Do you align yourself with atheists (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 11, 2013, 12:10 (4099 days ago) @ Iephelp@hotmail.com

Iephelp: I have tried to explain the agnostic point of view as I see it. Theism and atheism are equally absurd and equally unproven, yet some atheists I know are claiming that agnostics are an extension of their affiliation. I disagree. What are your thoughts?-Welcome to the forum, Iephelp. I agree with you totally that theism and atheism are equally unproven, and I find the theist faith in an eternal, universal, self-aware intelligence as difficult to believe as the atheist faith that chance can assemble the complex mechanisms necessary for life and consciousness, and that eventually science will find materialistic explanations for everything. Those atheists who try to downgrade us as "extensions of their affiliation" are generally unaware that their atheism is just as faith-based as theism.-However, I would hesitate to use the word "absurd", because one or other of these theories must come somewhere near the truth. I prefer to use less emotive terms (e.g. "unlikely") and to argue that I neither believe nor disbelieve. No doubt you will have experienced the same hostility from both sides as I have, since the fundamentalists are unable to see any point of view other than their own. Fortunately on this forum, we have had very few fundamentalists, and the majority of our contributors have shown respect for one another's views. For me the hallmark of agnosticism is not dismissal but open-mindedness, although inevitably when we enter into a discussion, we can only explain why we do not believe either theory. This often leads to the accusation that we are siding with the "opposition", as people find it hard to understand that there is a distinction between belief/disbelief (= commitment) and non-belief (neutral).-I hope you'll join in our discussions, and I'd be interested to know if what I've written corresponds to your own views and experiences.