The Atheist, The Agnostic & The Invisible Unicorn

Some of my Christian friends often ask me why I insist on calling myself an atheist, rather than an agnostic.

You can't prove there isn't a God, they say to me, so surely a good, healthy, sceptical agnosticism would be the most sensible and realistic position to hold.

Well, it's a good question. But it contains a fatal flaw. Depending on your own point of view, you may have guessed what it is.

If one cannot prove there isn't a God, then why don't they (my Christian friends) call themselves agnostics. Why doesn't the Pope? Why doesn't everybody?

And, as they obviously don't, why do they seek to deny me a privilege of certainty which they quite readily allow themselves?

That usually shuts them up.

But it isn't a totally futile question. I do believe there are matters about which it is perfectly legitimate to be 'agnostic': in other words, to reserve ones judgement, to keep an open mind, etc.

Take the question: Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

No one can answer that question. No one who has ever lived has been able to answer that question. But it is, I would submit, a perfectly sensible question and one in respect of which I feel quite comfortable being 'agnostic'.

Here's another question: Are there invisible unicorns with magical, healing powers living in the woods at the bottom of my garden?

Well, I would be hard-pressed to prove that there aren't. But I don't feel any particular compulsion to believe in them. I feel quite comfortable saying: No, they don't exist. I don't believe in them. It's total nonsense.

So .... what's the difference, exactly?

My own view (for what it's worth) is that it all comes down to the distinction between unanswered questions and unanswerable questions.

The question about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe may be a question which no one can answer - but that doesn't mean it's an unanswerable one.

If we were to consult a physicist, a cosmologist or an astronomer (or preferably all three) I'm sure they would be able to set out the steps we would have to take in order to answer the question. We may not be physically or technologically capable of actually taking those steps, but we could certainly set out what they would have to be. And it doesn't take too great an imaginative leap to predict that at some time in the foreseeable future we will find ourselves in a position where we can take those steps.

In addition - and I think this is vitally important - the answer, when and if it comes, will be based directly or indirectly on sensory evidence.

In other words, we'll go and have a look. Or, more probably, we will send out machines and instruments sensitive enough to transmit back robust and reliable data that we can see and/ or hear.

Regretfully, this probably will not be in my lifetime. But it might, it just might, be in my grandchildren's (if I had any).

So the question, although currently unanswered, admits to the possibility of an answer. It is not unanswerable. All we have to do is wait and see ....

When it comes to the existence of invisible unicorns at the bottom of my garden, however, I cannot see how anybody could set out the steps necessary to answer that question by direct reference to sensory evidence.

In other words, the question does not even admit to the possibility of an answer. It is not only unanswered, but unanswerable.

I would suggest that an unanswerable question is essentially a meaningless question, and that life is far too short to waste ones time on meaningless questions.

I realise that this premise has all sorts of implications of a religious/ spiritual nature.

Do you, gentle reader, accept the distinction between the existence of extraterrestial intelligence and the existence of invisible unicorns?

Or do you believe that one should be just as 'agnostic' about the one as about the other?

And if not, why not?