Agnostic Group

Atheism, the idea believed by atheists, is essentially the belief that there are no deities or gods. It can also be defined, in much more broad terms, as the rejection of any belief of deities. While the exact definition of atheism is widely debated, there are several levels of atheism, giving alternate meanings to the word. By the broadest of standards, atheism refers to the absence of any belief in gods or deities. This modern definition of Atheism originated in the 18th century. The word “atheism” arose from the Greek word atheos, meaning “without gods”. This was originally a negative word applied to those individuals who did not believe or worship gods of any kind that the larger society as a whole believed in. The eventual rise of freethought, skepticism, and criticism of religions led to a more widespread belief in atheism by many individuals.

What Was the Atheist and Agnostic Group?
The Atheist and Agnostic Group was an atheist forum community that was created on the popular social networking website MySpace. The atheist forum was targeted to those who believed in atheist and agnostic ideals having rapidly gained popularity with approximately 35,000 members before it was finally deleted. The Atheist and Agnostic Group was one of the largest atheist forums on MySpace, having dedicated itself to the subject of non-theism and gained 10,000 members every year until it was finally disbanded.

Controversy Surrounding the Atheist Forum:
Due to several attacks from phish hackers in 2007, the creator’s account was accessed without permission and the atheist forum was vandalized. The group was renamed by the hackers, members of the atheist forum were banned, and the founder’s account was also vandalized. Due to the heated pressure caused by the sensitive subject matter, MySpace deleted the atheist forum. The founder of the atheist group believes that MySpace deleted because they gave in to pressure from powerful Christian groups. After the creator complained to MySpace, they eventually brought the group back a few months later. Once again, the atheist forum was attacked again by Christian fundamentalists, and once again, the group was deleted by MySpace during the creator’s continuing efforts to have users unbanned from the group. The atheist forum has been down ever since.

Attacks to One of the Largest Atheist Forums on the Internet:
There were many attacks experienced by the Atheist and Agnostic Group on MySpace. When the creator’s account was hacked by Christian fundamentalists, his profile was vandalized and the group was renamed “Jesus is Love”. In addition, many of the discussions in the forum were deleted, including threads talking about the hack and half the members were banned. Finally, on January 1, 2008, the group was scheduled to be removed from the website.

Subsequent Groups:
In honor of the original atheist forum and to exercise their freedom of speech, several other atheist forums on MySpace bearing the same name. They still have continual discussions.

Atheistic Criticisms of Agnostic Beliefs

The agnostic view is that of analyzing the “truth” value of particular claims. A prime example of the agnostic view about religion is that the existence of any god or deity, along with many other religious claims is completely unknown or incapable of being known by humans. Agnostic viewpoints are aimed at questioning beliefs and approaching problems and unknowns with a level of certainty. Its goal is to distinguish the idea of “beliefs” and the idea of “knowledge” rather than examining any specific stance or belief.

The agnostic ideology, by nature, overlaps with several other belief systems. There may be agnostic people who lean towards atheistic beliefs, while other agnostic people may be called agnostic theists. Agnostic theists believe in a deity and practice a certain religion, but under agnostic methods of thinking, they also believe that the knowledge of an existing god or several gods is impossible to humans. There are two fundamental schools of thought in agnosticism:

What is the Weak Agnostic Belief?
This belief says that the existence of a god is currently unknown but it is possible for humans to one day understand and know if it is true or not. As a result, weak agnostic proponents generally withhold their judgment until solid evidence is presented.

What is the Strong Agnostic Belief?
Proponents of strong agnosticism believe that mankind does not know whether or not a supreme being exists and they are incapable of ever knowing because experiences can only be verified by other subjective experiences.

Criticisms of Agnostic Beliefs:
Many people have criticized the agnostic beliefs because they feel that it is a limitation of a person’s mind to understand material things and not identify spiritual things. Agnosticism has also been a subject of controversy with atheistic proponents as well because the agnostic ideology has often been mistakenly used interchangeably with atheistic beliefs.

Religious scholars maintain their stance that agnostic believers are without merit because the human mind is capable of perceiving intangible objects aside from just material objects. They back this statement up with evidence such as gravity, entropy and human thoughts, all of which are invisible, but do indeed exist. Further religious arguments maintain that agnosticism undermines evidence of God’s creations and to gather scientific evidence of God’s existence would force God to become a servant of man; as such, the question of God should be pursued by other means. In addition, religious leaders and philosophers have argued that God will always be “greater” than the boundaries by which the human mind can fathom and expect, therefore it is safer to choose that God is in existence.

Criticisms have also been aimed at agnostic believers from atheistic believers. Richard Dawkins has been especially vocal on this subject, stating that using the terms “agnostic” or “atheistic” usually depends on how “close to zero” a person’s belief of the existence of a god is. He argues that it is “not worth contrasting zero probability with a value close to zero.

Agnostic Beliefs

The agnostic belief is that of analyzing the “truth” value of particular claims. A prime example of the agnostic view about religion is that the existence of any god or deity, along with many other religious claims is completely unknown. Agnostic beliefs are aimed at questioning uncertainties and approaching problems and unknowns with a level of indubitableness. Its goal is to distinguish the idea of “beliefs” and the idea of “knowledge” rather than examining any specific stance or belief.

The Origin of the Term Agnostic:
Although the English biologist, Thomas Henry Huxley developed the term Agnostic in the year 1860, many other writings demonstrating the agnostic system and points of view predated Huxley’s work. Works as early as 5th century BCE were created that had many ideals that eventually became classified as agnostic viewpoints, such as from Protagoras, the Greek philosopher. Years after Huxley’s formation of the term, all writings based in agnosticism have been classified as such and gained momentum in popularity.

The word “agnostic” comes from the Greek words meaning “without” and “knowledge” and was first used by Thomas Henry Huxley during a speech that was given to the Metaphysical Society in 1876. The term was originally used by Huxley to describe the rejection of all spiritual beliefs and mystical beliefs that are perceived as knowledge, using the term in a broad sense. It was meant to reject the beliefs of all religions.

Agnostic Beliefs of Historical Philosophers:
The traditional agnostic beliefs have been around for many years before Huxley, though he was the first philosopher to coin the term. He used it to sum up his thoughts about recent developments in metaphysics and all things that he thought were unknowable by humans. The following is an account of Huxley’s agnostic beliefs before he coined the term:

“I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel.”

These agnostic beliefs from Huxley came in response, along with other philosophers to the general suppression of new scientific discovers by religious groups.

Robert G. Ingersoll was a lawyer and politician who became one of the most renown figures in the agnostic belief. Ingersoll was famous for giving the Why I Am An Agnostic lecture in 1896, which is thoughts were summed up as follows:

“Is there a supernatural power—an arbitrary mind—an enthroned God—a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world—to which all causes bow? I do not deny. I do not know—but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme—that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken—that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer—no power that worship can persuade or change—no power that cares for man.”