject. If we’re all without knowledge, then we’re all agnostic.

There isn’t even a middle ground between anti-theism and theism unless you want to remain undecided on the whole subject of theistic beliefs. Agnosticism isn’t a neutral viewpoint. It’s a definite decision to say we don’t know, which is different from being undecided. A true middle ground would be a nonreligious person firmly planted in the secular world and unwilling to enter the argument enough to have a label.

I’m primarily agnostic and I think it’s best for any reasonable person. People shouldn’t believe in crap they obviously can’t know anything about. That crap is the religions of our ancestors. Yes, it sounds like atheism, but for me atheism is just a current conclusion in response to specific religions. The real reason why I think this way is through applied agnosticism. Unknown remains the truest answer for me.