Four days ago I posted on Gary Marcus’s nice piece in the New Yorker, “Can science lead to faith?“, decrying the new brand of natural theology that purports to find evidence for God, the divine, or the numinous in the natural world.
An alert reader has called my attention to a column that Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of the New Yorker (and himself a cartoonist), posted on the magazine’s site, “The cosmology of cartoonists.” Mankoff, apparently inspired by Marcus’s piece, first posts one of his cartoons—a good one:
And then offers his own beliefs:
Just to clear up any ambiguity, I’m not a believer, or even agnostic, I’m an atheist (denomination: Jewish). That means the God I don’t believe in is different from the God you don’t believe in if, for example, you’re a Muslim atheist, a Catholic atheist, or a Protestant atheist. But if we’re all wrong and God actually does exist, in my opinion He’s going to turn out to be Jewish. At least, I certainly hope so, because if He is Jewish I figure He can take a joke.
That’s my opinion. Is it representative of other cartoonists?
Mankoff then polls other cartoonists for their beliefs, and almost all of them turn out to be nonbelievers, though most call themselves “agnostics” rather than “atheists”. Each artist also contributes a cartoon. I’ll put up a couple, but go see the lot:
Roz Chast:
I’m an agnostic. I would be an atheist, except that when I was a young ’un I took L.S.D. a few times, and, especially the first time, had an experience that made me not so sure of my atheism. When I am old and farther along Decrepit Highway than I am now, I want to try them mind-expanding chemicals again. Because what will there be to lose?
Jack Ziegler:
Agnostic, I suppose, but it’s not something I ever think about. Raised Catholic, but stopped at age thirteen, when I realized what a load it was. Don’t like any religions at this point—think they’re all nuts to one degree or another. And they cause way too much trouble in the world—as they always have.
Don’t get me started.
One moar:
Frank Cotham:
I think of myself as a believer, but without interference from a church.
I’d love to see the New Yorker get tougher on religion, for it’s had a history of being soft on faith. These cartoons are, by and large, a good start.
h/t: KCS
Love it.
What, they didn’t hold a seance and get Jonny Hart’s opinion?
Humor is a good start to get any discussion going.
Like.
Can someone explain to me: I thought I had the whole agnostic v atheist thing sorted. Agnostic = I do not know, atheist = I do not believe, so the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I’d say that most atheists are also agnostics – we not do believe, but we do not know (with 100% certainty, although that may be 99.999…%). Have I misunderstood something?
An agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in Santa Claus; they withhold judgement because you can never conclusively disprove the existence of something.
Oh wait, no – it is only God who gets that special treatment. Those folks dump all over Santa.
No, an agnostic typically does not believe in a god (Huxley and Russell are examples), but thinks that proof one way or another is impossible.
The atheistic view rejects any supernatural explanations or entities. Agnostics say it cannot be ruled out.
That’s not accurate. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god or gods. Agnosticism is about knowledge, not belief. If you lack belief in a god or gods, you are an atheist, no matter what you think about the possibility of proving gods to exist or not.
“If you lack belief in a god or gods, you are an atheist”.
As I noted in a longish comment below, I could not in all honesty support such a claim – most do believe in agency magic, even if they claim they do not believe in magical agents specifically. They may be atheist in a perverse sense, but not belonging to atheism in the sense of rejecting agency magic.
Mostly I think agnostics are religiously motivated, and occupy a theological gap position at best or reject science at worst.
In another recent thread, somebody asked me if these discussions ever change my mind and if I ever admit to the error of a previously-held position. I responded that it happens, but rarely — and that I couldn’t remember the last time but that I thought that Torbjörn might have been responsible.
I still need to think this over a bit, but this may well be another such moment.
Specifically, I’ve generally considered an atheist to be one without gods. But, at the same time, as I’ve explained in this very thread, I don’t even see the word, “god,” as having a coherent definition.
Any term that necessarily incorporates another incoherent term into its own definition is itself incoherent. So, if “atheist” is to have a coherent definition, we need to start with a coherent definition of the term, “god.”
We might be tempted to rely upon subject reporting…if it weren’t for the fact that many who clearly believe in gods eschew the term, themselves. In North Korea, for example, their dictators have all been living gods, complete with the (false) claims of miracles and lots and lots of worship. But I don’t think it’s kosher for a North Korean to actually apply the “god” label to them, and outsiders seem reluctant to do so as well.
The only sense in which one can reasonably consider North Korea atheistic is the same one that the Classical Romans considered Christians atheists: they have gods, sure, but they’re not the right gods, not “our” gods; the only gods they have are false gods which don’t count.
