Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the great moral thinkers, dead and living, for their contribution to a better society and a greater understanding of ourselves and the universe. Through their timeless wisdom we find immortal truth.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

The essence of agnosticism

Arming yourself

with education

The agnostic approach

to truth

Agnostics, atheists and theists! Oh my!

The reason for religion

and life after death

Why live without religion?

An agnostic approach to evolution and intelligent design

Has science proved that everything comes from nothing?

Is history accurate?

How to live

How to die (just in case it happens someday)

The eternal struggle of good and evil

Is mankind innately

good or evil?

Guarding ourselves

against evil

Agnosticism applied to business and government

Freedom and quality of life

Capitalism with a safety net:

the ultimate economic solution?

Let us draw our

swords together

So much said in so few words

References

Preface

Emeril Lagasse is a celebrity chef famous for taking recipes and kicking them up a notch. Emeril will take your ordinary average chicken dinner and WHAM! Add some spice, POW! Add some sauce, BAM! Give the main course some great side dishes. He adds passion and flavor to his cooking. He takes the enjoyment of cooking and food to the next level.

It’s time to do what Lagasse does to meals to philosophical arguments. Take these ordinary everyday arguments and BAM! Kick them up a notch. Take a philosophical question and POW! Add some Confucius, BANG! Add some Socrates, BAMMO! Throw in some Machiavelli, WHAM! Add a dash of Martin Luther King Jr. We need to add passion, meaning and resolution to life’s oldest questions. It’s time to take the greatest questions of our existence to the next level. Welcome to agnosticism.

The essence of agnosticism

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think. – Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

This book is about thinking. Two forces which cause great suffering and evil in this world are arrogance and shameless ignorance. We must arm ourselves well for the battle against these forces. It’s a battle that will never be won and must always be fought. It’s a battle fought against others and within ourselves. The will, character and integrity of a person matters more than their religious or non-religious affiliation. A superficial label tends to mean very little on how people actually conduct their daily lives. Your character and integrity matters and have a direct impact on shaping this world. Your life matters; live it well.

Socrates once used the phrase shameful ignorance; however, the real damage comes from shameless ignorance. We are all ignorant of certain things. If we are conscious of our own ignorance, we will research further on issues and problems or seek counsel from subject matter experts in order to make the best judgment. If we simply take actions on conclusions that are based on thinking that we know what we do not know, poor consequences will follow.

The journey of this book has begun with statements about superficial labels and Socratic wisdom. So who am I to preach about agnosticism and what life events guided me in this direction? Many books about alternate religious belief begin with the author discussing how he or she used to be religious and then somehow lost faith due to some life altering event. My story is quite different; I’ve never connected with religion as something divine.

There are no specific life altering events that guided me in this direction. Like you I am a human being who will be on this earth for a short period of time and will eventually die. I don’t know why philosophy connected with me the way it did or why the spreading of agnosticism as an alternative or supplement to religion became a necessary goal in my life. These things just are. I am what I am and I do what I do. Through courses in college, an abundance of self study, writing and research, I have become an authority figure in agnosticism. There has been great effort put into these writings and I hope that you learn and enjoy much.

In this chapter I’m going to define and explain agnosticism. Various aspects will be introduced including the literal translation, and the implications of that translation. Various people will be mentioned that further define the meaning. These people include Thomas Huxley, Confucius, Socrates and Bruce Lee. I am a proud agnostic. I officially became an agnostic ever since I researched the meaning over 25 years ago. The meaning has become deeper as I’ve become older and more experienced in life. I am dedicated to the ancient wisdom of agnosticism and always will be to the end of my days.

Agnostic definition – A person who continues to seek the truth because they do not assume that they already have it.

An agnostic is not owned by religious or anti-religious dogma. The mind of an agnostic is free to explore and learn about any religion and philosophy. We compile what is good from an endless range of sources; that is our ideology. An agnostic is a believer in free thought and free discussion. Agnosticism is an unbiased quest for truth. Agnosticism is a marriage between science and philosophy. An agnostic is dedicated to honesty and challenging dishonesty. An agnostic recognizes that the human mind is our fundamental resource and that the only way to gain maximum output from this resource is to challenge authority.

