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Agnosticism and living in a state of (-x)

[email protected]  Written by me

May 9, 1999

The Agnostic lifestyle is not one that is readily misunderstood. Most people take a stand on almost every issue whether or not they know anything about what it is they are discussing. The agnostic makes decisions on evidence and evidence alone. He can make decisions on faith but only if he has Evidence to support the thing he has faith in as being helpful to him. (more later on this) The Agnostic must be in a state of (-x) to truly be an Agnostic. (explained soon)

During my life I've gone through many changes and experiences that have forced me to examine the lifestyle of those that don't analyze the stances they take. Through my experiences I have found this lifestyle to be erroneous and a waste of time. All decisions in life should be made with some evidence to support the conclusion. If no evidence can be found then one should admit his/her own ignorance on the topic.

The entire point of this paper is to show that it is possible to be not in a state of X or to be leaving in a state of (-x in other words). This will be explained soon, but first we must have a common ground on which to stand. To do this explanations will be offered on my opinion of what I mean when I say a few terms. The terms defined will be evidence, Agnostic, faith, and lastly X. Once this common ground is established we will discuss why there is a necessity of making decisions only on the basis of evidence (or not being in a state of X). The last thing to mention will be how this is possible.

Evidence is a rather simple term really. The idea of having evidence for something is "To have a reason to believe any certain conclusion." For example, if I think that I am hungry I have a reason to believe that I am hungry. My stomach might growl or I might just feel hungry. Whether it's a sound, a feeling, a sensory perception, or a whatever is not important. The importance is that I think I am hungry because of something. If there wasn't something making me think I was hungry then I would not think I was hungry. In other words there is evidence to support that I am hungry. So evidence simply means, "To have a reason to believe any certain conclusion."

With an understanding of what I mean when I say the word evidence we can move on to the term previously discussed which is "X." What I mean by the term X is someone being in a state of making some of their decisions based on evidence and some not on evidence. So if a person bases all of their actions and opinions off of evidence then that person is in a state of (-x) or the opposite of X.

Agnosticism in this paper has a slightly different connotation. The meaning of the word is, or at least what I mean when I am talking about my religious views of agnosticism, is "There is not enough evidence to support the conclusion of a supreme being (usually I mean the Christian definition of god since I usually get in conversations with people that believe in the Christian God. If I, however, was talking about Buddha this would still apply) existing or not existing." Many people interpret this incorrectly. What is meant by this is that some evidence has been examined and that through the examined evidence no stance can be taken because the evidence seen is not substantial enough to warrant an accurate decision towards any conclusion. (1) This word , religiously again, does NOT mean that everything in life is uncertain, or that we can't know anything for certain, and because of that we can't know if god does or does not exist. This can also lead us back to X because if a person is truly an agnostic they MUST be in a state of (-x). They have looked for evidence of a supreme being but have not found any evidence that satisfies the conditions.

This misunderstanding of the term agnostic, labeled (1), leads us to what I mean when I say the word agnostic. This is an entirely abstract concept so I will try and explain. It is difficult to follow because in order to follow it we must somehow show in our actions that we can't be certain of anything. Just as with the existence of god the person would also not be completely certain whether or not a boulder was going to fall from the sky and kill them, no matter how unlikely. Although unlikely the person, because that person sees it as a very real possibility, must try to protect themselves somehow. The problem here is that this POV (point of view) is nearly impossible to obtain and I have yet to see any evidence of someone obtaining it. No matter where they were they would not know for absolute certainty that they were safe. Another example of this is not knowing for sure whether or not other people exist. If you refuse to take a stance on the issue because it's not 100% certain then you would NEVER have any contact with other humans because they might be really nothing at all. The point is that people don't live like this, or at least I can't think of one. If someone truly believed that faulty definition they would do things that most would be unwilling to do.

All of this info, up to now, is written so you can understand why I came up with the conclusion I am about to explain (meaning the definition of agnostic). It is included solely for us to be on that common ground and so you can, even if you disagree with the final conclusion of the paper, at least understand what I mean when I say a particular word.

So agnosticism is not that bad definition and it is something entirely different. What I mean when I am discussing the idea of being in a state of (-x) (which relates to agnostic) is this: "Basing all decisions on evidence." There is not a single decision that I make that is not for a reason.

