
What is an Agnostic? (1953)
1950s
The Dilbert Blog: Atheists: The New Gays, 2006-11-19 http://richarddawkins.net/article,326,Atheists-The-New-Gays,Scott-Adams--Dilbertblog,
What is an Agnostic? (1953)
1950s
Letter http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-12041 to John Fordyce, 7 May 1879
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements
Context: The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 21
Context: "Tell me," said the atheist, "Is there a God — really?"
Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer."
Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered.
"Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master.
"So you are an atheist?"
"Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.
p, 125
Other writings, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)
2012-03-21
Unbelievable! Atheists to Rally in Record Numbers
Carol Pinchefsky
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/03/21/unbelievable-atheists-to-rally-in-record-numbers/
Letter to Guy H. Raner Jr. (28 September 1949), from article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1997)
1940s
Context: I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.