AGNOSTIFICATION:

Agnostics are wrong about atheists.

Theists (believers) are wrong about atheists.

Unless you have a full understanding of what atheism is that came from a studious and knowledgeable atheist, you are wrong about atheists.

Just because somebody does or does not believe a god exists does not make certain they know what atheism is about. Atheism is not about whether a god exists, it is about belief. Whether atheists do not believe a god exists has no effect on whether or not one actually does, nor is that a statement exactly the same as to say that atheists believe no gods exist. Anyone who cannot understand that with great clarity will never grasp the nuances of much from atheist literature.

Whether a god exists, and belief about whether a god exists, are two different subjects. To insist the one is the other only obfuscates the issue, insults those involved with it, confuses onlookers still trying to make up their minds, and places the onus for verification on the wrong parties. To add to it that belief and disbelief are one and the same only buries the entire issue under the kind of nonsensical hot air that fills theism's balloon.

It is the onus of giving evidence that theists and agnostics alike are looking to avoid. They want to present atheists as evil, hard-headed curmudgeons who refuse to cooperate with their sorties against reality and logic while they sail their ship of Chance. They want to present atheists as the captains and crew upon that ship, but the cheaply constructed vessel is their own and the directives, compass and maps are those they've drawn.

If, upon those maps, they have plotted 100,000 gods during all the span of human existence, and only one of those gods is the one true god named 'God', it is not only atheists they must convince about which one of those gods is IT. They must also convince all the worshipers of all those other gods (including those who worshiped gods before their god got invented) and, to do that, they must first know by the proof of actual, obvious to everyone evidence and fact, which god is the actual god named God.

Without that obviously true to everybody factual material to support them, gained and presented in the material way that science demands, so that any and all can duplicate it for themselves and rule out all alternative explanations, the worshipers of that one actual god named God are no better off, can be no more certain of Its truths, and are on a no less tenable ship than are all of those whose gods they (like the atheists) deem false.

Atheists are careful and serious-minded people. We find it not hard to become exposed to all the believers' arguments against each other. We find the only facts they have in their own possessions are in those very arguments, because we recognize whatever of them coheres with reality. We will wait for them to sort the facts out for themselves and, whenever one or another of their gods proves unquestionable and real, we will adopt that god for ourselves as quickly as those unconvinced believers and the self-proclaimed agnostics.

As nearly as I have ever seen it determined, the chances of an actual god to exist must be about .0001 on a scale of 100. That kind of odds makes it look like we will wait another long span of time for the believers to reach their indisputable agreement, during which span they will more likely than not create 100,000 new gods.

Of all the gods mankind has created, only the god of the pantheists has achieved any level of verifiability at all. Even then, the question remains unresolved about whether or not Mother Nature is or is not a god.

Nature is the maker of the laws by which we must abide, whose "punishment" for our failures is most often immediate. It has been said that her laws are not laws by decree, but by human observations about how things dependably work. I doubt that Nature gives a damn one way or the other about our beliefs or our behavior, for the working of her laws will grant us both punishments and rewards. For all of that, I remain an atheist for exactly the reasons given, until I am handed the evidence that good and careful sense causes me to demand.

Given the numerous examples from both camps that can be found on the web, anyone can soon determine for themselves that people who describe themselves as agnostic come across as far more intolerant of others' views than do atheists. They make it look as though, now freed of religious restrictions, not yet possessing a sense of human protocol and still under the influence of their religious indoctrination, they can attack those with different views without repercussions. Atheists, under attack, untrained in the art and craft of oral combat, respond in kind. Truth be told, both sides would be better served to realize their similarities by far outnumber their differences, and to act accordingly.

Others commonly regard atheists to be mean clones of each other, driven to esprit de corps by some version of Satan, and filled with hatreds of all kinds that comes out in our acrimony. Well, I hate to admit that some of that might seem true for those not privy to our life-experiences and thought processes, such as the aforementioned agnostics. Atheists appear to "outsiders" to be mean-spirited, angry, and determined to cleanse the world of all visages of the gods people worship, take prayer out of schools and remove all idols from government.

I know. Been there, been that. I have had to change my mind time and again about all kinds of things over the years. Those atheists at the beginning who seemed so bitter, I well understand now. In the period of time when I had my youth, atheism was not so easy to remove from the closet as now; and, even now, every Thom, Pedro and Jorge to come along regards atheists to be a challenge upon which they can aggress to prove their beliefs to whatever audience they have. Not to prove their beliefs as valid, mind you, but to prove themselves to be dedicated believers and far wilier than all those who trod that path before them. It is power and performance, not accuracy, that they strive to demonstrate.

I still remember being one of them. I still remember my lengthy agnostic period. I still remember my insistence that atheism is "just another religion". I still remember how the apparent intolerance of the few atheists I ran across in my experiences seemed actually hostile. I remember wondering why, if atheism is such a good and freeing relief from religion, should atheists respond that way to others.

I now understand what seems like attacks by clones (someone called them "godbots"), cringing from a serial line of leering people springing forth from the shadows to one more time make each and every assertion as though they are the first to gain our attention and make us listen to their stories, and as though they intend to be the one, finally, to bring about our surrender. Picture yourself in that scenario, a duckling in wolves' territory, and try to estimate how well you would hold up before the smile fades from your face and the muscles tense in your arms and the frown forms on your brow.

And, there is always the lurking wonder you try to hide even from yourself: "Is this the one who will pull the gun or knife with which he will attempt to enforce his victory, the victory of his beliefs, that no amount of slander and threat has gained him?"

