01-28-2010, 10:01 AM
Quote:Hi,
Great find. Thanks. :D
Only 16% of the agnostics are agnostic (less, since this includes refused and other). The rest seem to be unsure of their uncertainty, if not convinced one way or the other. However, there is a point to be made here. I have often said that I'm intellectually an agnostic and emotionally an atheist. As someone who has spent a fair bit of time and effort on this subject, I'm reasonably convinced that the existence of a god or gods is impossible to determine. From what evidence there is, I think that god is superfluous to my world view, so I don't believe in god. So, my honest answer would be "I do not *know* if god exists, but I *believe* that he/she/it does not."
I hope that the agnostic spread is based on that intellectual principle -- but I highly doubt it.
Of course, their question was weasel worded. "Do you believe in God or a universal spirit?" However, what this does show is that half the population is below average. And average isn't all that good.
--Pete
This is always a difficult question to answer. I mean an atheist can not know 100% sure that god does not exist, in the sense that he can never find the proof for this.
On the other hand the 'question' is unfair. God would be e.g. at the same level as small gnomes that live in walls of our houses but can never be seen, and can also not be measured by any equipment we have built, because we we go looking for them the miraculously dissappear.....but they are there.
The question or better the definition of atheism is made using 'there is a God' as the standard, and this is wrong.
With that in mind I could consider myself as a true atheist, but I would rather consider myself as 'normal' or as 'nothing at all' when talking about world view. And religious people as theists or abnormal.....they are the ones inventing things, I am not the one uninventing them.