RE: Am I an Agnostic?
July 3, 2011 at 9:12 pm
(This post was last modified: July 3, 2011 at 9:17 pm by BethK.)
My fist answer would be that you re an atheist.
From the word "theist" comes from Greek "theos" - god + ist (noun form - "one who is/does"). Theists believe in God or gods. One definition for theist is that of a revealed monotheism.
The a- prefix is a negation so an atheist is one who does not believe in a god or gods, or fails to believe in any gods.
If you do not BELIEVE in gods, God, supreme being, supernatural creator, you are an atheist.
The word agnostic is the a- prefix meaning negation on -gnostic, from "gnosis" - "knowledge". With the negating a- prefix, an agnostic is "one who does not know" or "one who lacks knowledge". An infant, or someone who was never taught of the concept of deities, higher powers, supernatural causes, would LACK such knowledge. Another subset of agnostic is one who thinks or believes that the existence or nonexistence of God, supreme beings, higher powers, is by its very nature unknowable. Or, another way to be agnostic is to say "The data is not yet in, so I cannot say for sure one way or another." That is well and good, but that's not a matter of belief. Such a person lacks belief in any deity, so is an atheist. If they say "All the data is not yet in", they are just keeping an open mind if somehow, some sort of irrefutable evidence comes to pass that shows the existence of a god or gods. If such knowledge came into existence somehow, there would be no theists or atheists - there would be the FACT of God, which would be as indisputable as the sun rising in the east or grass being green. Belief would not enter into it.
Or, simply put, agnosticism is about knowledge. Atheism is about belief. They are two separate questions.
Some people say they are "agnostic" when they don't want to tell people of faith that they are unbelievers in their pet invisible man. Or, they are fence-sitters, who don't want to say one way or another. In my book, these fence sitters, who lack belief, are soft atheists.
A deitst, is someone who believes in a supernatural being (god) who created the universe, set things in motion, then left, died, or completely took a "hands off" approach and stopped paying attention. This gets around the "Who created all this?" question that some theists use to show that later things such as evolution could not exist. A deist believes that this creator-god has left the universe on its own, so there is no one to pray to, care for you or anyone or anything else, no afterlife, no salvation. They are in fact, atheists who believe in a divine creator.
Beth
From the word "theist" comes from Greek "theos" - god + ist (noun form - "one who is/does"). Theists believe in God or gods. One definition for theist is that of a revealed monotheism.
The a- prefix is a negation so an atheist is one who does not believe in a god or gods, or fails to believe in any gods.
If you do not BELIEVE in gods, God, supreme being, supernatural creator, you are an atheist.
The word agnostic is the a- prefix meaning negation on -gnostic, from "gnosis" - "knowledge". With the negating a- prefix, an agnostic is "one who does not know" or "one who lacks knowledge". An infant, or someone who was never taught of the concept of deities, higher powers, supernatural causes, would LACK such knowledge. Another subset of agnostic is one who thinks or believes that the existence or nonexistence of God, supreme beings, higher powers, is by its very nature unknowable. Or, another way to be agnostic is to say "The data is not yet in, so I cannot say for sure one way or another." That is well and good, but that's not a matter of belief. Such a person lacks belief in any deity, so is an atheist. If they say "All the data is not yet in", they are just keeping an open mind if somehow, some sort of irrefutable evidence comes to pass that shows the existence of a god or gods. If such knowledge came into existence somehow, there would be no theists or atheists - there would be the FACT of God, which would be as indisputable as the sun rising in the east or grass being green. Belief would not enter into it.
Or, simply put, agnosticism is about knowledge. Atheism is about belief. They are two separate questions.
Some people say they are "agnostic" when they don't want to tell people of faith that they are unbelievers in their pet invisible man. Or, they are fence-sitters, who don't want to say one way or another. In my book, these fence sitters, who lack belief, are soft atheists.
A deitst, is someone who believes in a supernatural being (god) who created the universe, set things in motion, then left, died, or completely took a "hands off" approach and stopped paying attention. This gets around the "Who created all this?" question that some theists use to show that later things such as evolution could not exist. A deist believes that this creator-god has left the universe on its own, so there is no one to pray to, care for you or anyone or anything else, no afterlife, no salvation. They are in fact, atheists who believe in a divine creator.
Beth
