You know how people say things like, "Angelina Jolie is proof that God exists." Well the guy who gets to sleep with her every night disagrees. Guess we can add that to there are no atheists in foxholes on the list of failed pieties.

In a new interview, Brad Pitt says, "I'm probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic." But his explanation is actually a fairly effective, if crude, description of an ignostic: "You'll either find out or not when you get there, until then there's no point thinking about it."

We've discussed ignosticism before. A more elegant version of Brad's summation comes from Sherwin Wine, who coined the term: "finding the question of God's existence meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences."

Wikipedia outlines the philosophical basis for ignocistism.

A coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition cannot be falsified, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless...

Theodore Drange sees atheism and agnosticism as positions which accept "God exists" as a meaningful proposition; atheists judge it to be "false or probably false" and agnostics consider it to be inconclusive until further evidence is met. If Drange's definitions are accepted, ignostics are neither atheists nor agnostics. A simplified maxim on the subject states "An atheist would say, 'I don't believe God exists'; an agnostic would say, 'I don't know whether or not God exists'; and an ignostic would say, 'I don't know what you mean when you say, "God exists" '."

A decent gloss can also be found at The Church of Reality, with the added persuasive factor of graphic design so bad that no compassionate deity would allow it.

Of course we don't know how much of this Brad has thought out, and it's possible that his position is closer to apathetic agnosticism, with which ignosticism arguably overlaps.

PS. Hey, ladies! Sleeping with Brad Pitt won't convince you there's a God either.

9:39 AM :: Comments (7)

Sherwin Wine, the founder of Humanistic Judaism, died on Saturday at age 79. Though he lived a long life, it should have been longer. He was killed in a car accident.

Sherwin's conviction that the cultural and spiritual traditions of Judaism need not be incompatible with modern nontheistic philosophy is the reason that I am today a practicing Jew and active member of a congregation, rather than the unaffiliated, and disconnected, secular Jew I was for most of my life.

I am also indebted to Sherwin for coining the term ignosticism to mean "finding the question of God's existence meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences." The Wikipedia entry is a little messy at the moment, but it's pretty much the only online source for further explication of the concept.

I met Sherwin a couple of times, but didn't know him well. It just seemed appropriate to pay tribute.

The Harvard Humanist chaplaincy's memorial has audio of recent interviews with Sherwin.

2:25 PM :: Comments (12)

Kate alerts me that there will be a (nationwide) preview of A Brief History of Disbelief on tomorrow night's Bill Moyers Journal.

The clip is... not promising. Miller's tone is less confrontational than Dawkins, to be sure, but opening with "religion caused 9/11 and America is just as religious as the Middle East, therefore Christians and Muslims are all equally nuts and dangerous" (I'm paraphrasing, but accurately) isn't likely to convince anyone other than Christopher Hitchens. Certainly Miller's pronouncement that "It's inconceivable that [9/11] could have been done without religion, for it's only in the name some absolute assurance of a permanent life after death that someone would be able to undertake such an act," would be news to the Tamil Tigers.

Still it should be interesting to hear Miller discuss all this with the devout, but rational, Bill Moyers.

Update: Having watched the Moyers segment, it looks like the series, and Miller, will be pretty good after all. The clip they chose was pretty unrepresenative of Miller's tone, which is thoughtful and respectful (but not in any wimpy way). Interestingly, it sounds like Miller, though he doesn't know the category, is an ignostic, which is what I increasingly think of myself as, if forced to put a label on my "disbelief."

4:52 PM :: Comments (0)

News that Nevada's Office of Veteran's Services has approved a Wiccan symbol for memorial plaques got me looking again at the list of nationally approved religious symbols for military tombstones.

The collection raises lots of questions: What is the Church of World Messianity? Does anyone still follow Eckiankar [sic]? Why no Scientology? Could a goat really carry a flag? Why do Muslims get two symbols and who holds the copyright to the second one?

But the funniest thing is that dorky atheist symbol. I don't call myself an atheist, but I'm sympathetic enough to want a cool logo for it. This one — apparently created by those Madeline Murray O'Hare wackos back in the 50s — is, shall we say, dated. As one commenter has noted, "it’s too much an icon of the Atomic Age, evoking an Absolute Power of science. It says nothing of uncertainty, which is exactly what we must be willing to face if we are not to be tempted by the comforting embrace of belief." Plus it bespeaks a certain amount of hubris (ha!), given how that whole atomic energy/weapon stuff turned out.

Alternates have been proposed, but most face the dreaded, "can it be made into jewelry" problem, which is one thing that doomed the Invisible Pink Unicorn, which is entertaining but perhaps too adequately conveys how obnoxious capital-A Atheists can be. My favorite suggestion: *. In addition to the reasons proposed, it has just the right connotation of "whatever." Maybe it should be the ignostic symbol.

On a related note: Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!

11:04 AM :: Comments (9)