One Agnostic's View of the New Atheists

[Losty]

Let me go ahead and pull a Randy. Perhaps Randy only understands posts that consist of mostly copypasta

Agnostic vs. atheist
An atheist lacks faith in God, believes there is no god, or lacks awareness of gods. An agnostic either believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a god or is noncommittal on the issue. The difference may seem small, but atheism and agnosticism are actually vastly different worldviews. To claim there is no point in trying to prove or disprove God’s existence (as many philosophers have done) is to acknowledge the limits of human perception. To take the bold stance that there definitely is no god (as a few philosophers have done) implies that human perception is not so limited and that we can make such claims about the universe. These positions (as well as the position that God does exist) give rise to fundamentally disparate philosophies.

Atheist is generally confined to this nonbelief-related sense, but agnostic has another definition—namely, one who is doubtful or noncommittal. It also serves as an adjective meaning doubtful or noncommittal. For example, these writers use agnostic in the sense unrelated to belief in God:

"I’m agnostic on whether he should have resigned … [Washington Post]"

"The country has adopted an approach to economic management which is both pragmatic and ideologically agnostic … [Telegraph]"

Atheists and agnostics are often lumped together as one group—namely, those who lack faith in a god—but it’s important to remember that these terms, especially agnostic, cover a broad spectrum of views. And the terms do not necessarily imply irreligion. Some Buddhists, for example, are atheists, and there is a strong tradition of agnostic thought in Hinduism.,

Personally disagree with this dude. But I've already said before a/gnosticism is a descriptor that should be used with atheist, theist or deist.

The argument about what atheist means and what an atheist is goes back to the earliest uses of the word in the Age of Enlightenment.

What is noteworthy is that, from the start as it is today, it has been CHRISTIANS who have held firmly--DOGMATICALLY--to the notion that atheism is a BELIEF in the nonexistence of God. Only in the last several decades has that definition been expanded to include all gods, as Christians have generally gotten to the point of at least recognizing that there ARE other gods throughout the world, although the vast majority of them still take the simple, plebeian standpoint that "MY god is the REAL God!" And thus their insistence that to simply lack a belief in their god is to STAND IN OPPOSITION TO GOD.

Here's a Christian's response to Joe

Joe clearly understands that CAPS LOCK is how one 'shouts' on the Internet, and yet chooses to do so anyway. As with many atheists, he appears to be far more dogmatic and angry than are the Christians he accuses.

He has a harder time with etymology, however-- he doesn't seem to understand how words come to be. After quoting the Etymology Online Dictionary's description of the roots of 'atheist', he then goes on to apparently misunderstand it for his own purposes.

The word first appeared in 16th Century France, according to the etymology, and was coined from the Greek 'theos', meaning god or gods, with the negatory prefix 'a', thus meaning without god. Fine, that makes sense: the early post-Reformation atheists tended to be well educated, and thus familiar with the tradition in science, medicine, and the law of coining new words from Greek.

Joe, however, takes the interesting step of believing that if a word could be coined from the Greek it must be in common usage in Greek, and better yet, must have been in common usage by ancient Greeks! Only thus could he have come up with the idea that the word was used by ancient Greeks in reference to monotheists (if, indeed, they knew of any)-- thus making the wicked Christians THE FIRST "ATHEISTS"!

Um... no, Joe. First, the etymological entry you cite says Greek, not Ancient Greek; curiously enough, there were living, breathing people still speaking Greek in the 16th Century when 'athéiste' was first used in France. For that matter, there are even a whole bunch of them alive and well today (Greece is full of them, as are some neighborhoods in Brooklyn!)-- no one has to go back to the 4th Century BC(E) to find a speaker of Greek.

So, I shall venture a guess as to who the first "atheists" were... they were 17th Century atheists, who chose on philosophical grounds to deny the existence of Christian God-- the only one they knew or cared about.

Joe, if you really want to convince anyone of your point of view, you need to do your homework better, and you really need to stop shouting at us. Read Voltaire-- he was able to argue your side intelligently and philosophically. [I think he was wrong, but still worth the read!]

[Sorry about ignoring the CAPS LOCK key-- I have a sore throat, and don't want to scream.]

This next guy is apparently confused about whether he is agnostic or atheist. Likely he is an agnostic atheist.

“To claim there is no point in trying to prove or disprove God’s existence (as many philosophers have done) is to acknowledge the limits of human perception.”

Not necessarily. Many of the philosophers who hold this position are saying that theists haven’t come up with a coherent enough concept of “god” for the question of the existence of god(s) to be a sensible subject of discussion. In a sense, it is a more radical position than that of atheists.

I would be agnostic (in this radical sense) about many proposed concepts of “god”, and atheist about others. For those where I am an atheist, the claim that god exists is aposteriori – and so I cannot be absolutely sure that it is false - but there is no more reason to accept that it is true than the claim that Russell’s Teapot exists. Where I am an agnostic, I am absolutely sure that the theists are wrong. Where I am an atheist, I am only as sure as I am that there will be a dawn tomorrow.

HBH appears to speak for all agnostics and also thinks atheists are the same but opposite from theists.

Agnostics don't want to waste their time attempting to explain something in which science has no preference. Atheist in the end rely on their own decisions, which are not truly based on science. That makes them not that much different than theists. They are two sides of the same coin.

I don't understand why you have made your post a reply to mine, when you seem to have ignored everything that I said, and just stated your own opinion in the same way that you might have done if yours had been the first comment.

Tom saves the day by saying something that actually makes sense.

An important clarification of these two terms is that they are neither mutually exclusive nor different points on some belief scale. There is belief and there is knowability. Atheism and Theism are about whether or not one has a belief in a god. Agnosticism and Gnosticism are about whether or not one believes knowledge of god is knowable. Therefore, a person is always a combination of these two components. An agnostic atheist is one who, while not believing there is a god also acknowledges that they don't think it is something we can ever know for sure one way or another. One can be an agnostic theist, believing in god but not being sure it is provably knowable. An agnostic is not simply an almost-atheist, which unfortunately is the popularized use of the term.

Of course I might pull a Randy again laters for the rest but for now feel free to discuss my points which I have so clearly made all on my owns

http://grammarist.com/usage/agnostic-ath...qus_thread