The wisdom of agnosticism did not come to me till later in life. An evident example of this is when I was in my early teen years and would often visit my friend Joey. Both I and my friend had personal computers at the time. The system in my home was a TI. My friend had an Apple. I told my father about the Apple. My father was loyal and proud of the TI computer and stated that there was nothing the Apple could do that the TI could not. Armed with my father’s ignorance, I fearlessly engaged in an argument with my friend that the TI could do anything that the Apple could. Joey explained that the TI could only support 16 colors while the Apple could support 256. Did I allow undisputable facts to derail my argument? No! I turned to argument by repetition and simply repeated that my TI could do anything that the Apple could.

Obviously looking back, the argument was silly. In the face of the facts I had clearly lost. Back then I had the excuses of youth and the blind following of an authority figure for my stupidity. As a grown man, I no longer have the excuses of youth. As an agnostic, I don’t have the excuse of blindly following anybody. Challenging authority is a major ingredient of agnosticism. It’s important to note that challenging does not mean disrespecting.

Many are under the delusion that people choose to be agnostic as a non-offending belief when in reality no one is more offensive than an agnostic. There is nothing more offensive to those who are shamelessly ignorant than someone who exposes their lack of knowledge. There is nothing more offensive to those who are arrogant than someone who challenges their authority. There is nothing weak about people who keep fighting for truth no matter how much effort is made by other to sell unjustified conclusions.

Lessons in life led me to a path of flexibility over rigidity. When I was young, I believed that the world was static. I thought as the years went by I would grow up in a never-changing environment. Through experience, I learned that the world of mankind was always changing. The way things are quickly becomes the way things used to be. Through learning history, I discovered the rollercoaster ride of good and evil that existed and still exists while ancient religious text remains static. I learned about times of great advancements in social progress. I learned about times when what was gained was lost, and lost quickly.

Agnosticism is complex. It cannot be explained through an internet one liner. It cannot be explained by a meaningless belief and knowledge graph or mathematical formula. The literal definition is simple, but the implications of that definition are not. For the true meaning, one must examine the literal translation, the implications of that translation, the history, and the people involved. In order to understand agnosticism one must understand philosophy, the love of knowledge and wisdom. So how does agnosticism relate to philosophy? I will give you two quotes of the greatest Eastern and Western philosophers of all time. Confucius and Socrates did not literally know nothing. The meaning of these quotes will be further defined later in this chapter. Understanding these quotes is critical to understanding agnosticism.

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To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. – Confucius (551-479BC)

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. – Socrates (469-399BC)

The list of questions that follows this paragraph will give you a good understanding of what is covered in this book. Yes, the whole religion and God thing will be discussed, but there is a great deal more that is equally important. Agnosticism is a way of life with implications towards religion, not a direct stance on religion with implications towards a way of life. The following questions have been contemplated by mankind for thousands of years. We must keep asking these questions and solidifying answers to really know who we are as individuals, and as a people. We are less likely to be deceived on subjects of which we’ve given considerable thought. There is strength in knowing who we are and what we stand for.

The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

What is the definition of God?

Is there a God?

Is religion good or evil?

What is the definition of a perfect gentleman?

What is the definition of a perfect lady?

What is the definition of good and evil?

Is mankind innately good or innately evil?

What is the best way to live?

What is the best way to die?

What is our purpose in life?

What is the key to a productive and fulfilling life?

How do we raise a nation of strong and independent free thinkers?

How do we measure quality of life?

How do we maintain a high quality of life?

What is the definition of a just society?

How can a just society be maintained?

How do we defend ourselves from those who are dishonest and unethical?

Must we be unethical to compete with unethical people?

What is the proper way to conduct our daily lives?

What is the proper way to conduct business?

What is the proper way to govern a city, state and nation?

Those who do not seek the answers to questions will learn nothing. Those who believe that they have already obtained the truth will stop learning.

