RE: I Find It Offensive; How About You
June 25, 2011 at 11:00 am
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2011 at 4:31 am by Darth.)
To make this easy: Agnosticism and gnosticism talk about knowledge, atheism and theism talk about belief. They talk about different things, and are the answers to different questions. Do you believe in a god? yes or no (theism vs atheism). Do you think that it is possible to know? Yes or no(Gnosticism vs agnosticism). Agnosticism is NOT a middle ground between theism and atheism. People who define themselves as purely agnostic are making a category error. They don't believe? Then they are an atheist, it doesn't matter if they don't believe BECAUSE they can't know, their lack of belief makes them an atheist (As an atheist is, by definition a person who lacks belief in a god or gods, OR believes that no god or gods exist)
Gnostic theist: Believes in a god/s, and thinks that it is possible to know
Agnostic theist: Believes in a god/s, but thinks that it is not possible to know, its a faith/belief thing
Agnostic atheist: Doesn't believe, but thinks that it is not possible to know
Gnostic atheist: Doesn't believe, and thinks that it is possible to know
I'm an agnostic atheist in respect to the deistic god concepts, but a gnostic atheist in regards to the Yahweh the Malevolent. It is of course much more complex than I've made it out to be above, each is actually a spectrum, but that will do for now.
The freethinkers explain (and with more examination of the nuances and spectrums): http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/ (Though of course feel free to google any of those 4 terms for yourself, you mightn't feel we are the most unbiased sources, having said that, this is how many of us classify ourselves)
I think you'll find most atheists classify themselves as agnostic atheists (Though it of course depends on which god concept you are referring to).
(Gnostic does have another meaning, it is/was another form of christianity and other faiths. But we're talking about gnostic as the antonym to agnostic)
Gnostic theist: Believes in a god/s, and thinks that it is possible to know
Agnostic theist: Believes in a god/s, but thinks that it is not possible to know, its a faith/belief thing
Agnostic atheist: Doesn't believe, but thinks that it is not possible to know
Gnostic atheist: Doesn't believe, and thinks that it is possible to know
I'm an agnostic atheist in respect to the deistic god concepts, but a gnostic atheist in regards to the Yahweh the Malevolent. It is of course much more complex than I've made it out to be above, each is actually a spectrum, but that will do for now.
The freethinkers explain (and with more examination of the nuances and spectrums): http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/ (Though of course feel free to google any of those 4 terms for yourself, you mightn't feel we are the most unbiased sources, having said that, this is how many of us classify ourselves)
I think you'll find most atheists classify themselves as agnostic atheists (Though it of course depends on which god concept you are referring to).
(Gnostic does have another meaning, it is/was another form of christianity and other faiths. But we're talking about gnostic as the antonym to agnostic)
