Well, experts in the great apes, like Frans de Waal disagree. There is evidence in the fossil record of great apes that “did good” with no chance it benefitted them. Existing great apes do this as well.
I tend to agree with you that “agnostic” is a better term for that case, but since the flow from one to the other is continuous you’re going to run into people who feel that of the two “athiest” more cleanly defines their beliefs.
And as @Richard_Kirk pointed out, there’s a huge difference between being able to concieve of a deity and accepting that the conception is valid. So you’re either misstating or overstating your case on that front. I have multiple conceptions of deities, none of which I believe in; I also have conceptions of FTL engines and alien races and alternate histories that I don’t believe in. “Imagining a deity” is well within the scope of an athiest; they/we simply can’t imagine one that they find convincing… or, for what I refer to as “strong” agnostics, one whose existence is in any way testable and/or relevant.
Reality is fractal. Human behavior especially so. Beware of mistaking the formal definition of a word for the range of reality it is commonly used to represent.
The problem, for myself, is that for Christianity to approach sanity would require dismantling Christianity itself. As for Catholicism, it will be interesting to see how far they reach back into Liberation Theology, or something like it, before they get the proverbial towel snap to the ass to get them back in line.
That would be poetic justice of some sort…
1 Like
Fairly standard SF trope…
1 Like
May you never be known by the loudest people identifying themselves as members of any group you belong to.
Yeah, I was thinking of Childhood’s End.
Hedging your bets.
Thank you for that.
I’m glad I could manage a funny metaphor for somone 
the latin root ‘a’ is without. like a vaccum. any trace of a gas and you no longer have a vacuum. agnostic is a very good open word with many interpretations.
‘Agnostic’ is a word derived from Greek roots, not Latin. T.H. Huxley, who invented the term was quite precise in his meaning at the time. The Latin equivalent is “ignoramus”.
3 Likes
I was tempted to agree with the author, nitpick a little, and then try to define my own beliefs a bit differently. But it strikes me that what’s interesting about that essay, that’s missing from the discussion here about atheism, is that the author is addressing an audience that’s an existing community with shared beliefs, and arguing why the definitions of atheism they are using are inadequate for describing their shared beliefs. So I think what’s really going on is that there’s a developing social strata that is trying to define its own identity. We’re inclined to think first in individualist and idealist terms – we were clever, and figured out religion was bunk, and only later met other people who thought similarly – but I think it’s important to recognize the social forces that facilitated this.
2 Likes
When I saw the title to this thread just now, it occurred to me that no one had said the obvious yet, so here goes…
Atheists say Catholics are OK with them, so long as they “do good”.
Which encompasses my viewpoint on religious folk rather well, as long as you include the corollary “and don’t try to force their beliefs on others”. That’s the sticking point, usually.
5 Likes
It’s this kind of muddled thinking which has lead me to have more respect for the logical consistency of theism over atheism. You can legitimately not believe in something without actively disbelieving in it if you are a) ignorant of the idea, or b) agnostic regarding it’s existence. In the case of agnosticism, though, you neither believe or disbelieve - but you claim both to not believe, and to not actively disbelieve. This is the worst kind of fence-sitting and dodging - the agnostic position at least acknowledges that it does not have a powerful enough argument to disbelieve, but you want to have it both ways - you want to say you don’t believe, but then when somebody asks you to justify your disbelief, you can just shrug your shoulders and say because it isn’t an ACTIVE disbelief (an extremely slippery distinction since you are neither ignorant or agnostic of the idea) you have nothing to defend or prove. So-called “agnostic atheism” is the most wishy-washy of all positions in this debate - it’s just agnosticism that stubbornly refuses to except the full implications (and humility) of agnosticism. You’re basically saying: “I don’t believe in gods (but I’m not prepared to make any arguments as to why gods can’t or are are even unlikely to exist, because I know I can’t sustain a burden of proof in that regard, which is kind of embarrassing because my whole beef against gods in the first place was predicated on the idea that all claims about the nature of the universe incur a burden of proof.)” Give me an intelligent theist over that kind of stuff any day of the week.
Beat me to it by a wide margin.
Thanks for that. My work takes me in the way of a great deal of strongly religious folk and I haven’t the slightest problem with 99% of them because they don’t carry on about joining the flock. Oddly, the few that proselytize strike me as zealots who missed 90% of the Bible’s teachings.
2 Likes
Your statement inherently contains the belief that the universe and God are not the same thing (despite Spinoza mathematically proving this identity long ago) and it is therefore a faith-based theological statement. Gnostic atheism, at best. I believe this was what our Maple was trying to explain to you.
Note that Spinoza’s “math” is far from convincing to many. GIGO…
I tell you what’s cute? A sane Pope! Amazing to think that ‘sane Pope’ is not an oxymoron.
Unprecedentedly fucking great look for the Catholic Church.
1 Like
