foxmart

I consider myself one. I was raised under a heavily catholic influence but as I've grown older I've become more objective in my religious and ethical beliefs. In that sense I consider agnosticism to be a sort of neutral, possibly even unsure, position about religious beliefs and the very existence of God. Agnosticism should not be confused with atheism, which is complete disbelief in the existence of God, not just a rejection of all organized religions.

JimiLe

Typically, agnostism is seen as that grey area between theism (believing in God) and atheism (not believing in God.) But it really isn't that simple is it?

It's like being told you only have a choice between believing or not believing what your ancestors believed. You say, "YES! it's all True!" or "NO! it's all a Lie!"

Not much of a choice. What if it's like most everything else we learned thorough the centuries: some of the things people used to believe still seem to be true (for example, sticking you hand in fire hurts), and some thing clearly aren't true (the world is not flat and there are not "sea monsters" out there in the uncharted regions.)

Agnostic really means "don't know." It also implies it's opposite term: gnostic.

So, we really have two axis or ways of approaching the question: belief vs knowledge. At least in the West, we've been taught to see religion purely in terms of belief for so long that we don't believe it is possible to know anything about it. We can only believe or disbelieve. Again, that's not much of a choice!

Well, perhaps that works for some people. And if it does, good for them (that is if they don't want to punish, attack, or kill people that don't believe like they do. )

I could be mean and say both theists and atheists are really agnostic because clearly they don't know, they only believe or disbelieve. True from a certain point-of-view, but still a bit mean to say. To each, his own. It takes all types to make a universe.

As for me, I'm the curious type of person. My favorite question is "Why?" All of my life experience and education tells me that I can learn many things from those who came before me. But they certainly didn't have all the answers, and many times were very, very wrong. It's my life. I'm the one who lives and dies with the consequences.

I'm going to find out for myself ===> that makes me a "gnostic" or a "seeker of truth." Of course, that means I'll have to work at finding new ways to look at the whole subject. Sounds like fun.


--Jimi Le

P.S. I'd alter Shakespeare just a bit and say: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our religions or philosophies."

mansio

Difficult to have an opinion of agnosticism or to discuss it as it is the fact to have NO opinion.

ناصر التوحيد

Agnosticism curriculum is strange that all knowledge related to reality impossible, more precisely say that truth is the truth but not this relative truth???
The curriculum agnosticism is a self-destructive Valladre destroy themselves they are things that man knew enough from reality so that it can confirm that none can know about the reality ..!!! A Nanny?
The previous sentence is within everything necessary to deny rights because if anything about science reality is surely why it can not confirm at the same time that every fact Unknown ...
It means more simply agnosticism full self-destructing because it assumes some knowledge of specific relevance to deny any knowledge of reality!!!
We can say that it is not possible to know the difference between right and wrong, without them we know enough to distinguish the difference between them ... So there is a right and wrong!! So agnosticism supposed to be a search and disperse them access to whichever either be a final position is not accepted by the sound minds!!!

Shoestringz

To me the idea of agnosticism is partly not fitting into any religion. Many agnostic people, including myself see the ideas of claiming an absolute truth, whether it be an Islamic god, a Hindu god or even no god at all as dangerous. Personally I'd like to believe there is a God, but, especially in American politics (perhaps in others, I'd be interested to find out), the ideas and concepts of religion, in this case Christianity, have been so far contorted that I have the urge to stay away. For example: signs proclaiming "God Hates Fags," or a prominent religious figure saying as to the Iraq war "Blow them away in the name of the Lord."
As a side note: I realize that this is unfair and isn't representative of the religious community as a whole.