On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> > agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific >> method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of >> scientific theories. >> > > I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, > had to say on this subject: > > "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been > an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually > unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that > one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an > agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of > reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove > that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't > want to waste my time." >
So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
