Is Agnosticism dogmatic itself fundamentally?

I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble parsing your question. Is it possible to reorder the words to read:

Is Agnosticism itself fundamentally dogmatic?

Would such still satisfy the idea you’re chasing?

In my experience, agnosticism is used as a qualifier with theist or atheist. See here for a breakdown of the terms. It generally follows the strong/weak labels. I am an agnostic atheist. That is, I do not believe a god or gods exists. But I don’t claim to have knowledge that no god or gods exist.

I still occasionally will find someone who is uncomfortable with the atheist label, and identifies as an agnostic. But this really doesn’t provide me with enough information. It simply ignores the question of belief altogether and skips to the realm of knowledge.

As for “strong agnosticism” – I have a difficult time parsing out the belief part of this assertion. When he/she is asked, “Do you believe in a god or gods? YES or NO”, what do they circle? There should be no problem circling one of these – even if they hold that “we can never know”. Because having a belief in a god or gods is property that you either have or do not have.

If I am asked, “Do you believe that there is a planet 20 billion light years from earth that is inhabited by creatures all named Tom?”, I will ask myself if I hold this belief or not. I do not. I do not accept the claim. Why? There is simply insufficient (no) evidence for such a claim. I do not hold the belief (atheist), yet I do not claim to know that this planet does not exist (agnostic).

Now, I could assert that there is no way for me to know if this claim is true. But I had better provide some evidence for why this is. I think when you refer to “strong agnosticism” as “dogmatic”, I think you might be simply recognizing that there is a claim being made (“I don’t know, and neither do you” or “we can never know”). And if you are going to make such claims, then you’d better come with evidence and reason to support it.

“We can never know” certainly sounds pretty strong a statement to simply accept without a decent amount of evidence and reason. But beyond that, I feel that it is insufficient to assert this as an attempt to get yourself out of the question of belief. There is an objective answer to “Do you believe in a god or gods? YES or NO”. Any attempts to merge the question of belief and knowledge seem to do a disservice to both.

Is the act of being unwilling to commit to an opinion due to the viewpoint that there is insufficient evidence adhering to a strict or literal set of basic principles?

Yes., the basic principle being that there is insufficient evidence to either confirm or deny a belief.

Certainly! Agnostics cannot find all of the answers to everything and refuse to draw logical conclusions about those unknowns. For example, I see them as being 95% Atheist.

I had to change my category from atheist to agnostic when it was pointed out that both theism and atheism are based on faith. There is no proof of either. I believe that man made God and not the other way around, but can I prove it? No. But I’ve never had to declare my belief. When I fill in a blank the says religion, I write none.

It could be considered that way if an agnostic refuses to investigate possible evidence for the lack of or a presence of a deity or some sort. Anytime someone refuses to investigate something because it might clash with their beliefs you are venturing into dogmatic territory. But I don’t think it’s dogmatic for an agnostic to simply state that “no one knows” because I think they would be accurate. At least at this point in time.

Interesting point @Sunny2 why do we even have a blank on a form asking you to state your religion?

I’ve experienced the questions on forms that have to do with my health, so I assume it’s to refer the correct religious counselor to me, should my condition indicate impending death. Perhaps I should say, “Don’t bother me! I’m busy dying.” Or perhaps they should ask what music I’d like to hear while I’m dying. It’s all implied in that little blank: religion _____.

You could just put yes or no.

^^ True. (or False.)

@tom_g . . . Your answer is so fundamentally D&D and caused so much +7 real happiness to be felt by me that I don’t know if I can ever thank you properly.

i move to erect matching @tom_g statues to flank the entrance to the mansion’s hedge maze. all in favor say aye

@tom_g Excellent answer. I posted a question some time back about where various members are on the believer to non-believer scale. It used a 7-level scale that Richard Dawkins proposed, and that seems to provide a pretty fine-grained ability to identify where each of us falls on the theism to atheism question.

I totally agree with you that to claim strong agnosticism would demand just as extraordinary a level of proof as strong theism or strong atheism. None of those claims are supported by any real evidence. The apologists for all of them use circular reasoning, tautologies, appeals to authority, formal fallacies such as modus ponens and the like as the basis of their assertion. They are unable to provide any evidence outside their own inner feeling that they are right.

I do not know if we will ever find out if there is or is not a God. But I also do not know that it is scientifically impossible to find out.

I agree with @tom_g‘s answer.

@ETpro My concern here isn’t level of belief, but saying that we shouldn’t investigate something because we can never know. Refusing to investigate something due to the latter reason seems more dogmatic to me (or at least as much) as are the mindsets of the most rigid sceptics or religionists. For those reasons I find strong agnosticism to be very dogmatic, even more so than the doctrines of many religions.

@tom g I agree with your point about the planet scenerio. I think you would have to have a very good reason to claim that a phenomenon or idea should never be investigated, or at least why it’s irrational for a person to hold to their own belief vs your belief (or lack of).

Strong agnosticism is highly dogmatic in my opinion, more so than theism (in many cases) and atheism. Weak agnosticism sounds more like fallibilism the more I’ve read about it (weak agnosticism).

@Hawaii_Jake I’ve become very rusty with my writing skills over the years. Twenty years of working very physical hands on type jobs have really taken me away from my old form. I have a bad habit of writing sentences in reverse sometimes too. I’ve purchased a book to help me increase my writing skills since I was even strugging to write resumes too. Hopefully people understood what I was asking here. Maybe my point above will help.