Customer Reviews

The Agnostic Reader

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3 star:		(1)
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Agnosticism is the argument that it's impossible to know whether god exist or not - and has been the point of view of many a thinker from the 19th century to modern times. This reader selects some prime discussions of agnosticism over the past two centuries, compiling them under one cover to make for an excellent survey recommended not only for spiritual libraries but for general-interest holdings and any college-level collection strong in philosophy or religious debates. From Christianity to natural science viewpoints by Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov and others, THE AGNOSTIC READER is an excellent recommendation.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Hard to get through this one. Lofty ideas from extremely educated men.
Unless you are very persistent in your reading - I would not recommend this one. You can't have ANY Distractions with this one.

My father is an agnostic...so this was for him. I can not rate it as I am one of the believers-- full of faith and hope. He loves it though and shipping was fast!

Where the author screwed up at a fundamental level is in his definitions:

"Agnosticism--the philosophical argument that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not--has been the point of view of many distinguished thinkers from the 19th century to the present. In contrast to atheism, which asserts that God does not exist, agnosticism holds that reason and the best scientific evidence do not allow one to reach a decisive conclusion regarding the existence of God."

The author believes that atheism is the assertion that God does not exist. WRONG. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God. Agnosticism can and frequently does overlap with atheism. Calling yourself just an 'agnostic' is meaningless and doesn't tell us anything about what you believe. Gnosticism & Agnosticism are on a different axis to Theism and Atheism. The former defines whether you 'know' and the latter defines whether you 'believe'. You can be an agnostic atheist, or an agnostic theist. Agnostic itself tells nothing about what you actually believe.

You may not 'know' whether God exists or not due to lack of conclusive evidence, but that does not mean you cannot believe or disbelieve. Would anyone call themself a agnostic towards the existence of Bigfoot? Or would they simply call themself a-bigfootists? There is no evidence that can disprove their existence, as with God.

When the question is asked, 'do you believe in the existence of a god or gods?', and your answer is anything other than 'yes', then you do not hold a belief in gods, and therefore are an atheist. 'I don't know' is not an acceptable answer. How can you not know whether you believe in something or not? You can be unsure whether you are correct, but surely you have an opinion?

Joshi in writing this book has completely missed the point. He himself is an atheist, although he is not aware of it due to his misunderstanding of terms. Had he known he was an atheist, that would surely change the complexion of this book! And I would argue, it would render the book pointless, as most agnosticism books are. To be fair, he is not the only agnostic author that makes this mistake.

I would not recommend the book due to errors in terminology making it meaningless.