Honesty - it's such a lonely word

Hello, everyone! welcome to the Barbados Agnostic Society. Join us if

• You are an intellectually honest individual who is not satisfied with what so many "faith-based" organisations are passing off as "truth";


• You want to know more about the world in which you live;


• You are curious as to what exactly is an "agnostic".

The term "agnostic" was apparently coined by the famous scientist Thomas H Huxley during the 19th century. If we could draw a line graph to represent agnosticism on an imaginary line, it would look something like this:

ATHEIST______AGNOSTIC____DEIST_____LIBERAL THEIST_____FUNDAMENTALIST

Lets look at each one in turn.

An atheist says that there is no divine being. An atheist is really a materalist. A materialist holds that only what can be detected by the senses is real. Everything else is imaginary. For an atheist, the question "is there a God?" can only be answered in the negative. There is one thing on which all honest persons agree, irrespective of the philosophy which they hold - there is simply no empirical evidence for the existence of a divine being. The existence of God cannot be verified through experiment nor by observation.

Thus, for the atheist, there cannot be anything else out there beyond that which we can see, feel, smell, hear or touch.

Recently, we have seen the rise of what may be termed "militant atheism" in which atheists, via websites or other means set out to advocate their point of view. Many of us may have heard of the "There is probably no God..." bus ad campaign which has drawn the ire of several believers worldwide. Atheists argue, in response, that they are simply doing what some religious followers have been doing for centuries - proselytising - and that is surely their right.

We will skip "agnostic" for now and go on to Deist.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) defines Deism as follows:

"Deism is a philosophical belief in the existence of a God on the basis of reason, and observation of the natural world alone. Deists generally reject the notion of supernatural revelation as a basis of truth and religious dogma. These views contrast with the dependence on divine revelation found in many Christian,[1] Islamic and Judaic teachings.

"Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe which that Architect does not alter either by intervening in the affairs of human life or suspending the natural laws of the universe. What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, most deists see as interpretations made by other humans, rather than as authoritative sources."

A Theist, on the other hand, according to Wikipedia, is as follows:

"Theism in the broadest sense is the belief in at least one deity.[1][2] In a more specific sense, theism refers to a particular doctrine concerning the nature of God and his relationship to the universe.[3] Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism which contended that God — though transcendent and supreme — did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.[4]"

Theism is a very broad term which would include all of those who believe in the existence of a god or gods and who also believe, unlike Deists, that the divine reveals itself to humanity through inspiration. This revelation is of knowledge which could not otherwise be obtained by the use of human reason alone. The revelation might come through prophetic utterances, which may or may not be written down, or it might come through a theophany, i.e. a dramatic inruption of the divine into the human realm, for example, in the form of an incarnation or an otherwise natural event which then takes on a new meaning (maybe a volcanic eruption).

The difference between liberal theism and fundamentalist theism relates to the extent to which the individual applies reason to belief in revelation. The more liberal-leaning a theist is, the more likely he or she is to balance reason with belief. The more fundamentalist-leaning a theist is, the less likely he or she is to apply reason to his or her belief. For the extreme fundamentalist, revelation, as interpreted by the leaders of that particular group, is supreme; to the extent that that person will reject any evidence which conflicts with his or her belief structure, no matter how sound that evidence is.

There is obviously a blurred division, if any, between the liberal theist, the deist, and the agnostic. All three, certainly, are willing to use reason in their deliberations. Perhaps the real threat to rational debate between persons of differing belief structures lies at the two extremes of atheist and fundamentalist theist. These two groups spend so much time screaming at each other that the more level-headed among us cannot be heard. We know that fundamentalist theists are fond of calling everybody else atheist, while the atheists have sometimes been known to paint deists, agnostics and liberal theists with the same brush.

Oftentimes, both atheists and fundamentalist theists have been guilty of the same error: oversimplifying the issues. Both groups also have a tendency to appeal more to emotion than reason. It might sound strange to hear someone accuse an atheist of appealing to emotion, but one only has to sample a large number of atheist websites to recognise that this is the case.

Lets examine how both atheists and fundamentalist theists miss the mark.

• They both attempt to hold others who may not share their point of view up to ridicule. Logic 101: ad hominem is not only a no-no, it is also a sign of an attemt to cover up a poorly constructed argument.
• They both ignore the basic rule of natural justice which says "hear the other side" and spend a lot of time attempting to rebut that of which they do not know.
• They both resort to false absolutes such as "there is no God", or "There is a God".
• They are both convinced that they have the final word on this or that issue, or that this issue was settled long ago by "Dr. so-and-so".

Fundamentalism by any other name is still fundamentalism. It is extremely difficult to have a rational debate with an extremist, whether he or she sits on the intellectual right or the intellectual left.

So what do agnostics propose?

• First, we must accept the fact that human knowledge, while increasing exponentially, is not absolute. Thus, we cannot claim to know everything absolutely. We can claim to know everything about some things, and we can claim to know some thing about everything, but to claim that we know everything about everything would be a false absolute.
• Once we recognise this simple fact, then we would be open to dialogue with other people who do not necessarily share our point of view, but who have something to add to the debate.
• We must recognise that when dialogue ceases, the growth of knowledge ceases. If we are honest in our commitment to the growth of knowledge, then we cannot assume fundamentalist positions and assume that we know all there is to know.

From time to time, as time permits, we will share our experiences with you, and we invite you to share yours with us. The purpose of this blog is to open a dialogue among all persons who want to learn and grow as our race ages, recognising that it is quite possible to age without either learning nor growing.