(December 21, 2015 at 2:10 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(December 21, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Delicate Wrote: Not necessarily a victory. But I think it points out the self-deception atheists engage in.
And intellectually responsible atheists care about not engaging in self-deception.
It's simply a label that best suits us. Agnostic means something, it derives from the root word "gnosis," meaning knowledge, and was coined specifically to denote a person that doesn't claim absolute knowledge of a thing, specifically in religious circles. It doesn't denote one's beliefs in any sense, merely their knowledge claims, demonstrably so. That the word has been corrupted by people misunderstanding it doesn't mean that it can't be fruitfully applied to people to more accurately describe their positions: I am an agnostic atheist, meaning I do not believe in a god (atheist) yet claim no special knowledge on that (agnostic.)
No self-deception, just a proper understanding of both words and their meanings. My label comes from knowledge, not deception.
Well I agree that it suits you.
I just think it suits you in the same way that diplomatic immunity "suits" diplomats who want to commit crimes without prosecution.
So I don't think it's a high-minded suiting. It's a self-interested suiting that doesn't necessarily line up with the interests of honest, substantive rational discourse.
And I'm perfectly aware that people will try and create rationalizations of this suitability, just like the diplomats in New York City rationalize their immunity to suit their preference to park anywhere they want without worrying about parking regulations.
But the bottom line of my position I've laid out in the previous post. The one to which you responded " Do you actually think that quibbling over labels constitutes some real victory over what we as atheists actually believe?"
There, I pointed out that if you're truly an agnostic, the atheist part of your definition is superfluous, and vice versa. This view is better, in my opinion, because it's not based on tactical redefinitions to avoid burden of proof or enhance your debating position, allowing you to take the label of atheist while defending the position of agnosticism.
And I think it lines up better with epistemology, which takes belief and disbelief to be propositional attitudes.
