Why does Richard Dawkins criticize agnosticism?

Question

If you believe that the universe doesn't need a master to exist but also realize human rationality is not absolute, wouldn't that make you agnostic? What's wrong with that position?

Answer 1

Why would that make you agnostic? I believe the universe doesn't need a master to exist, I realize that human rationality is not absolute*, and I'm an atheist.

* In fact, that's what my dissertation was on, as well as a commissioned book chapter I'm working on.

Answer 2

He claims it is okay to be agnostic about things with evidence pending.
For example, it is okay to be agnostic about extraterrestial life because there is no evidence proving or disproving this idea. However, unlike religion, it is possible to prove or disprove extraterrestrial life and at some point in the future we might be able to do this. We already have evidence of planets where it is possible for life like ours to grow, we are just missing some key elements.

However, he argues that no matter how much evidence to the contrary there is, or how much evidence supporting what he calls "the God Hypothesis" the concept of God can never be proven or disproven and as such should be disregarded entirely.
Agnostics, he argues, are ignoring evidence or lack of evidence and just "sitting the fence."
It is logically impossible to prove a negative claim, and it is ridiculous to require such a thing of anybody. But with no support for a positive claim it is equally ridiculous to believe that the positive claim has a 50% possibility of being the correct claim.
Dawkins argues that probabilty dictates that the question of God's existance is not
50% chance He exists
50% chance He doesn't
And so the agnostic, saying both sides have an equal possibility of being true, is making a false claim.

Answer 3

Are you an agnostic about these claims?:

1. Santa Claus exists.
2. The Earth is flat.
3. Human beings are made of jello.
4. Somewhere in the universe, there is a tiny invisible teapot orbiting a planet.
5. The universe will end when a giant dog eats it.

If you are, then Dawkins would say that you should also be agnostic about God. If you are not, then Dawkins would say that you should not be agnostic about God. The problem Dawkins, and most atheists, have with agnostics is that they are concerned about whether agnostics are applying a double standard: if one is agnostic about God, then one should also be agnostic about invisible teapots.

This depends, of course, by what is understood by "agnostic". In fact, by some standards, Dawkins himself is an agnostic--in the sense that he, like most atheists, doesn't deny that it is at least possible for God to exist. (Hence the term "agnostic atheism".) Rather, he denies that there is any good reason to believe that God exists, considering the available evidence. He rejects God, thus, for the exact same reason that he rejects the above 5 positions. And he finds the position that we should be "undecided" about God untenable, for the same reason that he finds the position that we should be "undecided" about whether the Earth is flat, or that there's an invisible teapot somewhere in space, untenable. Neither can be absolutely proven, but the complete lack of evidence for any of these claims makes denying them the reasonable course, at least if you accept normal scientific evidential standards.

Also, psicatt, below, clearly doesn't understand what an "agnostic" is. Agnostics don't acknowledge the existence of supernatural beings; they just don't deny them either. Atheists, in general, are agnostics who are also willing to affirm that there is no God. The distinction is actually quite a tenuous one: it's like trying to draw a line between people who are willing to say "I don't believe in Santa" and people who are willing to say "I believe there is no Santa"; it amounts to the same thing in the end, and it's unwise to assume that the latter people are dogmatic, ignorant, or closed-minded just because they are willing to affirm an implausible entity's nonexistence.

Answer 4

because they still acknowledge the presence of a supernatural being

edit: clearly...on a definitive point "Agnosticism is a philosophy that declares absolute, divine, metaphysics, and more generally what cannot be grasped by experiment, is inaccessible to the human mind and to perception. Consequently, the existence of God cannot be proven. Agnosticism professes a complete ignorance about the profound nature, the origin and the destiny of things. It is a form of skepticism applied to metaphysics and theology."

However, for some it is a subjective term that is used to stand between complete acceptance of a supernatural being and denial. Perhaps I should not have used the term being and used 'power'. Many agnostics that I have come across have classed themselves as agnostics who say that they don't believe in a recognised god or gods, of some present religion, but readily attest in a belief to some unknown otherworldly, ethereal, spiritual, supernatural presence. I haven't asked them about the chocolate teapots yet...

As has already been mentioned Dawkins talks about the impossibility of proving or disproving the claim of existence, therefore should be disregarded, and the apologists that attribute 50-50 chance of existence.

Also he talked about how some have stated that question of existence is not a topic for science to investigate but is the purview of theology. But Dawkins highlights that if the question of existence were ever to be attempted to be proved then it would have to be science that produced the physical results or evidence.

I hope I have clarified my own original point which was hardly verbose.

Answer 5

This is an interesting question, and one that I see on here regularly.
I wonder if maybe there is some confusion on exactly what atheism is? I've never met an atheist who simply wouldn't believe in god, no matter what. I personally have no problem with the idea of "god".
I simply deny that such an entity exists. I can equally understand that many beings from a variety of mythologies could exist, but I see no compelling reason to believe they do.
I'm not agnostic about it....I just don't believe it. Period.
Well, there's my two cents.

Answer 6

Or the Tooth Fairy or The Easter Bunny. We all start agnostic about all claims to knowledge but rarely continue to be after the evidence is gathered, why place God in a special category, after all many of the claims about him are demonstrably false.

Answer 7

this is an analogous element as whilst non secular company ultimately commonly used that the international replaced into around. They then brushed off their Bible and made it extra healthful. They comprehend now that evolution is here to stay and try to make it extra healthful interior of their Bible, if not they might lose dissimilar followers. that's what i think of he potential whilst it somewhat is asserted, "smuggle God in by potential of the back door"

Answer 8

Well I think it is rational to conclude there is no way to tell. But some atheists think that you are just afraid to voice or make a real decision.

Answer 9

well, it seems he likes to criticize any point of view that is not pure atheism, so...