An agnostic position is one that leaves open the question whether there exists a god or gods, professing to find such a question unanswered or unanswerable. For the atheist, the question has been answered, and in the negative.
Interpretation
An agnostic position accepts uncertainty about the existence of a deity, while atheism firmly denies it.
This quote by Jaroslav Pelikan distinguishes between agnosticism and atheism. An agnostic maintains an open stance towards the existence of a god or gods, acknowledging the limits of human knowledge on this subject, while an atheist has reached a conclusion that no deities exist. This elaboration highlights the nuances in beliefs regarding divinity and the nature of religious inquiry.
In practice
In a discussion about faith during a philosophy class.
Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble.
Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost twenty centuries... It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray.
Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.
I love to talk about cooking and recipes, but I love as much talking about how food and cooking can change the world.
The Frenchman works until he can play. The American works until he can’t play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works until he can pretend that he never worked at all.
God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His spirit.
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
And I walk out of space Into an overgrown garden of values, And tear up seeming stability And self-comprehension of causes. And your, infinity, textbook I read by myself, without people - Leafless, savage medical book, A problem book of gigantic radicals.
The ultimate, most holy form of theory is action.
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