Those who are humble in recognizing their own ignorance and have a driving hunger for knowledge and wisdom will continue to seek the answers to questions. Answers to big questions need to be argued. Once an argument is well established, those who overcome fear of consequence will place the argument in the cross hairs of all who would oppose it. Let the arrows and mudslinging come. An argument set on stone will withstand the scrutiny. An argument built on a house of cards will not. Even when an agnostic has established an argument on a solid foundation, they continue to fortify that foundation and dare anyone to knock it down. If cracks are revealed they must be filled. If the cracks spread and the foundation tumbles, the failure must be humbly recognized. The quest for truth must take precedence over pride.

Agnosticism is one of the most misunderstood terms used today. People tend to purely focus on the literal translation which is without knowledge. What most do not understand is that agnostics have an appetite for knowledge that can never be satisfied. They will always be hungry for knowledge. They will always be without knowledge. An agnostic desperately fills their mind with knowledge as a starving man desperately fills his stomach with food.

Study as though you cannot catch up to it, and as though you fear you are going to lose it. – Confucius

What is the goal in the obtainment of vast amounts of knowledge? The goal is to find truth. Just as a prospector digs and digs and searches and searches through earth to find gold or the perfect diamond, an agnostic digs and digs and searches and searches though knowledge to find truth. Some get tired of digging and they settle for what they have. An agnostic does not settle for suspect answers to the greatest questions of our existence. If the truth is not found they must keep digging. If the truth is found they must continue to solidify it. Satisfying the mind of an agnostic is no easy task. Agnostics tend to see the flaws in arguments more than most people. It is in our nature. We tend to have a keener smell of dishonesty. We tend to hate that smell with a passion, especially the stench of fraud and hypocrisy.

Agnostic – without knowledge

So what does this all mean? Why is without knowledge so powerful? Did Confucius and Socrates really know nothing? Of course not, they were among the wisest men who ever lived. They lived over four hundred years before Jesus Christ was born. Would we still know their names today if they literally knew nothing? So why did they acknowledge their own lack of understanding? Let me put it to you this way, the people who go through life thinking that they have all the answers will learn nothing and live their lives as fools. The reason Confucius and Socrates became the wisest men on Earth is because they were humble in recognizing their own ignorance, and never stopped attaining knowledge. If one is without knowledge, then knowledge must be attained. We don’t give up on it; we get it to the best of our abilities.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell claimed to be an agnostic because he could not prove or disprove God. He then spoke of probability and argued that there are things we don’t know, but through probability, can make the claim that they don’t exist. His example was a celestial teapot that we could not detect. We cannot prove that the teapot in space does not exist, but through probability we can conclude it does not. This may be an effective way to argue against mythological creatures, but does not address the big question of God. To compare knowledge and probability of the existence of a greater intelligence responsible for the physical and biological universe to knowledge and probability of a celestial teapot is meaningless.

Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion claimed agnostics had to be in the exact middle of belief and non-belief of God. The problem is that there are various degrees of belief. Does someone believe in something based on probability? Granted someone who bases their belief by making a claim that there is probability regarding the existence of God would not be making a claim of absolute knowledge, but it’s still an arrogant statement. They are claiming to know what the probability is.

Where does this probability number come from? What is the probability that the caterpillar species which spins a cocoon and transforms itself into a butterfly came about purely by tiny random gradual changes due to natural selection, as in survival of the fittest, over a large period of time? What is the probability that the caterpillar eventually evolved from a single celled creature as part of an intelligently designed plan from an outside source? We don’t know how something came from nothing, but we know what the probability is on whether or not a higher intelligence was involved?

Some may argue that modern cosmologists have discovered how something came from nothing. This is arguable and will be addressed in a later chapter. Is placing some arbitrary belief number on a scale really the way people should define who they are? Anyone can believe in something, or dream up a probability number. What matters is whether or not there is a solid foundation for a belief. Can the belief withstand scrutiny? Agnosticism is not about belief; it’s about having something behind the belief. Belief also has a direct relationship with knowledge. What we know, or think we know, we also believe.

