KtB - The New Agnosticism?

[Tiassa]

Source: Killing the Buddha
Link: http://killingthebuddha.com/dogma/newagno.htm
Title: "The New Agnosticism?"
Date: December 20, 2004

Imagine that the reasons for belief in a wise and benevolent God could be weighed, summed, and assigned a value. Call this A, and call B the value of views to the contrary; then compare the two. In this way, the mystery of faith arranges itself in a neat stack of possibilities: either A is greater, or B, or neither -- the two are equal -- or the question itself stands unsolved, the irrational ratio of two real numbers. We are either theists, that is, or atheists, or else parties to some more learned form of compromise. In general, questions of theology are unlike those found on math exams. And yet the problem of faith has long seemed to me to share with standardized testing the foursquare clarity of multiple-choice. Only lately, in the course of certain conversations with my peers, have I begun to think otherwise.

Killing the Buddha

Thomas Huxley, Michael Jordan, Richard Nixon, MC Hammer, "metrosexuals" ... the diversity of ideas brought together in Ben Rutter's considerations of the shifting meaning of the word agnostic is in itself striking.

When I ask my friends to describe for me the views of a religious agnostic, only a few seem to follow the definition commonly found in dictionaries. For the rest, the meaning of the term bears a different weight. An agnostic, they tell me, is a person who remains aloof from fixed religious identities while preserving at the same time a vague faith in some higher power. In this reconception, the hard edge of Huxley’s skepticism is softened and something like intuition is given greater rein.


Killing the Buddha

The author sees the disintegration of a perfectly suitable term. The notion of agnostic pushes too close to faith.

It is worth recalling that the term was never intended as such. Huxley was an empiricist and a skeptic who took little interest in the nature of sin or the fate of his soul. Arguments were to be judged, in his view, on the basis of observation and experiment alone, and theism, by this reckoning, scarcely merited consideration. Atheism, meanwhile, remained a plausible but ultimately unprovable dogma. Huxley’s turn toward agnosticism was motivated by the demands not of spiritual faction, but of intellectual hygiene. Many of his temper, in fact, have claimed their agnosticism in a spirit not of tolerance, but of polite disdain. The great French positivist Auguste Comte, for one, declined atheism on the grounds that to embrace it would be to take the very notion of God far too seriously.


Killing the Buddha

So it would seem that the anti-identification of atheism is guilty in this transition, as well: Rutter sees Huxley's agnosticism as something akin to what Sciforums' atheists assert for themselves on their better days. And Comte has a point, although it comes back to the question of why atheists bother at all, and we've already seen that question reasonably answered.

• • •​

Believing in or against God is still a submission to the notion of God. Betting against Pascal means exactly that. Whether or not the person of faith understands the reasons an atheist engages notions of God at all may be beside the point. Arguing logic against faith is akin to challenging a brick wall with the cranium. Arguing faith against faith is akin to a self-inflicted bullet in the brain.
______________________

Notes:

Rutter, Ben. "The New Agnosticism?" KillingtheBuddha.com, December 20, 2004. See http://killingthebuddha.com/dogma/newagno.htm​

 

[Ophiolite]

I'm trying to discern something of value here. The semantic content seems on a par with "oranges are orange". What am I missing.

 

[one_raven]

Just a little off subject, but related to the article's point, I like the Manifesto blurb on the site.

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.

The idea of "killing the Buddha" comes from a famous Zen line, the context of which is easy to imagine: After years on his cushion, a monk has what he believes is a breakthrough: a glimpse of nirvana, the Buddhamind, the big pay-off. Reporting the experience to his master, however, he is informed that what has happened is par for the course, nothing special, maybe even damaging to his pursuit. And then the master gives the student dismaying advice: If you meet the Buddha, he says, kill him.

Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way.

Why Killing the Buddha? For our purposes, killing the Buddha is a metaphor for moving past the complacency of belief, for struggling honestly with the idea of God.

 

[duendy]

all i know is is i feel sorry for Buddfhists. all those days of aching legs...of having to sit stone-still listening to their boring thoughts....numb bum....arduous thoughts, etc. then one gets some kind of buzz and even that is put down by mr master............

 

[one_raven]

duendy,
Is there sarcasm in that post, or is it genuine?
Do you look upon Buddhist and others that value extreme self-dicipline, self-exploration and austerity with pity?
I happen to look upon them with awe.
However, since this thread has nothing to do with Buddhism and austerity, perhaps we should discuss this in another thread.

 

[one_raven]

As far as the original post...
I think it is really a matter of people intending to assign labels to themselves and semantics getting in the way of those labels.
Words, their meanings and constraints evolve.
Labels, by their very function, are limiting.
The effort to redefine agnosticism is a bit of a waste of time, in my opinion, regardless of whether or not I agree with the goals of the organization.
If they want to be grouped together and united under a cause they would probably be better offf simply avoiding labels altogether and work towards a simple concise statement.

 

[duendy]

duendy,
Is there sarcasm in that post, or is it genuine?

D--genuine

Do you look upon Buddhist and others that value extreme self-dicipline, self-exploration and austerity with pity?

D--i dont like to be pitied, so wouldn't do it to others. I rather think of it as a challenge. That i challenge their belief system, yes

I happen to look upon them with awe.

D--that is a danger, and one can get sucked into that cult from that sense of awe. then yer hooked

However, since this thread has nothing to do with Buddhism and austerity, perhaps we should discuss this in another thread.

ok, you name it. it can be our buddha baby.
hehe

 

[one_raven]

I eagerly await the topic questioning:
A.) If Buddhism is, in fact, a cult.
B.) Whether the Buddhist lifestyle -and others that value extreme self-dicipline, self-exploration and austerity- is one of any real value.