Monday is #qanda day in Australia, where the nation gathers in front of the TV to watch host Tony Jones and a mix of politicians, local semi-famous or semi-important people and the odd foreign dignitary, scientist or celebrity discuss matters of presumed public interest. I didn’t watch tonight’s episode because I was at work, but I noticed some Twitter comments while having dinner, and one by Leslie Cannold stood out, because it was particularly uninformed and wrong, and I hear this one way too often, it drives me mad, and it’s kind of my pet peeve :
Believe what you like, but the only logical position on God is agnosticism #qanda
This is completely wrong, and once again, here’s why. There just can be no convincing evidence for gods, ever. So remaining on the fence and withholding judgment on the matter is entirely illogical, since no such evidence can possibly ever be forthcoming. I am an atheist, I am convinced that gods and leprechauns and fairies do not exist, I take the absence of evidence for them as evidence of their absence, while at the same time realizing that just as Richard Dawkins, I am technically a 6.9 out of 7 on the scale between total belief and total unbelief. These views are not contradictory. You can be an agnostic and an atheist. I really don’t see why people have such a hard time understanding this.
When someone says “the only logical position”, that should be either at the beginning or end of a very long argument.