Went to Caloundra for the weekend, mainly so we could be with Mum on Mother’s Day. I didn’t go swimming because I had (still have) the flu. We took Mum out to dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday we went on a long drive in the Blackall Ranges. So we drove through Maleny, Conondale, Kenilworth and Montville (in that order) among other places. We tried to take our little Holden Barina on a little detour down a very rough dirt track. We crossed one creek, but then chickened out on the second one after watching some 4 wheel drives go through. Seeing how deep the creek was and how much the 4 wheel drives were bouncing around on the creek bed, we decided to turn back. But it was an exciting little detour anyway. Stopped for lunch at a nice little park near Kenilworth where Little Yabba Creek meets the Mary River. It was a really, really enjoyable day out. Mum loved it, which is the main thing, I guess.
Had another religious debate. Tried to explain to Riko why the position of agnosticism is not just another point on the theist-atheist spectrum. Failed. Didn’t even get to the punchline because I’d spent so much time trying to clarify terms and whatnot. The simplest argument is this. A person who holds the position of agnosticism says that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not. Granted. Therefore it is a question of faith and of belief. To ask an agnostic person whether they have faith in God and his existence is a completely different question. But it is a question the agnostic must answer. Do you have faith in the existence of God? (Do you believe God exists?) Either the person has faith, or does not. If they have faith, then they are a theist (agnostic theist, meaning they cannot know if God exists, but they believe God exists). If they do not have faith, then they are an atheist (agnostic atheist, meaning they cannot know if God exists, but they don’t believe he exists). Religion, and belief in God, by definition requires a leap of faith. Either a person has faith or doesn’t have faith. The question of whether God actually exists is separate to what one chooses to believe. The statement that a person neither has faith nor does not have faith, is logically absurd, and therefore does not represent a point on the theist-atheist continuum. It does not represent a belief. A person may change between belief and non-belief, but at any particular point in time, a person either believes or does not. Concerning faith in God, the answer "I don’t know" is not a valid answer. It just means that the person has not searched themselves adequately, or is reluctant to say "No".
