RE: Atheists, what are your thoughts on us Agnostics?
November 29, 2017 at 12:54 pm
(This post was last modified: November 29, 2017 at 1:03 pm by FatAndFaithless.)
(November 29, 2017 at 12:50 pm)ƵenKlassen Wrote:(November 29, 2017 at 12:35 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I am just as confused as ever on the difference between agnostic and atheist.
The difference between an agnostic and atheist is:
An atheist is absolutely sure there is no god.
An agnostic is not sure whether there is a god or not.
I hope this clears things up...
That's just not true at all. I'm an atheist and I don't claim certainty that there is no god. Atheism and agnosticism address two different questions. A/theism addresses the theological belief question (do you believe X is true?), whereas a/gnosticism addresses the epistemological knowledge question (are you CERTAIN X is true/do you think X can be known to be true?).
(November 29, 2017 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I guess people have different definitions. Someone else just told me atheism is lack of belief and lack of disbelief in God. I dont see how that definition in particular is different from agnostic, or even apathetic.
Yeah, this is why it's confusing. It's far easier to just talk about the actual positions instead of the label, but actually having people understand what a label means would be convenient.
Atheism = 'i do not believe a god(s) exist' = lack of a belief in god(s)
Even more muddy, is that there isn't really a term for someone who claims "there is no god". This person would certainly be an atheist, but would be making a further, separate claim instead of just responding to the theist claim, and they would need another term for their separate claim. This is what gets rolled up into the 'atheist' label, which only adds to the confusion.
Atheists do not have a belief in a god. Some may go one step further and claim that gods do NOT exist, but that isn't what atheism is - that's atheism + something else that doesn't really have a good term.
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson