realiz: "...I went back to the church I had been raised in that allows you to believe what you want to."

This starkly highlights how different people's brains work, not in an offensive way. My ultimate concern is the truth, even if it hurts me. This has served me very well and I'm happy in life, and believe I live honestly. There are many things in the past I've wanted to believe, but that's a crime by my book.

Some people are comfortable without learning the arguments against what they believe, content in believing what they want. In another life that would be me. I feel sorry for people that believe in a literal hell though, it's like foreshadowing in the story of life that's unnecessary.

DWill picks up a related issue in the Andrew Bacevich thread on Limits of Power

DWill wrote: p. 122: Niebuhr: ""the whole drama of history is enacted on a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or management." The truth of the statement should be a prerequisite for election to high office, Bacevich says. The opposite belief constitutes a large part of the hubris whose bad effects we're now seeing. I would also add that snap characterizations of history, of which we're all probably guilty, are always suspect, for the reason Niebuhr states.

This idea that the frame of meaning of history is too large for comprehension strikes me as a highly agnostic and relativistic view. The confidence of faith required for either theism or atheism tends to produce a definite narrative about history, and contrasts to the vacillation and unconfidence of agnosticism. Of course, if you are confident in error then you will get things spectacularly wrong, especially if you have a trillion dollar military at your disposal. However, if you are confident in truth then it provides the ability and faith to rescue people from error.

Geo mentions Dawkins' belief scale in The God Delusion, in which Carl Jung is put at one extreme for his claim that he knows God exists. I think this illustrates the shallow grasp Dawkins has of theology, because Jung is a highly complex and scientific thinker, and in saying he knows God exists he is recognising a divine presence rather than a divine entity.

Another point here, religion traditionally says we cannot know God. This comes out in the ten commandments with the rule not to make images. There is this view that God is so beyond the world that any ideas we have of God's nature can at best be partial. This issue can be hard to correlate with the agnosticism problem, as it indicates that in some sense even believers are agnostic about the nature of God.

More problems with semantics.

I think anyone that is a believer is a "believer", regardless if they're able to produce an image of god or know anything about him. The fact that people believe that the idea of god is real are those which should not be considered agnostic because they have a definite belief, regardless if they're able to answer every question you pose of it - the belief is enough.

To take a label which attempts to pinpoint a shade of gray, like "agnostic", and give it a reasonably known value so that endless other values can be weighed against it shouldn't be mixed with those countless other values if it can be helped. That defeats the purpose. It should be convenient to save confusion by recognizing that those of faith differ from those which question faith, not by those that have faith and are hazy in the details from those which question the entire idea.

I'm not opposed to questioning labels, I'm opposed to muddying waters unnecessarily. It's easier for people to understand and compartmentalize the difference of an apple from an orange than two oranges from different trees. Keeping labels what they are can be a good thing. This is a label which clearly delineates the believers from those in question.

Who and what magnitudes of belief are between these labels?
Those are the countless other values.

realiz wrote:But, perhaps the truth is, I am a coward. A fence-sitting coward who sees everything in shades of grey. One who is not brave enough to erase those comforting emotions of early childhood, so finds a way to live in both worlds.

Or maybe you just have an honest puzzlement about how things are.

But to approach this question: I believe it was Chris who used the term "uninvolved atheist." He didn't define this, but my own definition would be someone who doesn't believe in a creator or personal God, but who doesn't go any further, doesn't extend this non-belief outward as a claim about reality. She or he also doesn't tend to see belief in a deity as bad for others to hold. To my mind, this can be sensible. I don't think in terms of a creator or personal god, and believe I never have, even as a kid who was exposed to some religious teaching. But I see that others do think in those terms, and I see that in many cases, that works for them and for the others closest to them. So I don't choose to uphold my way of thinking against theirs; it seems we simply vary. This may be a relativistic outlook in Robert's view, but I don't see that as negative. It could be called unconfident as well, but I think that unconfidence is sometimes appropriate.

Since I have no doubt that I do not think in terms of a creator or personal god, I suppose agnostic might not be exactly accurate. I might better describe myself as an uninvolved atheist.

Robert Tulip wrote: This idea that the frame of meaning of history is too large for comprehension strikes me as a highly agnostic and relativistic view. The confidence of faith required for either theism or atheism tends to produce a definite narrative about history, and contrasts to the vacillation and unconfidence of agnosticism.

This capsulization of the conflict is weighted against agnosticism, but as you also said, certainty about what history means can lead people to commit grave mistakes. As we vacillate, we show the ability to think flexibly and reconsider our conclusions.

RT: "Geo mentions Dawkins' belief scale in The God Delusion, in which Carl Jung is put at one extreme for his claim that he knows God exists. I think this illustrates the shallow grasp Dawkins has of theology, because Jung is a highly complex and scientific thinker, and in saying he knows God exists he is recognising a divine presence rather than a divine entity."

Are you basing your criticism of Dawkins off the fact that someone with good credentials believes differently? Perhaps you could say that the difference in belief instead illustrates the shallow grasp Jung has of science. I wouldn't make either claim, it's bad reasoning.

Interbane wrote:Are you basing your criticism of Dawkins off the fact that someone with good credentials believes differently? Perhaps you could say that the difference in belief instead illustrates the shallow grasp Jung has of science. I wouldn't make either claim, it's bad reasoning.

Credentials in the Dawkins debate are rather meaningless. For example Alister McGrath is a noted critic of Dawkins, but he seems to retain a rather supernatural view of reality. Jung had a deep grasp of science, and Dawkins' attack on him is unfounded.

he is recognising a divine presence rather than a divine entity

There is a difference?

Psychologizing belief is tricky business: because it opens oneself to the same tool usually applied only to those we disagree with.

We are simply following reason and behaving logically, while others are weak, in denial, escaping reality or simply too cowardly to face the facts...the issue is not simply lack of evidence and poor reasoning...no, the issue is a defect of character and a lack of integrity.

We are strong, brave, courageous and willing to face the truth no matter what it means: bold, noble, daring and free...unconstrained by authority or fear of consequence...we simply want to know the truth and pity those who lack our will power and strength.

Robert Tulip wrote:

Interbane wrote:Are you basing your criticism of Dawkins off the fact that someone with good credentials believes differently? Perhaps you could say that the difference in belief instead illustrates the shallow grasp Jung has of science. I wouldn't make either claim, it's bad reasoning.

Credentials in the Dawkins debate are rather meaningless. For example Alister McGrath is a noted critic of Dawkins, but he seems to retain a rather supernatural view of reality. Jung had a deep grasp of science, and Dawkins' attack on him is unfounded.

I don't doubt that Dawkins may have misinterpreted Jung at some point, but I didn't say anything about Jung in my mention of Dawkins' scale of belief. Where does Dawkins say Jung believes absolutely in the existence of a personal God? I must have missed that.