* A Formal Justification of Agnosticism

A Formal Justification of Agnosticism
~ by Bill Schultz

Introduction

"There has long been a trend among some strong atheists to savagely attack any who declare themselves to be agnostics. The usual mode of attack is to bifurcate the decision, claiming that if you fail to assert that God exists (and to thereby become a theist), the only other option available is to declare that you lack a belief in any God or gods, and that this is one of the accepted definitions for atheism. I have long opposed such people by asserting this argument to be a fallacious form of bifurcation. [1] Now, another carefully reasoned argument for the fallaciousness of this same argument has surfaced. This new argument is the subject of this brief essay. It argues that the rules of inference from Classical logic (meaning the logic as defined by Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell) cannot be used in discourse about unexperienced truth values. As a direct consequence, the attempt at bifurcation is formally invalid.

The Bifurcated Proposition

The usual argument used by atheists to attempt to convince a nonatheist and nontheist to convert to atheism is that there are only two alternatives, either you believe that God exists or you do not believe that God exists. If you believe that God exists, you are a theist, and in the alternative, if you do not believe that God exists, you are an atheist. The atheist assumes that those are the only two options, and will sometimes badger an agnostic until and unless they assert their willingness to convert to atheism."

Conclusion

"Accordingly, agnosticism is not only a valid choice for those of us who see insufficient evidence to decide the matter as to the truth or falsity of some particular God concept. Agnosticism is, in fact, the only valid choice in such circumstances under the rules of inference applicable to discourse based upon the evaluation of hypothetical (unexperienced) data."

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