Can someone be an agnostic atheist, or an agnostic theist? Speaking as an agnostic, I’m fine with someone defining themselves as they wish. I only ask that they are able to provide a solid argument. If someone is going to define themselves, they should put in the thought required to give their self definition substance. The essence of agnosticism is not to be dogmatic. It would be un-agnostic to dictate that people define themselves only in the way that we think they should. We can certainly argue against any position that we believe to be illogical, but there is a significant difference between arguing and dictating. There is a significant difference between I believe that you are wrong and here is my argument why and you cannot think this way.

If someone is philosophically an agnostic, but religiously a Christian, perhaps they define themselves as an agnostic Christian or Christian agnostic. Perhaps the order of words depends on whether or not they connect more with a philosophical definition of themselves, or a religious definition. Many would consider this absurd as a Christian claims to know that Jesus Christ is the son of God which is not in any way, shape or form remotely agnostic. I would not say that this criticism would be unfounded, but it’s important to remember that Thomas Huxley recognized Socrates as the first agnostic. Socrates very much believed in a God, although his deity was somewhat vague and outside of his people’s polytheistic religion. Philosophically Socrates was the very essence of agnosticism.

To find the true meaning of agnosticism, one must study Thomas Huxley who coined the term. One should study the established definition of agnostic in Huxley’s later years. The established definition does not claim that certain knowledge can never be attained. That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow. – Thomas H. Huxley.

It’s unfortunate that many people still think of agnosticism as a belief that knowledge of God can never be attained when that is simply not the true meaning. Huxley initially used the word unknowable when first inventing the term, but he later regretted using the U word. If someone is without knowledge, they cannot know that knowledge can never be attained. Agnosticism is anti gnosis and anti dogmatism. We don’t know if knowledge regarding God can never be attained, especially in light of recent advancements in microbiology and particle accelerators.

So what do we call someone who claims to know that knowledge regarding God is impossible? What do we call someone who claims that we don’t know and never will? I would call them a dogmatic pessimistic skeptic (DPS). They would certainly not be agnostic. Before discussing further about Huxley, I would like to take a slight detour to Bruce Lee and how his philosophy ties into agnosticism.

Bruce Lee was one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived. He was also a great philosopher. He didn’t believe anyone should be indoctrinated to a specific style of fighting. Treating a specific style as gospel caused crystallization of the mind, making change difficult. One needs to be flexible and have the ability to adapt. There is no one perfect fighting style. The best fighter is master of many styles and has the skill to apply the right methods as situations present themselves.

I take the same approach to philosophy and religion as Bruce Lee took to fighting. I don’t believe in the divinity of any religious doctrine, but understand that each religion, as each philosophy, has something to teach. Life is difficult as we must constantly make decisions on how to act, what to say and what to do. Our decisions and actions have direct consequences on our quality of life. There is no one philosophy that applies to every situation. In order to make the best of our lives, we must be knowledgeable of many religions and philosophies. We also need to have the skill to apply the right wisdom as situations present themselves. We need to keep our minds free of crystallization and be adaptable in a dynamic world.

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." -- Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

(Bruce Lee’s most famous quotes, www.fightingmaster.com/masters/brucelee/quotes.htm)

So who was Thomas H. Huxley? He and his good friend Charles Darwin were men of exceptional character and integrity. These were true gentlemen and that is important to remember. Huxley was a scientist and a philosopher. As stated previously, Huxley recognized Socrates as the first agnostic. Was Socrates a scientist who used the scientific method? No, Socrates was a philosopher who developed the Socratic Method for obtaining truth. This method is still used today in every court room. Once again, to understand the philosophical implications is critical to understanding agnosticism. Anyone who does not understand that Huxley recognized Socrates as an agnostic will not understand the true meaning of the term.

Huxley’s combination of science and philosophy is important to consider. While science has the scientific method of obtaining truth, philosophy has the Socratic Method. When these methods are combined with integrity, there is no better system of solving problems. This is the system used to prosecute criminals. Cross examination combined with evidence. Just like anything else, personal integrity is crucial to making the system effective and successful. Dishonesty can cause any system to fail.

As stated previously, Thomas Huxley created the term, and it was first published in 1869. This is important to consider. 1869 is extremely recent in regards to human history. No one before this date labeled themselves as agnostic as the term didn’t exist. We can study long passed historical figures and discover striking