Coined by English biologist Thomas Huxley in 1860, the word agnostic has taken several forms over the years. Agnosticism typically addresses the knowledge of God’s existence, but most agnostics don’t stop there. They often take a position on the existence of objective truth as well. One agnostic will say, “I don’t know, but you don’t know either,” or, “I don’t know, and I can’t know. And, neither can anyone else.” Others say, “I don’t know now, but maybe some day there will be more evidence and I’ll know then.”

So I have a question for anyone who is an agnostic. How do you know that agnosticism is correct?

If you say, “Well, I don’t know,” then, why are you agnostic if you have no basis for it? Or maybe you say, “In the absence of any convincing evidence, agnosticism is the best position to take.” But how do you know that agnosticism is the best position to take in the absence of any convincing evidence? Where’s your evidence for that?

It seems that, no matter how you slice it, agnosticism is a claim to knowledge.

My question for Bob is this: If there is no justification for saying, “I don’t know”, then on what basis would anyone say, “I know”? Under what circumstances is one justified in saying, “I don’t know.” Maybe the correct position to take is one of silence. If you don’t know, then maybe you should remain silent.

*A question for agnostics. Here is the link to the article itself, but to get to the comments you have to go here.

The scientist asks not what are the currently most important questions, but “which are at present solvable?” or sometimes merely “in which can we make some small but genuine advance?” As long as the alchemists merely sought the philosopher’s stone and aimed at finding the art of making gold, all their endeavors were fruitless; it was only when people restricted themselves to seemingly less valuable questions that they created chemistry. Thus natural science appears completely to lose from sight the large and general questions.

– Ludwig Boltzman (Taken from The Mind’s Sky by Timothy Ferris)

“Absolute Tuth Exists”
“Absolute Truth Does not Exist”
“I Don’t Know if Absolute Truth Exists”
“I Don’t Care if Absolute Truth Exists”

The first button takes you to a page with two buttons.

“Laws of Logic Exist”
“Laws of Logic Do Not Exist”

If you continue to click on the first button on each page then you will read that the laws of logic, math, science and absolute morality are immaterial, universal and unchanging and could only exist in a universe governed by God.

This sounds like a syllogism:

(1) Absolutes exist.
(2) Absolutes can only exist in a universe governed by God.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

In order for the conclusion (3) to be true, both (1) and (2) must be true. I don’t know if the first is true, but it seems to me that it is possible that it is true. [I have discussed elsewhere the idea of absolute morality.] Premise (2) on the other hand is more difficult to believe. Maybe it is just part of the nature of matter to behave in a way that gives us what we call the laws of science. When I have discussed my doubts with Christians they tell me to ask God to show himself to me. They say that if I immerse myself in the Bible I will begin to see the truth of God’s existence. If prayer is necessary to believe in God, then what is the point of using deductive logic?

In the tenth chapter of the Old Testament book of Joshua, it is recorded that the Sun “stood still.” One day while NASA scientists were using their computers to calculate orbits for the Earth, Sun, and other planets, they discovered that there was a “lost day.” After prodding by one of their colleagues who had attended Bible school as a child, the scientists reprogrammed their computers to include appropriate biblical facts and ultimately found their “lost day,” thus proving the biblical record to be accurate.

Now here’s a quote from AnswersInGenesis.org, “[T]he story which claims that scientists have discovered the ‘long day of Joshua’ is untrue.”

My point is not to dispute the story of the Sun standing still. My point is to demonstrate how Christians with good intentions can spread false stories. Even now that we have computers and digital video, people who hear stories like these pass them on without checking to see if they are true. Before Gutenberg scribes took great pains to make faithful copies of scripture, but the above story shows that faithful copying is not enough to prevent false stories from spreading. The Answers In Genesis article says that the story probably has it’s origins in The Harmony of Science and Scripture by Harry Rimmer. Instead of NASA, Rimmer cites two astronomers. Did Mr. Rimmer know that the story he told was untrue or was he led astray by the astronomers? Did someone at some point deliberately lie about this story? What about other historical events? How much of what we believe is false or inaccurate? We put our trust in the hands of ancient historians and also in the hands of modern journalists and authors. How much of what they tell us can we believe?

Marvin Minsky has written an article he calls, “Communicating with Alien Intelligence.” He does not address the problem of how to differentiate between random gibberish and a message from an alien intelligence. He skips ahead to a hypothetical meeting of humans and aliens and asks whether or not they would be able to understand each other.

Now let’s repeat the non-conformists oath: I promise to be different. I promise to be unique. I promise not to repeat things other people say!

-Steve Martin from his comedy album, Wild and Crazy Guy

Photo: Wikimedia

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handywork.”

How people respond when they look at nature depends on what they’ve been taught about the natural world. Depending on their world view they might see a mountain as a beautiful sculpture formed by an unseen hand or they might see it as the product of unimaginably powerful forces acting over incredibly long periods of time. As humans we tend to anthropomorphize and equate movement and change with a kind of life: Rivers run, trees sway, mountains grow, the wind blows, vines climb. What do the stars say about God, if he exists?