Agnosticism Quotes - Page 4

• When students of other sciences ask us what is now currently believed about the origin of species, we have no clear answer to give. Faith has given way to agnosticism. Meanwhile, though our faith in evolution stands unshaken we have no acceptable account of the origin of species.

  William Bateson

  Giving, Answers, Way

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• Now if the religious skeptic is right, we can know nothing about God. And if we can know nothing about God, how can we know God so well that we can know that he cannot be known? How can we know that God cannot and did not reveal himself—and perhaps even through human reason?

  Peter Kreeft

  Religious, Reason, Skeptic

  Peter Kreeft, Ronald K. Tacelli (2009). “Handbook of Christian Apologetics”, p.371, InterVarsity Press

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• Skepticism is my nature, freethought is my methodology, agnosticism is my conclusion after 25 years of being in the ministry, and atheism is my opinion.

  Jerry DeWitt

  Years, Atheism, Ministry

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• Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I’m hoping to define a new position - one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.

  David Eagleman

  Religious, Ignorance, Men

  "Stray Questions for: David Eagleman". Interview with Blake Wilson, artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com. July 10, 2009.

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• I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsover for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise.

  James Cameron

  Spiritual, Persistence, Data

  "The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron". Book by Rebecca Keegan, 2009.

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• Why do we need faith when we have the technology to move mountains?

  Karl Jakob Weber

  Moving, Technology, Mountain

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• The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Vision, Agnostic, Complexity

  "Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution". Book by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1978.

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• Anyone who feels that they're in some way plugged into a meaningful, cosmic system is given a greater psychological balance as a result-whether or not they believe it contains a god-like figure at the control panels. Lots of people have this beneficial sense of being plugged into something bigger, even if they're not religious in the going-to-church-regularly sense.

  Robin Skynner

  Meaningful, Religious, Believe

  Robin Skynner, John Cleese (1984). “Families and how to survive them”, Vintage

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• This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or whether the mind survives bodily death. It is the willingness to embrace the fundamental bewilderment of a finite, fallible creature as the basis for leading a life that no longer clings to the superficial consolations of certainty.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Mind, Fundamentals, Embrace

  Stephen Batchelor (2010). “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist”, p.74, Spiegel & Grau

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• Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Empathy, Demand, Shifting

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• Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Book, Space

  Robert Anton Wilson (2002). “Tsog: The Thing That Ate the Constitution”

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• The world is continuous flux and is impermanent.

  Gautama Buddha

  Words Of Wisdom, Atheism, World

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• That is the truth about man - that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don't understand.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Men, Misery, Dignity

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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• My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Believe, Men, Errors

  "Mr. Edison's New Argument from Design". "The Illustrated London News" Magazine, May 3, 1924.

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• Incurably religious, that is the best way to describe the mental condition of so many people.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Religious, People, Atheism

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• Science is agnostic when it comes to god; not atheistic, as some people prefer to read that laden word wrongly; just agnostic.

  Eric Chaisson

  Inspirational, Life, God

  Eric Chaisson, Lola Judith Chaisson (2007). “Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos”, p.254, Columbia University Press

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• The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ismist, which is fine proof that there is a devil but hardly evidence that there is a God.

  Ben Lindsey

  Winning, Issues, Atheism

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• The truth is that my work - I was going to say my mission - is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention in faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself; it is to war against all those who submit, whether it be to Catholicism, or to rationalism, or to agnosticism; it is to make all men live the life of inquietude and passionate desire.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  War, Live Life, Men

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• What the world needs today is a definite, spiritual mobilization of the nations who believe in God against this tide of Red agnosticism. It needs a moral mobilization against the hideous ideas of the police state and human slavery. I suggest that the United Nations should be reorganized without the Communist nations in it. It is a proposal based solely upon moral, spiritual and defense foundations. It is a proposal to redeem the concept of the United Nations to the high purpose for which it was created. It is a proposal for moral and spiritual cooperation of God-fearing free nations. And in rejecting an atheistic other world, I am confident that the Almighty God will be with us.

  Herbert Hoover

  Spiritual, Believe, Other Worlds

  "Herbert Hoover: A Good President Who Got a Bad Rap?". www.wnd.com. October 19, 2017.

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• It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Men, Atheism

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Lectures and Essays”, p.247, tredition

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• All intelligent faith in God has behind it a background of humble agnosticism.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Humble, Intelligent, Faith In God

  Harry Emerson Fosdick (1961). “Dear Mr. Brown: letters to a person perplexed about religion”

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• As in an icicle the agnostic abides alone. The vital principle is taken out of all endeavor for improving himself or bettering hisfellows. All hope in the grand possibilities of life are blasted.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Taken, Despair, Principles

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.143, Courier Dover Publications

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• Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a nondogmatic and nonevasive stance on such crucial existential matters can also blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Empathy, Risk, Vision

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• Obviously, if theism is a belief in a God and atheism is a lack of a belief in a God, no third position or middle ground is possible. A person can either believe or not believe in a God. Therefore, our previous definition of atheism has made an impossibility out of the common usage of agnosticism to mean "neither affirming nor denying a belief in God."

  Gordon Stein

  Believe, Mean, Atheism

  Gordon Stein (1980). “An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism”

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• Because of the confusion surrounding the term "agnosticism," it would seem better to use the very similar term "rationalism" in its place when referring to the original Huxleyan meaning of the term. The use of "rationalist" for "agnostic" would also seem to be less ambiguous.

  Gordon Stein

  Confusion, Atheism, Use

  Gordon Stein (1980). “An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism”

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