One then might go the worship route, but even the Christian pantheon is full of all sorts of entities that are unquestionably gods that don’t get worshipped. If Hades and Set are gods (and they are), then Satan is a god, too (and he is), even though no Christian would ever worship him.
So we probably need to adopt a definition of “god” that instead relies upon magic, with “magic” being “getting something for nothing” — that is, a violation of conservation. Mere force of mind, or chanting a few words, or waving around a stick…these things cause work to be done disproportionate to the energy dissipated in doing the work.
At least tentatively, I’m going to suggest that we should consider any claims of / belief in “real” magic being done by “real” magicians as constituting a god claim, and anybody who makes such a claim, at whatever scale, is some form of theist. An atheist is somebody who rejects all magic claims, regardless of the basis of the rejection. Torbjörn makes an overwhelmingly powerful argument for the empirical argument, and I’d still suggest that all the actual god claims remain incoherent — that, for example, it makes no more sense to speak of the most powerful power or the creator of everything than it does to speak of the largest integer or that which is north of the North Pole.
So, thanks once again, Torbjörn. I need to do a bit more pondering before I’m totally convinced, but you’ve at least shaken things up for me.
Cheers,
b&
No. You haven’t misunderstood.
THIS WIKI on agnostic atheism puts it well:-
The word ‘agnosticism’ not only has several dictionary definitions, it has more than a few folk versions as well. The way I learned it the theism/atheism positions have to do with metaphysics (what we believe) and gnosticism/agnosticism indicates epistemic position (how sure we are.) So I’m technically both — but identify as ‘atheist’ because too many people think agnostics are perched right on the narrow edge of belief, ready to fall into theism as soon as they decide they want to be the kind of person who has faith.
The God I don’t believe in is a transcendent principle of Love, Creativity, and Beauty. So if we’re all wrong and God actually does exist, in my opinion it’s going to turn out to be pretty cool.
Ha! That last sentence .. isn’t that some kind of Pascal’s Wager in reverse? 😉
The Reverse Pascal is actually a belief in dogs, which isn’t so bad. There’s actual evidence to support the belief, but it’s not clear why there’d be any question in the matter in the first place.
The Double-Reverse Pascal is cat worship, which is entirely logical, sensible, and justifiable through overwhelming evidence.
Cheers,
b&
Don’t bother, regardless of what label so called “agnostics” like to put om themselves, they’re ATHEISTS.
If you don’t believe in a god or gods, or don’t know, then you’re an atheist. A theist is someone who believes, an atheist is someone who does anything but believes.
It’s just that people use the terms in such sloppy ways – and there is a common misunderstanding that agnosticism is some form of middle-way between theism and atheism, or that somehow agnostics are more open-minded or amenable to persuasion than atheists.
When we learned about the alpha privative in Classical Greek our professor used the examples of agnostic and atheist (the alpha negates the meaning so theist – god, then with the alpha no god). The class had its share of people studying theology and there was an odd guy that bore a striking resemblance to Rasputin in the class (I imagined him leading a cult) who asked “can agnostic also translate into ‘idiot'”….sigh.
There are a great many widely-used definitions of the term, “agnostic.”
In general, somebody who self-identifies as an agnostic is an atheist who doesn’t want to use that word for whatever reason, generally sociopolitical. There’s also a rather vocal subset who have an irrational, dogmatic belief that nonexistence proofs are impossible — never mind that many of the most famous proofs (especially including Euclid’s proof of the infinitude of primes) are exactly that: nonexistence proofs.
When it matters, it’s a good idea to get clarification on the definitions. When I use the words, it’s generally to refer to two separate axes about the nature and particulars.
Thus:
Gnostic (lower-case “g,” not to be further confused with the early heresies) theist: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
Agnostic theist: Typical non-devout religious believer. Reasonably confident about the matter but doesn’t really question it.
Agnostic atheist: Most atheists. Doesn’t believe in gods any more than Santa, probably (by population statistics) hasn’t given it much thought. Especially includes those who like Russell’s Teapot analogy.
Gnostic atheist: Is certain there are no gods. In practice, “igtheism” (q.v.) is generally the better term, as we (not royal — I’m in this category) don’t see the term “god” as any more coherent than “married bachelor” or “largest prime number” or “north of the North Pole.”
Could there be impressive space aliens? Sure, but James “The Amazing” Randi could also set himself up as a living god to some back-bush tribe in a perfect analogy. But the omni-gods, such as “most powerful power,” are all as nonsensical as “biggest integer” and generally for the exact same reasons.
…and all that, of course, is giving waaaaay too much respect to beliefs founded on a fourth-rate ancient faery tale anthology that opens with an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard, that features a talking shrubbery that gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero, and ends with some seriously fucked-up zombie snuff pr0n and a dude thrusting his “finger” in the zombie’s gaping chest wound.
