Categories or Degrees of Existence (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Thursday, July 22, 2010, 18:09 @ George Jelliss

GEORGE: dhw appears to have undergone some sort of conversion experience on his holiday: "As regards your feeling that if there is a God, it’s not the God of the established religions, yes, we agree. But most religions may have a central core of truth in them, since there is certainly some kind of life force responsible for our existence." Agnostic no more!

I thought that even the most rabid of atheists would have to acknowledge that there is some kind of “life force” at work, and I chose the expression carefully in order to avoid any link to the divine. Evidently I was not careful enough! I concluded: “What irks me is the arrogance of those who claim to know the precise nature of that life force”, the range of which extended from religious to atheistic fundamentalists. I have no complaint if, for instance, theists believe the life force is conscious and caring, or atheists believe it is a mixture of unconscious chance and the impersonal laws of Nature. I only complain if they are “intolerant of those who do not share their subjective vision of the worlds we know and don’t know.” So rest assured, George, I remain, as ever, yours indecisively,

dhw.