The next Skeptics Society lecture is this Sunday, 2:00 PM, at Caltech's Baxter Lecture Hall. This month we have THE GREAT BANACHEK (Steve Shaw) who "HOLDS THE KEY TO YOUR MIND... The Great Banachek regularly performs feats of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and derma optics. He can recreate the feats of a 19th-century seance. he cn bend spoons just by looking at them. If you have a friend who has been astonished by a psychic reading bring them along to see how 'The World's Number One thought Reader' does it. Banachek is also known as Steve Shaw, a magician, mentalist, and a world class expert in creating the illusions of a sixth sense. He is a long time opponent of the dark side of mentalism and has been involved in skeptical investigations of faith healers and psychic research methodology." DON'T MISS IT AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS.

The response to the GOD QUESTION of the last post have been most enlightening. Here are two posts from people whom I respect greatly, one slightly favoring my position, the other slightly favoring Penn's position.

From Eugenie Scott, anthropologist and director of the National Center for Science Education, the biggest and best anti-creationist group in the 6,000-year-old universe:

re: you and Penn Jilette's exchange: Indeed, logically there either is a God or there is not a God, but that doesn't mean that the four definitions are not still valid. There may be a God, but that doesn't make religion reasonable if that God is unknowable.

I'd change "agnostic" to read, "If there is a God, God is unknowable". An agnostic can also have no belief in God, but still recognize that, if there *were* a God, he would be unknowable. I think this is Huxley's original view, isn't it?

I don't think that "weak atheist" is necessary, if "agnostic" is expanded. This makes for cleaner, more distinct definitions.

I describe myself as a "nontheist", or "nonbeliever", which usually makes people ask "what do you mean." I can then explain that I do not belive in God or other supernatural forces, but that I am not antireligous, which is what "atheist" connotes -- regardless of its dictionary definition.

Am I merely whimping out taking the agnostic position, or is there philosophical and social justification here?>

Nope, and Yup! I've always felt that my job is promoting evolution, and I can do this best by letting people keep their religious faith. If I were in the business, so to speak, of promoting freethought, I think I would ALSO allow people to keep their religious faith. Let's say you want to train a rat to cross a cage pull a lever, and get a food pellet when a light flashes. You start by reinforcing him when he moves in the right direction, giving him a pellet when he just moves towards the lever. Eventually, you reinforce the whole sequence. You don't begin by electrifying the bottom of a cage, which is what most free thought proponents do with believers..... They forget we are in the business of persuasion, and changing someone's world view is not something that is done in one step. You know the type: they take great pleasure in beating some believer over the head with his stupidity, and then wonder why the brilliant arguments haven't convinced the miscreant to become a freethinker!

From Brian Siano, regular contributor to Skeptic and other humanist publications, and all around thoughtful fellow on such matters: Am I merely whimping out taking the agnostic position, or is there philosophical and social justification here?

You're wimping, but I do it, too. The problem with the agnostic position is that, by accepting the terms of the question-- whether there is "a God or not"-- we're sort of working under the weight of what the rest of Western Civ believes. We're putting a lot of importance on this particular deity, on monotheism, and perhaps even Judeo- Christian beliefs. In other words: if we saw two people debating whether Zeus or Apollo exist, or debating the existence of a little elf named Fred who lives at the center of the earth and pushes the trees to the surface, we'd regard it as silly or meaningless. But we live in a society that's soaked with monotheism-- so we sort of give credence to theism simply by taking the question seriously.

We can provide a logical rationale for agnosticism (we don't have an adequate definition of God, we can't rule Him out completely, whatever). But, because we "don't" provide similar rationales for Zeus, or Apollo, or Fred, we're still laboring under the demands of our culture.

So, given that these equally unverifiable beliefs are not taken seriously by our culture, there's no reason why Penn (or any other atheist) isn't justified in saying, "Hey, this God business is just as silly as Fred," and dismiss the idea entirely. I don't know if Penn's made this argument-- forward this to him if you'd like-- but he could easily say, "Hey, Mike, if someone were to say they believe in Fred the Elf, would you tell them that Fred's unverifiable, or perhaps Fred's sufficiently subtle, or incomprehensible? Or would you dismiss it as horse puckey?"

In short: yes, one can make a good philosophical position for agnosticism, but it requires adoptinmg a kind of baseline acceptance that the notion of God is reasonable. But if you "don't" have that baseline acceptance, then yeah, agnosticism is kind of wimping out.

And to be honest, I'm gravitating more towards atheism myself. It's mainly for the reason I've described above: even when I'm being Mr. Reasonable, and explaining that I'm not religious because God's unverifiable, I have this irritating feeling of trying to be "nice" to people.

And when our national newsweeklies do cover stories on trash like angels, and when "Mother Jones" does this silly cover story on gaseous spirituality, and when TV-processed "cynics" like Bill Maher blather about how people need faith and the like, I suddenly feel like being an uncompromising atheist-- just because I'm sick of the kiddie sentiment, and feel someone oughta be the Spectre at the Banquet.

Either that, or I just make up my own religions, just to be "really" perverse.