Why do people claim that the only logical choice is agnosticism? Is it more logical to say pixies may exist?

Question

What about gargoyles and golems?

Pan may exist and Icarus' wings may have melted in the sun.

And Prometheus might just have given us fire.

But is that really more logical than saying that it is all mythology?

Answer 1

You've got a lot of questions there, so let me try and answer them separately.

First, why do people claim that the only logical choice is agnosticism? Presumably there are almost as many reasons as there are people making this claim, just as there are presumably many reasons for people to claim that atheism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Democracy, Communism, Voodoo, Nihilism, etc, is the only logical choice. My version of agnosticism at least seems to work for me (but not necessarily for anyone else) somewhat less badly than anything else I've yet come across, so in that sense my version of agnosticism is at least arguably the only logical choice for me, at least at the moment. It might also be the best choice for some other people, but I'd be rather surprised if it was the most logical choice for everybody in all circumstances (and even if it was, how would I ever know it was?). Still, I shouldn't be too harsh on people making broader claims - I would probably have been tempted to make them myself a few years ago, and I still sometimes like to joke (or even arrogantly only half-joke) that Agnosticism is The One True Non-Faith, presumably because as a child I was told that Roman Catholicism was The One True Faith. And as they used also to say, once a Catholic, you're always a Catholic, and maybe some of that indochtrination is still in me somewhere, and in other agnostics too. Or maybe it's an evolutionary thing - genes that promote a sense of group self-righteousness may have helped tribes develop murderous certainties that helped them kill rather than be killed, thus making those genes more common within the species.

Is it more logical to say pixies/ gargoyles/ golem/ Pan/ Prometheus/ Icarus (and implicitly God/gods) may exist than saying it IS ALL mythology? I've deliberately lumped your remaining explicit and implicit questions together as one, and emphasised the 'IS ALL' words. The point is they aren't all equally implausibly. If the past is real (about which I happen to be skeptical, but let's not go into that), then quite likely somebody first discovered how to control fire (though it may also have been a collective discovery), and once his or her real name was forgotten, he or she acquired various pseudonyms in various cultures and had various stories told about him or her. So one can argue that in a sense Prometheus quite likely really did give us fire, and that only the name, alleged life history, and alleged semi-divine attributes are a myth. In other words, in this case it is very far from obvious that it's ALL a myth, though much or most of it almost certainly is.

Similarly it is quite likely that in early history one or more young men died in early glider/hang-glider experiments, for pretty similar reasons to the ones that killed some of them in modern times. And it is perfectly possible that one of them was actually called Icarus, and/or that his less adventurous or luckier father and/or companion was actually called Daedalus.
Once again it hardly seems logical to assert that this IS ALL a myth, rather than that some of it is a myth, and all of it may or may not be a myth.

In other words, it makes little sense to put Icarus in the same league of apparent wild implausibility in which golems and gargoyles appear to belong. Though even then one has to ask where and when they are supposed never to exist. Because if we are in an infinitely diverse multiverse, as many scientists seem to think, then almost anything non-self-contradictory must exist in an infinite number of different places in the multiverse, including 'gargoyles', 'golems', 'pixies', etc, provided one does not make them self-contradictory. And even without a multiverse, the likely infinite or near-infinite diversity of extra-terrestrial biology seems to make their existence somewhere quite likely.

Ah, but you meant golems here on Earth. Fair enough, except for a couple of points:

First, much of this 'nonsense' stuff really quite likely was/is here on Earth - Prometheus and Icarus as mentioned, unicorns as perhaps rhinoceroses, dragons as dinosaurs or komodo dragons, Santa Claus as Saint Nicholas Bishop of Myra and as thousands of Santas earning their living in shops at Christmas, etc.

Second, when it comes to 'gods', the 'here on Earth' stipulation makes little sense because 'gods' are traditionally very advanced beings somewhere up there in the sky - on the face of it arguably just another word for what we would now call extra-terrestrials (which even atheists tend to admit probably exist somewhere in this universe, even if they may not have reached Earth yet). And this apparent equivalence of 'gods' and 'extra-terrestrials' may often be mere coincidence, but in the case of a thinker like Epicurus, his arguments for expecting 'gods out there somewhere' are pretty similar to some of our arguments for expecting 'extra-terrestrials out there somewhere' - and I've no reason to think Epicurus was the only such thinker (indeed I suspect his kind of thinking, repeatedly worked out in prehistoric times, is a large part of the reason why polytheism was/is so widespread in ancient and so-called 'primitive' cultures, before they were 'cured of such foolishness' by heavily-armed believers in books by or about Christ, Muhammad, Darwin, Marx, etc). I don't consider myself qualified to decide whether any such 'gods' (advanced extra-terrestrials from this 'universe', and/or from other sub-universes if we are in fact living in a multiverse) are 'true gods' or not (or whether this question has any real importance or not).

