Is this Agnosticism?

[Rye]

Recently, a conversation I had with one of my relatives has caused me to reconsider my self-described religious affiliation, or lack thereof. For the last several years, I have considered myself an atheist, and my views are still quite atheistic: I do not believe in any organized religion, nor do I believe in any god or any sort of abstract spirituality. However, I have realized that this lack of belief is not total.

I conclude that there are no gods based on the fact that all such entities appear to be fanciful creations indistinguishable from delusion and imagination. There may be gods, demons, intangible gay rape rugby teams, etc, they are all "logically possible" without a shred of objective evidence backing them up.

I believe that there is a possibility that, at the very beginning of this universe, however it began, there was something beyond the bounds of what we consider to be "real" that may have triggered our existence; in other words, a god of some sort. However, I have no reason to believe that this thing has any impact on the world in which we live, or ever has, and indeed, I in no way think that a spiritual explanation is the only possible one.

Deists believe in a God that set the universe in motion, intentionally or not, with no direct intervention or apparent care for the universe. Their god is "possible" but like all the others, it has no objective foundation.

Here's a question for your deistic leanings: Why would you think intent was involved at all? Couldn't the universe as we know it merely be an unthinking natural occurance?

Sure, and that's what I suspect is the case, what with knowing that things like intelligence, intent and all the rest of it require physical mediums (brains) that we have no reason to assume would exist prior to the modern universe, especially not without an explanation themselves. I mean, how exactly would intelligence come about prior to a universe? Why would any atemporal entity with universe creating powers even be aware of anything? How is it going to observe things and use intelligence for anything?

Now, as I understand it, such a mindset falls under the umbrella of agnosticism.

Agnosticism, by and large just says "I can't conclude whether that exists or not because I think it is unknowable. Also, if you conclude anything, you must be doing it on faith." It's appealling to anyone that hasn't really thought about knowledge or justifiable conclusions. It's not by faith people dismiss magical men that make tea hot that just so happen to look like heat from the gas stove. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of all knowledge is tentative and potentially updatable with new information, the idea that all statements must be as throughly evident as "existence exists" is pretty damn silly. We can conclude that the Earth is round, though it's logically possible that it's some sort of mass delusion and we'll turn out to be wrong at some point in the future.

There's nothing wrong with admitting that you're not totally certain, so long as you admit it and say that it doesn't affect your totally reasonable atheistic conclusions. You can't be totally certain about many things in life aside from things like "existence exists" and "I exist" and such.

However, I am reluctant to identify myself a such; in my admittedly limited experience, I have found that some people interpreting such an "affiliation" as meaning that a person is simply between religion, and thus is open to lobbying from theological factions. I am not, and although I respect the right of others to believe, I have no personal interest in any world view that revolves around spirituality.

Now, we come back to my question: Is it most appropriate to call this view agnostic? Atheistic? Some other name entirely?

How many gods do you actually believe in? If it's zero, you are an atheist. If you don't believe but you don't think anyone can reasonably conclude that gods are made up or actually exist, you are an atheistic agnostic. Likewise, there are theistic agnostics, they don't feel they "know" the truth but believe anyway.

[Rye]

I think the term is "deist". It's exactly what you think: a entity that set the world in motion, but doesn't intervene in worldly affairs.

As I understand it, deism is more or less the belief that the universe *is* God. It's less a religion with any practical implications and more an austere reverence for reality itsef. "God" and "nature" are pretty much interchangeable to a deist.

You don't understand it. Deism is the belief in an impersonal creator god that hides behind the big bang. The belief that the universe is god or the closest thing to a deity, religiously significant, etc, is pantheism.

[Haruko]

I think someone said, agnosticism is the method, atheism is the logical conclusion (from agnosticism).

As to agnosticism being a method rather than a creed, it was said by the person who coined the very word "agnosticism", as pointed out in the first article I linked to:

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates...it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you without regard to any other considerations. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend the conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

-- Huxley, Science and the Christian Tradition: p245-246

[Alerik the Fortunate]

As far as Christians and their ilk go, you can be quite definitively atheist and say, even if there is a God, your God is certainly not it. The bible is full of enough contradictions concerning the nature of God that he logically cannot exist as described, so even if an ultimate being of some sort were possible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is little more than a delusion that's had hyperboly heaped on it for centuries.

Francis Schaeffer accuses non-Christians of what he calls "semantic mysticism", which as I understand it is simply equivocation that uses vague words with positive connotations to mask the real emptiness of the idea by making them emotionally palatable. Christianity is the worst offender in this, naturally. Once there is any concept of a "God", they will immediately try to equate it with their God because they both start with G.

Although I'm not familiar enough with other theologies/pantheons to be sure, I bet the process can be repeated with most of them so that you could consider yourself an absolute atheist with respect to any specific god. So it seems to me, at least.