[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by DanaC

But that's kind of the point really. Labels I mean. It's not agnosticism that is irritating. It is the suggestion that agnosticism is a superior intellectual position to either faith, or atheism.

I've never considered people who are agnostic to be more or less intellectual than anyone else. They are what they are regardless of how they do or don't perceive god and religion.

Intellectual agnosticism presupposes that atheism is closed to the unknown. It is not.

Is this just what you believe or is it a fact?

I've known a number of people who call themselves atheists but who are still quite spiritual and allow for the notion of a god somewhere.

It's not about what we believe, it is about how we arrive at our belief systems. Agnosticism is a perfectly acceptable way to lead one's life, but when you intellectualise it, it is an uncomfortable pairing of two modes of thinking (scientific and non-scientific). It attempts to view the world on the basis of evidence, but allows for the possibility that faith can answer our questions more effectively. It is a chimera.

The biggest problem with the rest of the world versus agnostics is that both believers and non-believers can't understand how you can see no scientific evidence of god, but still believe he or something that constitutes what we perceive as god to exist, whilst still believing in the spirit of living things. From my perspective, most believers or non-believers simply can't handle not knowing what's going to happen when they die, so in order to validate the way they live their lives, they decide to either believe there's a benefit to being good so they can go to heaven, and the non-believers (in god) believe their judgement is right here and now, so the ultimate judgement of their lives is in the here and now. So they'd better be good or everyone will think they're arseholes.

Anyway, you see now how agnostics are forced to intellectualize their belief system because people wont let them just believe what they want to believe?