Comments | tanthrix: The Impotence of Agnosticsm

tanthrix

The Impotence of Agnosticsm

Mar 23, 2009 01:11

Time and time again, I have had passionate theists attempt to convince me that I am an agnostic. “How can you be so pompous to claim to know that there is no God?" they'll say. "You accuse us of belief without evidence, and then you turn around and do the exact same thing.” My usual reply to this is that I do not claim to know that there is no God ( Read more... )

Comments 3

natowelch March 24 2009, 04:30:45 UTC

yup.

tanthrix March 30 2009, 07:41:48 UTC

Oh c'mon, I was expecting at least some heated disagreement!

natowelch March 30 2009, 09:28:46 UTC

How one chooses to define terms isn't a basis for substantive disagreement about the things those definitions are used to talk about. The same thing happened to me in this thread recently.

What THE definition of atheism, or agnosticism, et al. (or government, in the other cited example) seem frivolous when you can get down into the actual referents of the terms and have a meaty conversation there.

Instead of trying to argue that different definitions are THE ones that SHOULD be used, I just try to accept the definitions offered, and connect with the material realities being claimed in others' arguments //on their own terms//.

But if you're spoiling fight, I can always make something up...