Crazy Pills, pt. 2

This is a followup to the last entry. I love Penn Jillette. I don't agree with half the crazy libertarian shit he says, but he's still extremely intelligent and thinks things through, so you gotta at least have respect for him. What he touches on here is exactly what I was trying to get into in the last entry. What makes you an atheist or an agnostic is simply how you define the words.



"I see the question of atheist or theist as not 'Is there a God?' Because I suppose the answer at some sort of real, honest, gut-level, the answer to the question 'Is there a God' either has to be, or certainly is very reasonably, 'I don't know'. BUT--I don't see the atheist/theist question as being 'Is there a God', I see it as being 'Do you BELIEVE in a God'. And that's the only question I care about, 'Do you BELIEVE in a God.' I don't care if you know there is a God or not, I don't care if it's knowable or unknowable, but do you BELIEVE in a God. And I think in that sense, many of your agnostics automatically become atheist."

And he's absolutely right, because I would be an atheist if that's how I defined it. But the problem is that if his definition of atheism is correct, then agnosticism doesn't exist. I have to disagree with Penn - I view atheism as a question of 'Do you know there is a God', because I do actually care about that question. Whether it is knowable or unknowable is important to me. And that's the jist of it. That is the only reason I don't call myself an atheist. I just don't think the question is as simple as he thinks.