Agnosticism and “The New Atheism”

“I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose. ”
Orson Welles

I fnd myself often explaining to people that I am an agnostic. Most people, it seems, take that word to mean something like “fence-sitter” - someone unable or unwilling to make up his or her mind. Orson Welles’ quote above about sums it up. It sounds clever and stinging but is actually limp and absurd. As if a person could actually “choose” what he or she believes. One believes or one does not believe or one neither believes nor disbelieves. “Belief” and “choice” - they are almost opposites. I have even read articles by devout atheists claming that there is no such thing as an agnostic - that we are, in fact, atheists without conviction. Idiots!

The simplest and most accurate (in my view) definition of the word I have come across is: “A person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)”. In brief, as an agnostic I do not know. Or, to put it another way, I recognize that some things can be believed only as function of faith because empirical evidence is non-existant. This last point is important, as I will show later.

Now, en passant, I should elaborate a bit. When I say “I do not know” and that I am “agnostic” I am speaking not simply about deities. I mean almost everything. Alpha Centari (or Alaska) probably exists, but do not ask me to risk anything in support of that position. So long as it has no immediate impact on my life I am willing to accept its existence as a working hypothesis, but no more than that. “Working hypothsesis” - that is an important concept, I think.

One of the interesting things about being an agnostic is the lack of company. We are apparently few and far between. I have read estimates of the number of people on earth believing in one or another of the plethora of gods to be between 90% and 95%. (I find this figure confounding, given that a large number of people on earth are Buddhists, and, as far as I know, Buddhists do not believe in god.) The remaining 5-10% is comprised almost entirely of atheists, it seems. In fact, I am not sure that among the several hundreds or thousands of people I have known personally during my life there is a single agnostic. Having befriended rather bright, well-read people, almost all my friends have been atheists. That’s fine. I have no problem whatever with that.

As far as I can see, there’s nothing especially bad about atheism. And, as I am fond of pointing out to my Christian friends, in the course of history probably a billion people have been stolen from, beaten, tortured, mutilated, raped, drawn and quartered, crucified, burned at the stake or subjected to whatever the abomination of the week happened to be by zealots spreading the word of the one true god (or gods), yet, to the best of my knowledge, not a single human has ever suffered at the hands of an atheist or agnostic in the course of their proseltyzing their philosophical views. (For those who would argue that atheistic states such as Mao’s China and Stalin’s Soviet Union brutalized or murdered millions, I would point out that the brutalization and killing was a matter of power, control and wealth, not philosophical conversion.)

Having said all of that, there is one area in which I find athesim offensive: Science. There is a growing movement afoot, led by well-known scientists such as Richard Dawkins, called the “New Atheism”. Their purpose, apparently, is to counteract the growing influence of religion in politics, geo-politics and social policy. Now that is an admirable goal I can support without equivocation. I am sick of people killing people or telling me what I may or may not do based on the particular fairy tales they believe in. Reining them in is a truly worthy ambition.

So why would I be offended? Because Dawkins et al are scientists. Or, more to the point, they are speaking as scientists. Their bona fides as voices for their cause come from their scientific credentials. As individuals, I couldn’t care less what they believe or do not believe. I have known many scientists - some atheists and some who genuflected on Sunday mornings or put a beanie on their heads and turned down the lights on a Friday evening. Who cares? Not me. But, when they put on their “scientist” hat and make public proclamations they are honor-bound, in my view, to adhere to the only philosophical view that is consistent with - or even permitted by - science: Agnosticism.

Atheism means the denial of the existence of a deity or deities. However, “God does not exist” is a statement that is no more testable, provable or falsifiable than “Jehovah smote them because they put rubbers on their dicks“. It is not a scientific hypothesis; it is a faith-based absolute and for a “scientist” qua “scientist” to utter anything like it is the height of bad faith, disingenuousness and an abbrogation of responsibility.

Were you to claim that there are silicon-based life forms inhabiting a planet a zillion light-years away and asked a scientist to comment on that, his or her response would be something like “I cannot comment on it. I have no evidence to support or refute your claim.” But, mention “god” and the same scientist is likely to say “There is no god.” Balls!, as my departed uncle used to say.

Regarding deities, genuine science permits only statements such as “That is an unproven hypothesis.” or “I do not have the means to test that.” or “I do not need that hypothesis to solve the problems I am working on.” In other words, science - real science - is agnostic.

Atheistic scientist: a perfect example of oxymoron.

Then again, I might be wrong. I do not know.

“I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.” Clarence Darrow