Quote:
Originally posted by Colin
Why do so many non-believers call themselves agnostic? Agnosticism is all the rage these days.
Ask the same person who claims to be agnostic whether they believe in Zeus, Vishnu, Osiris or the tooth fairy and you'll get an emphatic "no".
You don't believe. Well, no shit you might be wrong. One doesn't normally take the time to profess "I might be wrong" for every single belief (or lack thereof) that is held.
Q. "Do you believe cattle are being mutilated by alien visitors?"
A. "Ummm, No. but I'm really not 100% sure so I'm really agnostic".
Why is non-belief in a creator any different intellectually than non-belief in lawn gnomes coming to life? Why not go all the way? I deny the existence of God. So there.
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Without going into detail (have too much of a headache at the moment), the strongest form of agnosticism isn't just about a single interpretation of God, but rather about a far wider range of spiritual and metaphysical concepts bundled together, including any possible but non-existent ones.
The alternatives to it can be summarized as "nothing exists that I cannot know, with the help of science, and that I know for sure" or "X exists, I know what it is, I know what it does, although I can not see or prove it - ever". Both are rather foolish, in my opinion, since although one can safely assume that the common religious concepts are incorrect (ridiculous, actually), saying so about every possible non-physical/spiritual concept is quite arrogant, to say the least.