Shouldn't be many, but since he's agnostic, he must concede you could be right and he's wrong since he can never be sure

Talk about your political beliefs instead?

In this messed up world, an agnostic, and an atheist, ought to be able to find something else to argue about other than religion. I know that's not an answer, but I do wish you luck.

Sounds like he's having second thoughts

I only read the title. But agnostic and athiest are the same word. They both just mean there is not enough evidence to accept X belief.

Why make someone you love defend something they barely believe in? Good grief, I'd be happy to find someone that didn't "praise jesus" or think I was going to hell.

What do his actions tell you about him?

You gotta ask yourself what is your goal? Is your goal to change him? To control how he thinks when it's different from yours? Ask yourself can you be with him without trying to change him and let him discover these things on his own. What's more important for you? Only you can answer theses and your relationship only has two people in it.

When you say "boyfriend", I think of someone in their teens or 20s, so he has a long time to change.

He's not an agnostic... An agnostic is an atheist who isn't 100% certain there is no god(s). As opposed to a gnostic atheist.

Sounds the same as a Protestant/Catholic squabble. Just bang both your heads together and tell each other to get over it. It doesn’t matter. And if either of you think it does matter your wasting your life!

Before any first cause, possibility has to exist timelessly.

Hey, at the end of the day it's not going to be a purely logical battle for anyone.

There's objectively not much difference between agnosticism and atheism unless he's the sort of agnostic that doesn't think it's possible to know whether god exists. This is because neither atheists or agnostics have been shown convincing evidence, but one group says "therefore I don't know", whereas the other group says, "so just like I don't think there's a teapot orbiting Mars, so too I don't think god exists," or something of that sort.
That being said, there are all sorts of reasons someone might want to call themselves agnostic rather than atheist. There's no way to offer good advice on how to approach your own situation without being intimately familiar with your bf.

I would recommend just trying to coax him into opening up to you about what he feels about the topic rather than trying to convince him that he ought to be an atheist. Does he have the impression that religious people are more likely to be good people? Is he afraid of hell? Is he afraid of being rejected by his family? Does he believe in miracles?

Also I would recommend being open to the possibility that you two just call yourself different terms. Actually my girlfriend calls herself an agnostic while I am an atheist, but it's never really been an issue for us. I recognize why she wants to call herself that (family reasons), and I am definitely fine with us calling ourselves by different terms if she thinks it'll make it easier for her to get along with her family.

I'm sorry but your boyfriend is no agnostic.

And if you truly love him, i believe you'd respect his views( whatever they might be) learn to live the differences eventually!

If he thinks "God" is the cause of the universe and has no logic to support his view, he sounds an awful lot more like a christian than an agnostic -- but I think you already know that.

Being an atheist is a journey which some people do very quickly and others take longer. Indoctrination is a difficult thing to shake off. Undoubtedly he should be persuaded to discuss with you some of the threads that have affected or reinforced your thinking and are found on this very site. Better still get him to ask questions on this site. Inquiry is the best mindset.

He is caught in the dream. Nothing you can do to my knowledge. If his quest is to defend what he can't prove or reasonably justify - that's it. Sorry. The only thing I can think of is the Indiana Jones movie "The temple of doom" where Harrison Ford is caught in the spells of the master and needs a blow of the fire to wake him up.......

If he has all the other qualities you seek, does it matter if he believes or doubts? If he can’t twll you why he favors a particular sports team, do you get upset? It’s not necessary for people to be mirror images to be happy.

I think it's a distinct possibility that your boyfriend professes to be Agnostic to keep the peace, and because he wants to be with you.To be agnostic means one has doubts, serious doubts, that there is a divine being. Sounds like he's really leaning toward believing, not doubting. Try asking him...

Mosttheists are codependent. They need something hold onto. Being willing to stand alone goes against human nature. Where “nature” represents both genetics & nurture within a society. I think reading some Sartre might help. If he needs the “greater something” troll him to make up some rituals and a doctrine. It might catch on.

he doesn't sound all that agnostic to me, "if" notwithstanding. love is love, but i would say the man's got religion, whether he admits it or not. if he hasn't read the bible (i am not even going to ask which one) then he doesn't even KNOW his own religion, but he's got it, somehow!

g

This reminds me of my "Christian" Mother. During a conversation she once said something that caused me to ask her directly if she believed that Jesus Christ was her lord and savior. She said "No". I then said something about her not being a Christian which she seemed to find insulting and insisted, "Of course I am a Christian". (WTF!) At that point all logic to the conversation seemed to leave the room and I just changed the subject. It was clear that her parents were Christians and that she totally indoctrinated to believed that Christians were good people and non-Christians were not and she WAS a good person and, therefore, a Christian. To argue that point were fighting words to her and I was not prepared to punch it out with my Mom (even though I'm pretty sure that I could kick her ass!)

Hmm, seems obvious to me he's not an informed agnostic. Change the subject and talk about something else.

Live and let live

if he defends the bible as a guide to anything at all and refuses to read it, then there is no reason for you to ever discuss this subject with him at all in hopes of any rational conversation. that is a gone train. he has admitted he will not be rational about it.

Human terms give me headaches simply because there is so much variation in what a word means. So I prefer to call myself human and everything else is up for groups. I like the idea of Deism and refer to myself thusly on occasion. I am not SURE of the existence of God so Agnostic fits also.One question you could ask him is has he ever considered the Bible a attempt (as misguided as it may be) for people over the centuries to explain the unexplainable and not something to be taken as the word of a omniscient being? Maybe be clear about ground rules for conversations such as you would like him to stick to what he personally knows or thinks rather then repeating others thoughts or cultural assumptions about the nature of a book that he has not read? Too me the Bible is a very old self help book mixed with a large dose of useless rules and laws based on a time when so much was not known about the world and how it actually works. Challenge him to read other religious and non religious texts considered popular and of relevance to the nature of mans relationship to the unknown. Like the Koran or the Tripitaka. Or Joseph Campbell's books about myth and its role him human history and culture. Ask him why he personally finds the idea of a Christian creator God so compelling?