This is spurred by a conversation I had with Ketan on Twitter yesterday. Agnostics are those who claim they neither believe nor disbelieve in god because there’s no evidence to disprove his* existence. Occasionally one will claim agnosticism with an air that implies intellectual superiority. But that hides the truth. Agnostics are pussies!
People use double standards when it comes to religion. The Russell’s teapot is a good example. What if your three year old daughter asks you in all seriousness, “Papa, is there a fine china teapot orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter?” I think every parent will say, “Of course not!” Never mind the fact that no one can prove there isn’t a teapot. It’s just a loony idea.
But if an agnostic’s kid were to ask them, “Papa, is there a god?” the reply is “Well, we don’t actually know cause there’s no evidence there isn’t one.”
Isn’t that strange? We don’t have “teapot agnostics” – those who believe we should be in intellectual doubt with regard to the existence of orbiting teapots. But we have masses of theistic agnostics.
I wish agnostics would come out and admit it. The idea of god makes us feel warm and fuzzy and it’s an idea we’re loathe to let go of. I understand that and everyone has the right to justify something to themselves. But one should be honest about it instead of cloaking it in a facade of intellectual honesty. It requires guts to let go of the nice comforting idea a god who has a grand scheme for us and a plan for the universe. Agnostics are people who know they ought to take the step, but don’t want to commit themselves. Sounds like cowardice to me.
After watching a horror movie, all of us have sometimes felt afraid the monster is going to pop out at us in some way at night. Though our rational mind tells us it can’t happen, our brains refuse to cooperate. Which one of us hasn’t caste a furtive glance behind at some time or the other when we’ve been influenced by a such a film? There’s no shame in that. Sometimes our rational circuits are just overridden by more primal impulses. But let’s just be honest about it.
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Chest thumping, trident wielding, saffronized Believer, and damn proud of it ! ;)
If agnostics are wimps. Then atheist are arrogant.