The last definition we need to discuss before entering the next section should actually, hopefully, clear up some misconceptions. The word is faith. Faith, first of all, when talking to most people always has a religious connotation. Usually what someone means, when living in our western cultures, is faith in god. (just so you know I hope to meet some people that believe in other things to expand this section but so far I don't know any - although I will read some books on it at some point) In our sense of the word what was meant faith was whether or not decisions can be made solely on evidence or if some have to be made without(which would be faith). The decision would be made without evidence. You are placing trust in, at least in this case, a supreme being. This is not necessarily bad if you have evidence to support the conclusion that this supreme being is everything it is cracked up to be. This is , however, ONLY alright in the case that you have evidence to support the conclusion of there being a supreme being, and that the being is supreme (it ahs all knowledge etc..) , and that it would help you. I suggest that many people have a claim to have this when in reality they don't have any evidence to support these other conclusions. This would make, as Paul Tillich would say, an "Idolatrous faith." A good example of this is an old saying from the bible, "Do as Jesus would do." What they mean is that if you don't know what to do, you don't have a reason to do one thing or the other, and you don't really have adequate evidence to believe in Jesus, maybe your just afraid of hell or you are God fearing making you believe(Even IF there isn't a god) etc…, so you figure out your interpretation of what Jesus would have done and than you claim to have a good reason for taking your action.

I'm NOT saying that it's not all right to make decisions on faith if you do have adequate evidence for you to believe in whatever supreme being you subscribe yourself to even if it has no name. Adequate evidence just means evidence that because of that reason you do truly and honestly believe in the conclusion … and for the REASON of the evidence. I'm not going to get into examples of what this could be but if someone reads and wants some examples than just ask me.

What we are talking about is this, "is it possible to only make decisions (that we care about - I will explain that later - based on evidence?) Previously we would have called making decisions based without evidence faith, but we have discovered that even with faith we MUST have evidence to support the thing we have faith in. Thereby we must still have evidence to support our conclusions. Not doing this is what we have come to call (X). So when I say the term X I mean simply ,"Making decisions, that we care about, without evidence to support any one conclusion."

When I say "that we care about" I mean things that we plan on deciding upon which the outcome of the decision is important to us one way or the other. It is, of course, possible to make completely arbitrary decisions about things. For example your playing a video game and your not sure what kind of jet fighter to pick and there is no descriptions of the jets either in the manual or in the game. There is no evidence to support any conclusion, of which jet to choose, so because you really don't care which one you get you just choose randomly. These kind of decisions are not the kind that I am talking about, that's not what I meant when I was talking about making decisions on evidence. There is definitely decisions you just randomly choose. The decisions that we are discussing are the ones that the person has looked for evidence for and has either found or not found anything convincing of a conclusion. If the individual HAS found evidence for a conclusion (and is in a state of (-x) that person will make a decision If an individual has not found any evidence for a conclusion then that person (if in a state of (-x) will NOT MAKE A DECISION. For example, lets say Timmy has not looked for any evidence for the existence of god and he feels it is important for him to make a decision. He, however, has no reason to believe either side (example no feeling his gut, no revelation, doesn't believe the bible, no premonition, no dreams no mystical but adequate reason, etc..). If Timmy makes a decision anyway, whether it be social pressure or just a random choice, then Timmy is in a state of X. Timmy has just made a decision that is important to him without any reason to believe it. This, hopefully, shows what I mean when I say the term X. If Timmy made the same decision but he did have evidence (and all other decisions in his life were made that same way) he would be in a state of (-x).

I am not BY ANY MEANS saying that those that believe in god are in a state of X. It is definitely possible that many people that believe in god and are not in a state of X. For example if Timmy believed in god and he believed in god because he trusted the bible or had a feeling it was true than he would not be in a state of X because he had a reason believe. (Whether the evidence is true or not is not the point of this paper either, only that he has evidence to support his conclusion)

We have finally gotten to the absolute point of what I will be hereby trying to explain. Some people make decisions with X. I choose not too. I utterly refuse to be in a state of X. So what I am trying to show is that it is possible for me to not be in a state of X.

(More coming soon on how it is possible for someone to live this way.)

published work copyright 1999

Any Questions or comments please email me JoJoBuBu at [email protected] or Shaft at [email protected]