New Religion Dispatches Feature: A Review of Vincent Bugliosi's Case for Agnosticism

Regular readers of the blog may be interested in my most recent Religion Dispatches essay, Unreasonable Doubt: Vincent Bugliosi Defends Agnosticism (not my title, but it's catchier than what I had). In it, I review what is touted as the agnostic contribution to the God debates: famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's Divinity of Doubt. In a phrase that was edited out of the final version of the essay, I basically characterize Bugliosi's book in the following terms: He essenitally agrees with the criticisms that atheists and theists level against each other, but rejects their defenses of their respective positions. The result, of course, is uncertainty.

But is the case for epistemic uncertainty about God's existence the same as a case for agnosticism? I don't think so. My main aim in the essay is to offer my thoughts on what sorts of arguments should have been taken up in a book that markets itself as a defense of agnosticism. I'm left wishing someone had written that book (or something a bit closer to it than what Bugliosi offers). Maybe someone will. (Bernard?)

One warning, however: This review essay was edited a bit more heavily than the essays I usually submit, probably because I spent less time doing my own tinkering and editing than I usually do (I think I felt some pressure to get the essay submitted the week that Bugliosi's book came out). Fortunately, as usual at Religion Dispatches, the editing was overwhelmingly beneficial: streamlining the prose, eliminating unnecessary qualifying phrases, cutting unnecessary digressions, all the while remaining sensitive to the substance of my argument.

But here's the warning: While the edits that were made to the section on the Kierkegaardian objection to agnosticism make it punchier and more readable, they also remove the "distancing" remarks that make it clear I am not personally endorsing Kierkegaard's view. Too many people close to me in my life are agnostics for me to sincerely believe that agnostics inevitably lack a passional relationship with their world. For reasons I've expressed in an earlier post, I think Kierkegaard's arguments offer some reason to think it can be legitimate to take "leaps of faith" beyond the limits of what we know (although I think a conversation about what constraints should be imposed on such leaps is essential). But I am far from convinced that Kierkegaard demonstrates that taking such a leap on the God-question is required of anyone who wishes to live a fully human life.

In any event, the essay is more open than I would have liked to the sort of misreading that comes out in the first reader's letter (although a part of me wants to ask that reader if he read all the way to the end of the article). I've submitted a clarifying response, but as of this moment it has not yet been posted.