Quick Wrote:

surreptitious57 Wrote:I am an agnostic atheist but I am also an apatheist so that is another category
An apatheist is somebody who does not believe in God but does not care whether or not he exists
The reason I am an apatheist is because his existence cannot categorically be proven or disproven

I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you know what you believe and it makes sense but I dont
understand how you can be agnostic and not believe a god exists. Otherwise thanks for telling me about the apatheist bit

I do not do belief of any kind because belief cannot be demonstrated
I only know things are true or think things are true so I do not believe anything to be true
Because thinking something is true and believing something is true are not the same thing

You not understanding how I can not believe in God is both an argument from emotion and from ignorance
I do not believe because there is no evidence for his existence and so the default position for me is atheism

(May 9, 2018 at 3:32 am)surreptitious57 Wrote: I am an agnostic atheist but I am also an apatheist so that is another category
An apatheist is somebody who does not believe in God but does not care whether or not he exists
The reason I am an apatheist is because his existence cannot categorically be proven or disproven

Good point

I’m also an apatheist, but because it would make no difference to me or my actions.

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Agnostic/gnostic relates to what you (claim to) know.

Atheist/theist relates to what you believe.

They address different questions.

(May 9, 2018 at 3:54 am)surreptitious57 Wrote: Because thinking something is true and believing something is true are not the same thing

I agree with this but I disagree that you do not have beliefs. My last therapist said it took him 7 years to figure out that there is an interweaving between our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I believe him since the study of the mind is his profession. he was a very happy individual as well.

Quote:You not understanding how I can not believe in God is both an argument from emotion and from ignorance

No, it's not that I don't understand how you can not believe in God, it's that you say you don't believe in God and consider yourself agnostic, which as stated in this thread is a neutral stance towards believing in a God that basically says "IDK if I believe in God or not" (at least this is what it is for me) You are not saying you don't know if you don't believe in God or not, but stating that you don't believe in God.

Quote:I do not believe because there is no evidence for his existence and so the default position for me is atheism

I think I understand what you are saying. You are saying you don't believe in god because there is no evidence but that if there was evidence for believing in God that that would change your outlook. This is a very rational approach to deciding whether you believe in God or not. Given everything you have said about your approach to the God conundrum, I think your stance is probably the best reason I have ever heard for someone taking the stance of being an atheist (which I am sure is much more common than I have experience with). Ofc, I don't want to put words in your mouth so if I have this wrong, please clarify that for me.

My understanding of why an atheist doesn't believe in God is because they want to go against organized religion as a matter of principle and that this is what informs their belief system.

No, you're still muddling it up. Agnosticism isn't a neutral stance. It's frequently mislabeled as such. The neutral stance is (default) atheism. A/gnosticism relates to how certain you are about your beliefs. It's a separate indicator.

If you're neutral (weak atheism), you are automatically agnostic because you don't even have a belief either way; so you can't claim to know what you don't believe.

(May 9, 2018 at 4:16 am)robvalue Wrote: No, you're still muddling it up. Agnosticism isn't a neutral stance. It's frequently mislabeled as such. The neutral stance is (default) atheism. A/gnosticism relates to how certain you are about your beliefs. It's a separate indicator.

If you're neutral (weak atheism), you are automatically agnostic because you don't even have a belief either way; so you can't claim to know what you don't believe.

Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't make this thread to learn about atheism, but so far, that seems to be one of the things I am getting out of this thread.

Quote:There's actually three distinct positions, two of which are atheism. These are sometimes called weak and strong atheism. (Strong atheism sometimes gets used to mean gnostic atheism too.) For more discussion on the meaning of agnostic and gnostic, please see here. Notice that there are actually two different questions that can be asked:

Question 1: Do you have an active belief there are one or more gods?
Question 2: Do you have an active belief there are no gods?

Position 1: Y, N: Theist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Position 2: N, N: Weak atheist (agnostic) - since this position makes no claims of belief, it cannot claim to "know for sure"!
Position 3: N, Y: Strong atheist (could be agnostic or gnostic)

Everyone is in one of those 3 positions by definition. People who say they are "just agnostic" are almost certainly in position 2. So essentially they are agnostic atheists but prefer to drop the "atheist" part. This may be because of the stigma attached to the word, or it may be because they are using different definitions for words. By the definitions I use here, agnostic is not a middle ground between theism and atheism.