All that's before we even come to the question of a Creator or Creators for this 'universe' or 'sub-universe'. Others have already said that the question of a creator is not the same as the question of pixies, and I won't try to repeat their arguments. And I don't have time to go through all my own reasons for thinking we are probably created (without being certain of this). So I will just say a few things briefly and without fully justifying them. If we are living in an infinitely diverse multiverse then among other things it necessarily contains an infinite number of created sub-universes. Our own world seems astonishingly perverse. To give just one example, we seem to have about 3 billion Christians and Muslims unwittingly worshipping The Devil (basically because it is literally infinitely evil of their 'God' to inflict or permit people to suffer eternal agony in Hell) and another 3 billion failing to notice this and/or protest about it. (As usual at this point I must immediately emphasize that none of this in any way justifies persecuting Christians or Muslims, who are mostly decent people (albeit misguided ones, at least in my view)). It is not clear why Natural Selection should have brought about such a seemingly perversely stupid species, given that Natural Selection should favor intelligence. So I have to think it at least plausible that this perversity is the result of a Creator or Creators whose motives are rather perverse from our point of view (though making plenty of sense from their point of view - I have suggested some such motives in previous postings, and to a lesser extent at my discussion group - see sources). As usual I don't consider myself qualified to say whether such seemingly quasi-perverse Creator/Creators qualify as 'true God(s)' or not.

I could go on in this vein for years (and maybe some day I will). But for now I'll just conclude by saying that it's a free enough world for you to be free to imagine that it's self-evidently all mythology. But this position ultimately doesn't seem particularly logical to me, except in the sense that it may well be logical to seek the comforting but false reassurances that sometimes come from wishful thinking, especially when we seemingly have only another kind of wishful thinking and/or guesswork to guide as to how (if at all) we might try to reduce any threat such seemingly perverse creator(s) might be to us.

Answer 2

There is a difference between saying "maybe" to pixies V.S. "maybe" to a creator. You see, there is obviously creation, which was obviously created some how. Whether it be by a creator, or just random forces, things exist. Now, a God that created only the sun, or the earth would be better examples for your rhetorical questioning, because this mythological figure "left behind" some kind of "proof". Obviously the sun isn't proof of a Sun god, but there is reason to say there "might" be one.

After all, the sun "might" be proof for this made up god, so it might just exist.

Answer 3

Either you are created or not. I have no idea how to calculate the odds, do you? Most logical atheists concede that there is a chance your Creator exists.

If your Creator exists, I think it logical that you're going to see Him after you're dead. Your Creator is going to be important, unlike Pan Prometheus, Icarus , argoyles, etc. I would at least have some sort of excuse ready as to why I didn't seek Him.

Answer 4

I think the agnostics who say that kind of thing are stuck in the same kind of black-and-white thinking that gets so many believers. They tend to argue that because we can't prove that God exists or that God doesn't exist, we can't know one way or the other.

That insistence on proof is a sure sign of someone stuck in the "Either we can prove it beyond any doubt, or we can't say anything at all about it" kind of pre-scientific thinking.

I firmly disagree with the gentleman below who says that agnosticism is "most certainly more open-minded" than atheism. In fact it is quite the opposite: it's the product of the insistence that only 100% rock-solid proof can challenge a prior belief. That's almost completely closed-minded. Atheism is most certainly the more open-minded position.

Answer 5

I don't think being agnostic means that you believe *mythology* might be true. In fact, the mythology you mentioned is somewhat part of MY religion, but I know it's supposed to be allegorical and not to be taken as absolute historical facts. Now if I can just convince those fundies of that, then we'd all be on the same page...

Answer 6

You make an excellent point. The absence of any verifiable evidence for the assertion (hypothesis) that god exists does not logically lead us to the neutral conclusion that god may or may not exist - it leads us to logically conclude that god almost certainly does not exist.

Answer 7

Not all do . I have no doubts about my beliefs . To me , it's all right here on earth . We're all just part of earthly nature . All supernaturals are just foolish superstitions .
Three-in-one gods are impossible , one-in-one gods are impossible , magic wands for building planets are impossible. Angels are impossible .

Answer 8

Oh how cool it would be if ancient Greek/Roman mythology were true. That's at least a religion that I could get interested in.

And for Catholic Crusader...try a mathematic proof...Proofs by words are worthless...ever heard of wordplay.

Answer 9

I think atheism requires a tiny leap of faith. A small one, but it's there. Read Immanuel Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason.'

So agnosticism is the only world view you can arrive at through pure reason.

Answer 10

Maybe not logical according to present science, but certainly more open minded. Besides, science keeps changing its mind, Maybe continents DO drift? Science didn't used to believe that one either.

The beginning of wisdom is to say "I do not know."

Answer 11

The existence of God can be proven five ways:

1. The OT says he exists
2. The NT says he exists
3. My pastor says he exists.
4. My parents say he exists.
5. I say he exists.

Hooray, I'm just like CC!