RE: virus: agnosticism again (was Site du jour (Temple of the V

MarXidad (marxidad@innocent.com)
Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:40:08 -0500


> How do people feel about this: every time you "believe in"
> anything, a meme has you in its thrall.

I think saying that the acceptance of any meme puts you in its thrall is
going a bit overboard. The memetically aware, such as ourselves, aren't
necessarily enslaved by memes. Sure, we know that what we're doing is
determined by whatever memes we're hosting, but I wouldn't say that we're
helplessly following their dictates. Or maybe I'm being controlled by
<free-will> :) .

> So agnosticism,
> applied generally, not just to belief in God, is the ultimate
> meme-control mechanism. (To believe that something
> does not exist is to believe, while to be agnostic as to its
> existence is not.)

You said that in last month's atheism vs. agnosticism thread. David cited
something from Atheism Web; Here it is again:

Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe
it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not
equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have
no idea whether it is true or not.

> Sure, agnosticism too is a meme, but
> it is a minimal one, unlike rationality, which is relatively
> complex, and certainly very useful, but not as
> fundamental as agnosticism.

Rationality would have to be somewhat complex to be of some use. I'm not
sure about agnosticism being more fundamental, but it is too simple for it
to be of any use. Agnosticism is synonymous with ambivalence. Sitting on the
fence to avoid being on either side doesn't do much.
Agnosticism is saying "There *may* be a God". Atheists, in general, see no
reason to even entertain that idea. Now which is more minimal? I think it's
the latter that uses Occam's razor.

> Actually, if I recall
> Huxley's formulation correctly, agnosticism supplies a
> simple and coherent reason to be rational, the latter
> being merely a means to that end: believing only in
> that for which there is sufficient reason to do so (where
> "believing" includes "disbelieving").

With theism, I see no reason to assume there is a God, but with atheism, is
there not sufficient reason to believe that there is no God? If not, would
that be saying that there's no more evidence of God's nonexistence as there
is his existence?
And I still contend that believing is not necessarily the same as
disbelief.

Mark