Picture yourself struggling to NOT say whatever comes to mind just to make the clones go away.

You would wonder, "If theirs is the one (out of many) and only (out of many) truth, why do they feel like my presence threatens that?" In all their innocence of science and facts, red herrings parade from their mouths to your ears. Point them out and, rather than acknowledge your point, they give you reasons for why they said them, as though red herrings and all their other logical fallacies have proper places in a religious context. They will shoot themselves in the feet by telling you that people all over the Earth and all through time have worshipped gods, and so there must be some truth to it.

That is just another aspect that plays against the likelihood of there being an existent god. People who dredge up those old arguments, do not realize how much they have helped the atheists against whom they make their attacks dedicate themselves to study, polish their responses and, with new information they have gained due to the kinds of tactics the sequential clones attempt, to affirm and correct their own views.

Those same and exact views may most often have been your own at the beginning, that your own sense of veracity and balance made you struggle to support. You likely worried, at the beginning, about why you couldn't support your religion with facts, and that you must be (somehow hidden from you) wrong. It is disgusting to a person such as myself that I should be called "arrogant" and "condescending" by the arrogant and condescending whose only source of information has too often been the priests, preachers and religious texts those people have fed them. The world is here to be examined, and examine it we should while they refuse. Am I and others concerned with truth to be convinced when confronted by that attitude?

There is no way to converse with people whose use and understanding of the terminology involved is different from your own, who regard your words to be a kind of cussing because (s)he finds them offensive, and wants to insist on yourself having a condescending attitude while (s)he insists upon changing your vocabulary, the source of your information, the nature of your experience, devalues your hard-gained wisdom, and blows away your words like they were dust. Make a case against which (s)he cannot stand, and (s)he leaves, and there is an empty spot that you hope will not be filled by just another clone who will make it clear (s)he had no interest in learning.

After half a century of dealing with my own escape from religion, I know it does not evaporate at the flick of some magic wand. The suspicions that drive a person to abandon it also drive the paranoia with which all kinds of appeals to one's sensibilities will be regarded. It does not occur overnight that a healthy-minded person will accept that evidence-in-absentia is still evidence. Like you would not argue for lighting a flame to heat a pan of water you cannot observe to be sitting on the burner, you stopped supporting the notion that an absent god named God may still somehow be hiding (something impossible to conceive given its reputation and personality, that demand it to be the center of attention).

The usual focus with which the discussion about the existence of gods (usually singular) is regarded is too narrow to justify pursuing it. People on both sides of the argument seem eager to forget the history of development religions have undergone. Religion does have a history, a lot of it known, and a lot of inferred from artifacts. It seems too bad that the majority of people seem to consider that their version of their religion has existed in its current state forever.

There's more to it than that, though.

It may be tough to find a god who has decided to go into hiding, that nobody can offer a description of, nor any evidence at all of its existence. The baggage that gets laid onto that god, though, ought to make its lair easy to discover: there is an entire realm whose existence should become apparent, given that the apparent majority of humanity should be rooting for that discovery. That realm is filled with all sorts of angels, demons, forces, and more, that have been declared to have interacted easily with human beings throughout all the stories told in the various religions. Yet, no one has as yet (remember the billions of people who should wish for discovery and evidence) offered one single testable hypothesis about it, let alone produced a milligram of material evidence, while science goes on hypothesizing, testing, demonstrating the truth or falsity of all kinds of other subjects so exotic they, too, are equally as unbelievable to the average person.

People are not all that stupid, and that has to be a fact. One sooner or later arrives to the notion that most of the religious do not believe in their own religions, and that is what drives their behavior and their choices. That they would rather have a good impression on Aunt Effie, Dad and Mom, their siblings and customers, than seek out what is true and adopt it as their own in order to avoid the condemnation of burning in Hell forever makes it clear their religion does not serve as a living truth to them. That they would risk feigning belief to impress others tells you their beliefs are less firm in their minds than they pretend. That they do not stand up, en masse, in church to demand truth to be presented to them in some demonstrable manner they can understand and see for themselves makes it clear they are as aware as yourself the person in front of the pews has nothing of it to give them.

Giving up religion, though, is like peeling off a layer of glue some of which has gotten under one's skin. A person has to realize all that stuff, and then investigate it, before he can accept it. Impatient atheists you may run across and attempt to question, will regard you not as a unique individual, but as a clone of all those who have accosted them already. They are not the ones from whom to be seeking information.

My beginning approach was to observe, look for discrepancies in both sides of a story, realize (this is important) there is as likely as not a third side that holds the actual truth, and to write down my thoughts and look for my own discrepancies. Read books and watch videos from both sides of any arguments, always looking for that third side; it surprised me every time I found it.

I joined an online atheist discussion group to just watch what goes on, and write down my opinions in a notebook and loose paper scraps as a result. Learning to understand logical fallacies and especially to understand why they are fallacious, helped me find a method for clarifying my thought processes. I learned to pick out leaps of logic in other people's writing by having them pointed out in my own, and then to discern from that why their opinions may be unsupportable. In some cases, I found what I should adopt as my own, and my horizons expanded accordingly.

Finally, here's this: Atheists, agnostics, deists, Pantheists are all secular people, which means their common tendency is to look to Nature for the fundaments of living and Nature as the giver of laws that all of existence must answer to. Rather than lock horns with each other, secularists must learn to develop common cause if we can ever hope for a chance to become a force capable defend our planet from the destructive forces humanity is now wreaking with free reign upon it.

Copyright ©2008 by Lloyd Harrison Whitling. All rights reserved.