Nobody loses sleep over whether Paul Bunyan might somehow really be real, and yet he’s far more believable and his stories are a hell of a lot more entertaining. So why all the fuss over the religious superheroes?
Anyway, it’s almost bedtime and I probably shouldn’t be posting anything at all right now for reasons not suitable for public disclosure….
Cheers,
b&
Thanks, this aligns with my understanding of the terms – most atheists are also agnostic, in that they do not say they KNOW with 100% certainty (that’s not to say that they consider it possible, but most likely wildly improbable, being one of an infinite number of untestable hypotheses)
Note that your “certainty” isn’t, it is a bayesian inference not amenable for testing, else you would treat the existence of magic differently along the lines of Selkirk’s Santa example.
Here is my analysis:
– Atheism is the empirical position. Such an atheist has either never heard of religious magic or never seen religious magic.
– Agnosticism is the philosophical position. Such an agnostic rejects the current empirical knowledge on the subject.
Here is where it becomes fuzzy.
It seems to me most accommodationists, those who have a remaining belief in belief, protects their and others belief by taking an agnostic position. (Alas, there is no statistics as of yet.)
When they do that, they seem to frequently do that from a pure religious position of theological claims. As Fisher’s ref has it “they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.”
Either they make the theological NOMA claim on remaining gaps or, worse, they deny that we know that magical agents using prayers, making souls or making universes do not exist (which is the same as claiming NOMA wholesale, say). This is testable:
– I believe the prayer studies that would observe magic healing (say) are done to 2 or 3 sigma.
– The standard particle model completion studies (Higgs field) that would observe _any kind_ of magic biology including souls, or prayers for that matter, are done to 5 sigma.
– The CMB studies that would observe magic thermodynamics involved in processes ending up with universes are done to 7 sigma as regards inflation (possible multiverses) and at least 10 sigma as regards _this_ universe (DM lensing in the CMB) – maybe even 25 sigma as some Planck results go.
And so on and so forth.
I’m loath to call such religious agnostics, to my knowledge most of them, atheists. They are a-“magical agents”, but they are not a-magical as regards theist claims in that it is, for them, a real area that somehow must be specially protected.
Likewise I have a hard time place them as “non-religious” as already noted. They are non-believers in some religious claims, but not non-believers in religion and all its claims.
Fuzzy. Of course, it is intended to be, as everything theological.
This has been on my fridge for several years now..
http://www.atheistmemebase.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/052-Trust-Creation-Science-to-keep-America-strong-and-safe…-the-old-fashioned-way.jpg
Superb!
I wonder how many people choose the “agnostic” label because of the cultural demonization of “atheist.” I’ve known many agnostics who basically don’t believe in God, and are just about as sure as the most strident atheists but they still prefer the more mild-mannered label.
Give the man a cigar….
b&
Thanks. Ahh, I see you posted a far more detailed comment in the same vein above. Great minds indeed.
When I run into agnostics who seem like the only thing keeping them from Atheism, I usually borrow from your playbook, asking them to explain their differing stances on God and Unicorns. Ie- why Unicorns don’t exist, but with God we just can’t know for sure.
Unicorns are an okay example, but not the best. Indeed, I’ve even seen one — at the Phoenix Zoo, they had something in the antelope / gazelle family with really long straight horns closely set on the skull, and this one was missing one of the horns. It really was a unicorn, just with an insignificantly-offset horn. Plus there’s the narwhal, and Indian and Javan rhinocerossessesses.
Much better is to ask how sure they are that there aren’t any married bachelors, or how far north you have to get to be north of the North Pole. If you can be sure of that, then you can just as easily absolutely rule out the possibility of a morally-responsible entity with the power to do something about human misery, which takes out every god actually worshiped. You’re then left with space aliens of various types, possibly including Matrix-style programmers…but not only are they un-evidenced, they’d be no different from Randi setting himself up as a tinpot god to a back-bush tribe, and they themselves could equally likely be subject to the whims of super-duper alien Matrix programmers — so why do they deserver the “god” label?
Anybody who still clings to the “agnostic” label at that point is generally doing so for emotional reasons, often a latent and well-suppresed lingering childish belief or a sociopolitical reluctance to be one of those nasty, rude, strident atheists or simply maintaining a position that nothing, even 1 + 1 == 2, is worthy of absolute certitude. The latter position I find particularly perplexing…if, somehow, 1 + 1 != 2, then what’s the point of anything?
Cheers,
b&
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
–Isaac Asimov, sourced at his Wikiquote page