Converting from atheism to agnosticism

[nebula]

Bernard Beckett: Converting from atheism

12:40 8 June 2010

<snip>

It was during this time that you chaired an event for Richard Dawkins and, as a result, shifted your views from atheism to agnosticism. Why the conversion?

The event sold out very quickly. The people were huge fans of Dawkins, and being amongst a group of card-carrying atheists was something I'd never experienced before.

I'd probably have called myself an atheist at the time. But normally, that means going your own way and creating your own response.

Instead, it felt more like being in church. Suddenly, there were a whole heap of people who seemed to be responding as one. To me, that reproduced some of the things I disliked about the church I was brought up in, because leaps are made from atheism to other beliefs that you are meant to have as well.

For instance, the belief that there is something negative about the influence of religion, which I don't necessarily think is true. It's a very complex sociological question that would take a lot of research, but suddenly, if you're one of us, you also have to be against religion.

At that point I feel uncomfortable. I also felt uncomfortable with the idea of wanting to convert people &ndsah; to atheism in this case. It felt evangelical, and that's not my instinct at all.

There was an issue of New Scientist recently, where Marcelo Gleiser wrote about the search for the theory of everything. Gleiser believes that this is a bit of a hangover from religion.

For some people, like Dawkins, science is about beauty and meaning and truth. I'm really uncomfortable with that. I don't think science is about that at all.

Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting, it's a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

I can't see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but there's no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief. And that seems to me to me to be a more rigorous view and one I'm much more comfortable with.

Can you tell me more about your brand of agnosticism?

I respond well to what I read of Immanuel Kant's idea that the world as we see it is absolutely a function of the way our brain works. In the modern parlance, it's an evolved machine that we carry with us. The very ideas of space and time are human inventions and we organise the world according to these ideas.

Kant said, whatever the true reality is beyond that, we can't know because our brains aren't up to it. Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. It's very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover God's great plan.

I think there's a bit of a hangover of that in modern science, that beneath it all there's this great truth that we can understand. And I see no reason at all why our brain would have evolved for deeper understanding. It evolved for survival. Some things will always be beyond our ken.

Full interview here

[Matthitjah]

Atheism was too Religious for him.

[e lansing]

Everybody has a starting point, and his/she appears to have taken a very small step toward reality/God

e

[irishcowboy]

atheism and agnosticism are one in the same, a different title for the same religion, a religion of self worship, as is Universalism, and the new age movement, all one in the same.

they take away from Christ, they denounce Christ as being the one and only way to the Father....

mike

[Guest]

The Family Of Knows "No!"

Atheism - I Know He Isn't, No!

Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? Isaiah 29:16

Or Agnosticism - I Know You Can't Know, No!

A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. Proverbs 14-16

>>>>>()<<<<

The Family Of Knows "Yes!"

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. John 20:28

>>>>>()<<<<<

Ask

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29-13

Trust

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalms 34:9

And Know

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts. Jeremiah 15-16

Love, Joe

[Shiloh62]

Bernard Beckett: Converting from atheism

12:40 8 June 2010

<snip>

It was during this time that you chaired an event for Richard Dawkins and, as a result, shifted your views from atheism to agnosticism. Why the conversion?

The event sold out very quickly. The people were huge fans of Dawkins, and being amongst a group of card-carrying atheists was something I'd never experienced before.

I'd probably have called myself an atheist at the time. But normally, that means going your own way and creating your own response.

Instead, it felt more like being in church. Suddenly, there were a whole heap of people who seemed to be responding as one. To me, that reproduced some of the things I disliked about the church I was brought up in, because leaps are made from atheism to other beliefs that you are meant to have as well.

For instance, the belief that there is something negative about the influence of religion, which I don't necessarily think is true. It's a very complex sociological question that would take a lot of research, but suddenly, if you're one of us, you also have to be against religion.

At that point I feel uncomfortable. I also felt uncomfortable with the idea of wanting to convert people &ndsah; to atheism in this case. It felt evangelical, and that's not my instinct at all.

There was an issue of New Scientist recently, where Marcelo Gleiser wrote about the search for the theory of everything. Gleiser believes that this is a bit of a hangover from religion.

For some people, like Dawkins, science is about beauty and meaning and truth. I'm really uncomfortable with that. I don't think science is about that at all.

Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting, it's a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

I can't see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but there's no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief. And that seems to me to me to be a more rigorous view and one I'm much more comfortable with.

Can you tell me more about your brand of agnosticism?

I respond well to what I read of Immanuel Kant's idea that the world as we see it is absolutely a function of the way our brain works. In the modern parlance, it's an evolved machine that we carry with us. The very ideas of space and time are human inventions and we organise the world according to these ideas.

Kant said, whatever the true reality is beyond that, we can't know because our brains aren't up to it. Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. It's very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover God's great plan.

I think there's a bit of a hangover of that in modern science, that beneath it all there's this great truth that we can understand. And I see no reason at all why our brain would have evolved for deeper understanding. It evolved for survival. Some things will always be beyond our ken.

Full interview here

That's why the good Lord gave us our minds-to think for ourselves.

[fromIslam2Christ]

I know I am a bit ignorant about this but I think atheism must be a really sad, lonely, and cold place... how can life come from nothingness?

Agnosticism is a good step in the right direction I think.

[HitmanR2]

atheism to agnosticism

There really isn't that much difference for Dawkins:

Atheist- denies the existence of God.

Agnostic- is smarter than God.

[nebula]

But you have to admit that this is very interesting - what this man came to realize about Atheism.

Don't you think?

[HitmanR2]

But you have to admit that this is very interesting - what this man came to realize about Atheism.

Don't you think?

I think, he is just admitting his faith is where it has been all along; in his own "wisdom". He cannot defend his position as an atheist, because he feels he himself is in control in his own destiny, making him a theist.

Possible?