Position 2 is the default position. It is undecided.

http://robvalue.wixsite.com/atheism/what-is-atheism

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(May 9, 2018 at 4:21 am)Quick Wrote:

(May 9, 2018 at 4:16 am)robvalue Wrote: No, you're still muddling it up. Agnosticism isn't a neutral stance. It's frequently mislabeled as such. The neutral stance is (default) atheism. A/gnosticism relates to how certain you are about your beliefs. It's a separate indicator.

If you're neutral (weak atheism), you are automatically agnostic because you don't even have a belief either way; so you can't claim to know what you don't believe.

Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't make this thread to learn about atheism, but so far, that seems to be one of the things I am getting out of this thread.

You're welcome

It's an extremely common mislabeling, so much so that I'm not at all surprised when people come here using it. And there's no problem in having alternate definitions, if people so wish, as long as they make sure all parties are using the same ones. It's when someone is trying to make a point using one definition and implying it has some relevance to another that the problems occur.

The subtle bit is that not believing a statement does not mean you necessarily believe it's false. You can be undecided; but at that point, you still do not believe the statement to be true. This makes the undecided people, regarding the God question, atheists. That is how the word is commonly used on this site.

Now I want to know where robvalue would place me.

Here's what I believe so no one has to dig for it (if they want to tell me where I stand in accordance with religious views/belief in God):

I am unsure of whether there is a God or not. If there is a God, it is all encompassing and explain everything and it is a single God. This God would be in everything and the universe itself may be a God.
I think due to our culture as we know it today, that belief in God is a hot button issue, which causes some people to have extreme beliefs that are often not justified.
I believe that there are very strong psychological components to belief and that everyone believes some things due to bias which is caused by and imperfection in our perception; belief fills the gaps of what we do not know.
I believe the best person to trust on whether I believe in God or not is myself, since I cannot assume that others have my best self interest in mind.

(May 9, 2018 at 4:39 am)Quick Wrote: Now I want to know where robvalue would place me.

Here's what I believe so no one has to dig for it (if they want to tell me where I stand in accordance with religious views/belief in God):

I am unsure of whether there is a God or not. If there is a God, it is all encompassing and explain everything and it is a single God. This God would be in everything and the universe itself may be a God.
I think due to our culture as we know it today, that belief in God is a hot button issue.
I believe that there are very strong psychological components to belief and that everyone believes some things due to bias which is caused by and imperfection in our perception.
I believe the best person to trust on whether I believe in God or not is myself, since I cannot assume that others have my best self interest in mind.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

You're agnostic 5. Many here are agnostic 7. (never sure but confident there are no gods)

(May 9, 2018 at 4:39 am)Quick Wrote: Now I want to know where robvalue would place me.

Here's what I believe so no one has to dig for it (if they want to tell me where I stand in accordance with religious views/belief in God):

I am unsure of whether there is a God or not.

You're an agnostic atheist, by "our" definitions. (I would argue that they are the technically correct ones.)

You could call yourself "just agnostic" if you want, which would then make many atheists on this site also "just agnostic". It would split the atheists into two groups.

Either way round, it doesn't matter as long as everyone understands and agrees.

Quote:If there is a God, it is all encompassing and explain everything and it is a single God. This God would be in everything and the universe itself may be a God.
I think due to our culture as we know it today, that belief in God is a hot button issue.
I believe that there are very strong psychological components to belief and that everyone believes some things due to bias which is caused by and imperfection in our perception.
I believe the best person to trust on whether I believe in God or not is myself, since I cannot assume that others have my best self interest in mind.

This is interesting, but not relevant to whether you're an atheist or not. If you did come to believe God is real, it seems you'd be a monotheist (one God) as opposed to a polytheist (many gods).

Atheism doesn't address religion either; there can be religious atheists. You seem the religious type, is all I could say there.