Agnostics Are Not Fence-Sitters
Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are avowed atheists. They say that believing in God is akin to believing in Santa Claus. They will tell you that agnostics and atheists are cut from the same jib, that agnostics are just a bunch of weenies who are too cowardly to choose between door number 1 (no God) and door number 2 (God); that these tentative ninnies can’t make up their minds. They say agnostics are sitting on the fence rather than planting their feet firmly in one camp or the other. COMOLOM says, “Oh yeah? Shut up!” Agnostics shun certainty. Agnostics are perfectly comfortable with the word “maybe,” and quite happy to live with doubt. COMOLOM’s definition of an agnostic is someone who believes the answer to “The God Question” is unknown and unknowable. Thomas Henry Huxley said it nicely:
“Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the ‘bosh’ of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.”