Why Agnostic?

[Tiberius]

This is not about something that is empirically measurable, it is about belief and, as such, we are in a very different ball game ... we are still in a two state scenario i.e. you cannot "not know" whether you believe a given claim or not, you either do or you don't. IOW your given scenario is irrelevant to the question at hand ... I suppose I could (but won't since I don't greatly care) even argue that your use of it constituted a strawman.

Again, you simply are not listening.

Agnosticism is not about "not knowing" whether you believe. It is about actually knowing something rather than just believing it. Do you accept that knowledge and belief are completely different things? i.e. that you can believe something without "knowing" if it is the truth?

My scenario was perfectly valid in explaining the difference between belief and knowledge; it was not a strawman. You simply read it with an honestly bizarre misconception about agnosticism meaning "not knowing what one believes".

Accepting for a moment your point that it is possible to view the existence of deity as unknown and unknowable this still leaves us with a person who is either atheist or theist and give that the claim that a deity is unknown or unknowable (one I don't agree with since I see no reason to accept ANY claim that something has no empirical attributes) proves absolutely [expletive deleted] we are left with it being nothing more than a philosophical dodge i.e. the theist or atheist that would like to believe there remains the possibility of such a being yet cannot support it in any way empirically has no choice but to retreat into the psychobabble of modern day philosophy.

It's not about wanting to believe that there remains a possibility, it's a about being intellectually honest. In my opinion, nobody can say "there is a god" or "there is no god" as a factual statement. The being known as "god" has been defined with supernatural qualities, and thus cannot possibly be known empirically (as you observed).

On that note, you contradict yourself. You say you will not accept any claim that something has no empirical attributes, yet this leaves you in a position of unknown as well. So whilst you argue against my point, you seem to actually agree with it.

Not really! Quite simply this explains why I regard the entire idea of agnosticism as wishy-washy rubbish ... it is also the reason (since you evidently do believe it is a valid POV) why I didn't want to continue arguing this with you, why I thought we were done ... we are on different planes, we don't see things the same way indeed in some ways I feel you are closer to Frodo's POV than mine.

Frodo's point of view is that we all have knowledge of God, which is truly bizarre. I argue the complete opposite. It's a puzzle why we are on different planes though; I suspect it is because you have this confused notion of agnosticism that you just cannot let go, and you have certainly proved in your response that you aren't listening to me when I explain the difference between belief and knowledge. If you didn't want to argue this with me, why are you? I admit you're not actually making any worthy attempt to rebut my points, but perhaps you have a problem with "last word syndrome".

Anyway, whether you respond to my points is up to you, but if you do decide to respond, please respond to what I've said, and not just pick things out of it.

[fr0d0]

Frodo's point of view is that we all have knowledge of God, which is truly bizarre.

What!?

[leo-rcc]

Frodo's point of view is that we all have knowledge of God, which is truly bizarre.

What!?

+1

How did you arrive to that conclusion Adrian?

[Tiberius]

When me and Arcanus revealed our scale, fr0d0 said we were all gnostic atheists and he was a gnostic theist; hence I assumed he meant we all had either knowledge or God or knowledge of god's non-existence.

To be honest I was a bit confused so I didn't look into it further. What is your position then fr0d0? You said we are gnostic atheists, yet this means we have knowledge of god's non-existence or think it can be proven. I think this position is rather silly.

[fr0d0]

What Arcanus proposed was that gnostic didn't mean 'know' but 'conclusively established' - more the 'certainty' that you were getting at for theists I believe Adrian, but more accurate. (Theists claim 'certainty' but you and I know this isn't a position of empirical knowledge. Don't you agree?)

Equally then, this applies to atheists. You, I believe, have conclusively established that there is no god.

You don't know, you can't, in the same way that I can't know. I am a gnostic theist, you are a gnostic atheist.. by this measure.

[Rhizomorph13]

What Arcanus proposed was that gnostic didn't mean 'know' but 'conclusively established' - more the 'certainty' that you were getting at for theists I believe Adrian, but more accurate. (Theists claim 'certainty' but you and I know this isn't a position of empirical knowledge. Don't you agree?)

Equally then, this applies to atheists. You, I believe, have conclusively established that there is no god.

You don't know, you can't, in the same way that I can't know. I am a gnostic theist, you are a gnostic atheist.. by this measure.

So, I did a google search on gnosis and found this:

http://www.gnosticreligion.com/gnosticis...cepts.html

gnosis is defined as "Gnosis is a form of special knowledge. This knowledge is derived from knowing, or having an experience with a god."

This goes right against what you say, "You don't know, you can't, in the same way that I can't know."

Fr0d0,

It seems to me you have the two terms gnostic and agnostic backwards. I will say that both terms are quite unclearly defined when you look them up on the internet.

Rhizo

[Tiberius]

What Arcanus proposed was that gnostic didn't mean 'know' but 'conclusively established' - more the 'certainty' that you were getting at for theists I believe Adrian, but more accurate. (Theists claim 'certainty' but you and I know this isn't a position of empirical knowledge. Don't you agree?)

Equally then, this applies to atheists. You, I believe, have conclusively established that there is no god.

You don't know, you can't, in the same way that I can't know. I am a gnostic theist, you are a gnostic atheist.. by this measure.

Ah yes, now I remember. I stated that I had not conclusively established that there was no god. I don't think that the case for the existence of a God has been established, ergo I don't believe in a God. However it is a fallacy to say that because existence has not been established, the subject does not exist, or even that it is conclusively established that the subject does not exist.

@Rhizomorph13,

fr0d0 does indeed have the terms backwards, and I agree that the terms are unclearly defined. I would recommend reading up on the "gnostic" movement (Wikipedia might be a good start), and then read Thomas Huxley's original essay on Agnosticism.

This website explains Huxley's agnosticism, and the variants of agnostic atheist and agnostic theist: http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm

[Rhizomorph13]

Adrian,

From what I have read it seems there are four terms (atheist, theist, agnostic, gnostic) and two questions:

1. Do you believe there is a god in any form?
A. yes = theist
B. no = atheist

2. Do you make your assertion from personal knowledge?
A. yes = gnostic
B. no = agnostic

I try to reduce things down so I could explain them to a 13 year old.

What am I missing?
Rhizo

[Tiberius]

Your two questions are good for explaining to a 13 year old, but of course the phrasing can be done in many ways.

For instance the site that leo-rcc posted earlier (http://www.atheismtest.com/) phrases the second question "Do you claim to know either way?".

My personal way of phrasing the second question would be "Do you think you could prove either way?".

All questions deal with knowledge, and/or whether that knowledge can be shown. Of course, the question of whether it can be proven does not have to be objective. For instance a person who "saw" God in a vision might say that God proved its own existence to them, and that God can do the same to other people.

Other people only accept empirical proof, and would say that for various reasons, God could not be proved either way.

I've gone a bit beyond that; I hold that nothing can be proved absolutely (think the classic brain in the jar scenario). Every proof is rather subjective in my mind, but hey, that's just me.

Anyway, I've drifted, but yes, your questions are a good way of describing the atheist/theist agnostic/gnostic positions to a 13 year old.

[fr0d0]

Adrian.. so you think Arcanus has them backwards too?

2. Do you know?
A. Yes = gnostic
B. No = agnostic

to a child it's simply a question of acceptance. You get the logic and accept, or you don't.

2. Have you concluded?
A. Yes = gnostic
B. No = agnostic

2. Have you proof?
A. No = gnostic
B. No = agnostic