Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

September 4, 2009 — After much spirited debate I have come to the conclusion
that the argument presented below is much weaker than it should be. I am
redoing this argument in a new, far superior essay, but I will leave this
one up for the sake of documenting the journey it represents.

During some recent discussions about religion I’ve had at least one friend
whom I consider extremely intelligent call himself an “agnostic” in the
context of his belief in God. I believe, however, that this person, and most
people like him, are actually atheists.

I think the distinction is important given the discourse that is taking
place between believers and non-believers within society. Specifically, I
think those who do in fact lack belief in god(s) should be willing to
explicitly say so through the term they identify with.

And since this is certainly a matter of definitions, I’d like to take a
moment to address the terms “agnosticism” and “atheism” with the goal of
getting more like-minded people to consider themselves atheist instead of
agnostic.

Agnosticism

On Dawkins’ scale of 1-7 between strong atheist and absolute believer you
can see that only those at the two extremes are absolutely certain of their
position. And on the atheist side, very few call themselves a level 1, or
strong, atheist. Not even Dawkins considers himself a strong atheist,
and neither do I.

The 7-level Belief Scale

This leaves levels 2 and 3 for most atheists, and levels 5 and 6 for most
believers. Both of these ranges are ultimately degrees of agnosticism, and
as such the logical approach is to evaluate the probability of a
given proposition being true. This applies to all propositions, big and
small.

Remember, all propositions being made about the nature of reality are either
true or not. It’s one or the other. And because propositions either are true
or false, and because we have plenty of reality to take samples from, it’s
quite natural to assign a degree of probability (even if its qualitative
rather than quantitative) to a given proposition.

It must also be noted that most people call themselves agnostic with respect
to religion because they have been trained to avoid conflict, both
internally and socially. The use of the label “agnostic” serves as social
lubricant to avoid the friction of calling oneself an atheist in polite
company. I believe this to be intellectually dishonest, and an inhibitor to
societal progress.

But agnosticism has its place. As Richard Dawkins points out in his
best-selling book on religion,
The God Delusion
>, it is perfectly rational for someone to be agnostic on the questions of
whether there is other intelligent life in the universe, or what exactly
caused the last mass-extinction event.

The reason agnosticism fits here is because these are knowable things
that we simply do not know at this time. Perhaps we will learn these answers
soon, or perhaps we never will, but either way a truth does concretely exist
regardless of whether or not we have it in our possession. Other examples
would include questions regarding the origin of life on earth, or what
existed before the big bang. On these matters I too am an agnostic.

But for those who accept that the current, monotheistic gods are every bit
as likely to exist as the Greek or Norse gods, or leprechauns, or Russell’s
Teapot, or the
Invisible Pink Unicorn
>, it amounts to intellectual cowardice to call oneself “agnostic” with
regard to any of them–including to the ones that people
do believe in.

Atheism

It’s important to remember, first and foremost, that atheism encompasses not
just active denial of god(s) existing anywhere in the universe (strong
atheism), but also a simple lack of belief in god. The Oxford English
Dictionary of Philosophy defines atheism as:

Atheism: Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.

Note the first piece of the definition: disbelief in. This is a
crucial point. Many cling to the label of “agnosticism” because they cannot
be sure there is no god, but what they fail to realize is that while
being agnostic pending evidence in one direction or another their admitted
lack of belief in the meantime fully satisfies the criteria for
atheism.

Another common attack against atheism comes from believers in the form of
stating that atheists are believers just like them. This particular position
is absolute nonsense. If my friend Bob believes he is a vampire, and I
simply don’t believe this, I didn’t somehow acquire a new belief by
engaging in the conversation. I simply didn’t add one.

If this argument of atheism being a belief were true, everyone on the planet
would be said to be carrying around an infinite number of discrete
non-beliefs at any given moment, such as: “I don’t believe Paris is
in England.” “I don’t believe the Pope is Jewish”, “I don’t believe the Sun
revolves around the Earth”, etc., and they’d be considered
non-crazybelief-ists for each of those.

This is clearly silly, and it’s no different than claiming atheists actively
“believe” there is no god. The only reason this is even a topic of
conversation is because many people do believe in the current gods;
it’s a matter of current religious trend. To demonstrate this, ask yourself
why Christians aren’t actively labeled anti-Zeuseans. They aren’t
labeled as such because they are, more fundamentally, simply
not believers in Zeus. This same exact logic applies to those who
don’t believe in any other god.

Conclusion

So, if you have the education and intellectual fortitude to be an agnostic
in a world full of believers, recognize that the standard for atheism is not
100% certitude that a god somewhere in the universe doesn’t exist, but
rather a simple lack of belief in them currently (pending evidence).

Reject society’s pressure on you to contort this clearly identifiable
position into the socially inert term of “agnosticism”. Shed the self-doubt.
Drop the intellectual submission based wholly in the fear of societal
repercussions. When asked, just come out and say it: you’re an atheist.