Is agnosticism more intellectually honest?

Hello all. First post, but I won't ask for mercy! I apologize up front if my thoughts appear to be somewhat fragmented, I have been struggling with how to appropriately frame this question. I have been impressed by many threads on this forum, and I apologize if this is a blatant restating of a previous thread.I am not a scientist or theologian. I studied history in college and my continuing interests have been archaeology and paleontology, but I do not have the background in biology to bring much to the fray in terms of paleontology, as my education in that area is limited to a AP class in High School. My science credits in college were satisfied by taking astronomy courses, which I came to fall in love with, and really opened my eyes to the wonders around us. Now on to my question.My question is, isn't agnosticism a more intellectually honest position than atheism? I ask this because it seems that atheists make a bold declaration that they can prove a negative (that no higher intelligent power has had a hand in either the universe or the unfolding of life on this planet). Agnosticism at least takes no position either way, seeming to depend on evidence to sway its position one way or the other.I understand that there are some aspects in religion which are certainly falsifiable: that a deity created the world a mere 6,000 years ago, that the gods dwell on mount Olympus, that the earth is flat and rides on the back of a giant turtle, etc. By stating the world is only 6,000 years old and was therefore created by a certain deity, the argument falls apart when the world is proven to be older, and by extension the existence of that particular deity with those specific characteristics might be considered disproven. That is, unless invoking un-falsifiable assertions like what you all refer to as "goddidit". But to me, saying that perhaps the creator brought the universe into existence 6,000 years ago in an appearance of extremely old age is as logically nonsensical as asserting that you are the only conscious being in the universe, and everything around you is an illusion. You can't really disprove it, but it doesn't necessarily pass the BS test.However, none of that seems to dismiss the possibility that there is/was a higher power responsible for what *is*. It's as impossible to disprove that a god (or whatever you want to call it) started this whole ball rolling, when we can't seem to get past certain points in history (abiogenesis, big bang, whatever). Also, I have seen that some serious scientists, to include Dawkins, don't discount the possibility that life on this planet may have been started by other intelligent life from out there in the universe; whatever form that life may have taken (hypothetically) may not be addressed. In short, we *don't know* a whole lot, but we don't necessarily dismiss out of hand the possiblity that life here did not originate here from non-living matter. So why would we automatically dismiss the possibility of the "divine"?So, is atheism as intellectually dishonest as, say, a YEC twisting evidence to fit a flood model? By asserting that god or an intelligent creative force does not exist, doesn't the atheist go beyond the rational and testable and make a definite theological / philosophical / even ideological statement that cannot (at present) be falsified? Is not agnosticism a more appropriate and objective position for an honest person to take?
I appreciate your input.Edited by Wollysaurus, : No reason given.

Thank you for the replies!

quote:

---

Atheism is simply a personal statement that the individual does not believe in any Gods.

---

I suppose it may come down to a question of language for me then. To me, the implication is that the individual *knows* there are no gods, begging the question "how do you know?"

quote:

---

Honesty and dishonest have nothing to do with any of the three positions as long as the individual actually does hold the belief expressed.

---

I may not have chosen the best wording. I suppose using the word "honest" or "dishonest" does inevitably mean that one is knowingly being untruthful if they take a particular stance. Perhaps I should have phrased it differently and asked if atheism is intellectually flawed, or perhaps unsound, if one professes to "know" that there are no gods.edit:

quote:

---

Now in order to be consistent, this agnostic must also refuse to say that there are no werewolves or fairies or unicorns, on the same basis. And yet I have not seen agnostics behave in this manner, nor do they question the honesty of those who say that werewolves are mythical. And yet intellectual consistency would demand that they should do so.

​

But even if some such agnostic were in fact to assert that he didn't know whether or not there are werewolves, I should still be somewhat suspicious of his integrity unless he also carried an amulet of silver every full moon to ward of the powers of darkness. Yet I have not observed this to be common in agnostics either. When it is a matter of life or death, they behave as though they are quite certain that there are no werewolves. If they refuse to say as much, this smacks of hypocrisy.

---

Now there is an interesting perspective. But isn't it a bit of a leap to make a comparison between belief in werewolves to a potential prime mover for the universe itself? At least with werewolves we might be dealing with a physical entity, part of our earthly nature itself, not something that might be considered outside of our reality as we know it.I suppose I should perhaps regard atheism in a spectrum, ranging from those who declare there is no god, to those who simply doubt one exists.Edited by Wollysaurus, : No reason given.Edited by Wollysaurus, : No reason given.

No, thank you for the tip! I appreciate it.

Your point is thought provoking. It makes me think that the 'qualities' I attribute to agnosticism are fundamentally flawed.Taken with Jon's point above, I would have to reassess what I think of as "agnostic" and, within those criterion even change the way I might classify myself.Perhaps the answer to my original post is that my question itself was flawed, and that if I wish to define agnosticism as simply admitting that one cannot know for sure that something does or does not exist, it must be applied in any case in which a negative may be asserted, as you point out. I can't prove that there *isn't* an invisible octopus on the moon at the moment, therefore, if I were a "good agnostic", I would have to admit to the possibility. But my own reason leads me to dismiss the thought.Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

I think we may have reached a point where a severely wounded horse is being wacked with a stick.He's not quite dead yet, though.I definitely concede that my question was flawed and that my own overly simplistic definitions are largely to blame.I said:

quote:

---

I suppose it may come down to a question of language for me then. To me, the implication is that the individual *knows* there are no gods, begging the question "how do you know?"

---

The following, I think, is very relevant: My definition of "atheist" obviously doesn't square with some of your very well thought out replies. Maybe that is because when I say "theist" "atheist" or "agnostic" my perceptions are shaped more by popular reaction than philosophical depth.When someone says they are an "atheist" in a public setting, it evokes immediate perceptions or stereotypes in the minds of those who hear it. I would go so far as to say that beyond thinking that the person "knows" there is no god, the hearer believes the individual "rejects" the very concept of a god or higher power.That is a powerful and emotional trigger for many people.But why does it matter to me?I ask the question in the first place because I have been unsure what to tell people about my own beliefs -- or lack thereof -- for years. I have waffled back and forth since I was a teenager, ultimately coming to the (intellectual) conclusion that there is probably not a god, but bound by the (emotional) boundary of stating flat out that I am an "atheist", in part because I cannot with certainty state that I "know" god does not exist. I simply don't *believe* that a being with the characteristics commonly ascribed to the Judaeo-Christian deity or other common concepts of a creator exists.Since I want to make sure my positions are defensible and rooted in rational thought processes, when I label myself I usually say that I am an agnostic or, if I want to avoid something uncomfortable, I say that I think there is probably a god but that he doesn't get involved much. I have truly held that more Deist viewpoint, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I believed in this absentee god more because I *wanted* there to be a "divine" reason for the universe than I had evidence to validate that belief. It was an emotional, rather than thinking, decision.Hope this helps to clarify my position and errors within this thread.

It sounds like you are describing progressive revelation. One might declare that they know something to be true, because eventually God will reveal it to be so. But that doesn't seem to serve as proof, merely as a belief in progressive revelation.Or am I misrepresenting your position?

RAZD, thanks for the post. The scale represents what I've come to understand through the many posts here. And it satisfies my need for pictures since I'm used to digesting information in PowerPoint form

Joseph, I think his point was that you do not appear to even realize what Galileo actually did. In the seventeenth century, it was not the flat earth that was an issue, but rather geocentrism.Analogies are useless unless you have an understanding of the topic.