Defining "Atheism"

[Ryft]

(Your agnostic friend said) I neither believe in the existence of God nor do I disbelieve the existence of God.

So he rejects theism and strong atheism. All right, but what about weak atheism (non-belief in God's existence)? He missed a rather conspicuous category. If what he believes about reality, knowledge, values, etc., is "without God" or "godless" (Gk. atheos), then his belief system is atheistic, which means he is not neutral about God after all—that is, despite viewing God as an interesting thought experiment, his belief system would affirm that no deity is required.

Another statement he made was even more fascinating. He said the essence of agnosticism amounts to the following principle: "I cannot know, nor will I ever know; therefore, I can never say. I must, logically, remain neutral on the matter." This is fascinating because what he has done is make knowledge a predicate of belief; i.e., he must first know in order to believe. This confronts him with an intractable problem: if knowledge must come before belief, then he can never know anything and, thus, cannot believe anything. This agnostic principle he describes actually strips his empiricist epistemology of all meaning; as the very axioms upon which it must be built cannot be known (by definition, being axiomatic), he therefore cannot believe them. A system that cannot even start is permanently incapable of meaning.