Why Agnostic?

[Tiberius]

You asked the question, and then answered it. That's handy. If you think that the existence of God literally cannot be proven because "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism," therein lies the measure of doubt; i.e., you actually are not 100% certain that your God-belief squares with reality. But certainty in this respect, you countered, "has nothing to do with whether the concept is true or not." Ah, but it does if (a) true means that which corresponds to reality, and yet (b) for all you know "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism."

That is not a measure of doubt, it is an understanding of reality. Like I have said previously, my take on certainty is that it is relative, not absolute. Certainty is an attitude about knowledge, whilst knowledge is...well... knowledge. Just because you can never really know anything, does not mean that you cannot believe that your answer is the correct one. Anyway, we'll leave certainty out of the equation for now. Onwards...

I argue that there is no middle ground. A person is either atheistic or theistic, because there is no third option; a person either views the world as though God exists (theistic) or views the world as though God does not exist (atheistic). And a Deist will not help your argument because they do believe a God exists (theistic). Such a God does not matter in the day-to-day world and is not invested in our human experience, true, but a Deist does view the world as though God exists, falling under Agnostic (Weak) Theist.

Tsuyoiko brought up the point that there is a middle ground in inconsistency. A person who views the world through both veils, trying to decide which one they think is more accurate. (or not trying at all if they are apatheists). Here is where the scale I think needs to be more complex, since most deists would argue that deism is separate from theism, and so they would both reject all "theist" and "atheist" labels.

A potential solution to this which combines both our views is to have two separate labels covering apatheism, Apatheism, and Atheistic Apatheism, however I think it would be much easier for people to place themselves in a single category rather than have to choose one or the other (or indeed both). I think a lot of people (especially some of my friends) would choose a position inbetween, that they are completely unsure about the existence of gods, but say there are good arguments from either side. Or, that they simply do not care what the answer is.

Just to back up my point about apatheism not being atheistic, here is what Wikipedia says on the subject (as quoted from Reference.com's article on Apatheists):

Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and atheism.

The reason why the apathetic fall under "de facto atheists" is because they view the world as though God does not exist. How the world got here, morality and values, how they know and so forth, none of these sort of questions are ever referenced to a God. They go through life as though no God exists. On the other hand, someone who is theistic, who does view the world as though God exists, has by the very nature of the case given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic.

Apatheists do not view the world as if god does not exist though. That would be a complete waste of a label. "view the world" is an active stance, and apatheists would not say something like that. This is actually another reason I don't like the "view the world" thing. I don't view the world as if there is no god, I don't view the world in any particular way at all. I simply do not believe in gods. Your scale currently would not go down well with a large number of atheists who say that atheism is not a worldview, and that all it says is that they do not believe in god. "go through life" is yet another highly ambiguous term. I haven't gone through life as though no god exists (for half of my life I did believe there was a god). Belief and non-belief is something people can easily relate to. You either believe that god(s) exist or you don't. It's not ambiguous either.

Since any theistic conclusion by nature carries the implication of having "given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic."

If you are to argue this, then why doesn't atheism also carry the implication of having given the issue some thought?

I used the terms parenthetically to describe how gnostic and agnostic are being used. "Agnostic" could conceivably stand alone, though even that is debatable, but I feel it necessary to distinguish "Gnostic" from the sense of pertaining to Gnosticism, a very different thing.

I think the terms "strong" and "weak" might actually have a bad influence on people's decisions. Nobody likes to be called "weak", and so perhaps more people might label themselves as "strong" in order to feel like they are "stronger" in faith. As for distinguishing, doesn't that already happen in the label description? Or could it not be added to the overall explanation of the scale?

Bah. Fuck political correctness. I use the masculine pronoun not because God has a gender but because (i) pronouns eschew tedious repetition of the word God, (ii) the English language has a very long history, until a few decades ago, of the masculine pronoun also serving as a neutral or generic pronoun, (iii) the impersonal pronoun "it" excludes a number of theisms with personal Gods, and (iv) it uselessly confuses the shit out of things to say "he/she/it/they." (For that matter, so does using "god(s)" because then you have to parenthetically pluralize other parts of affected sentences. Bunch of useless obfuscating bullshit. But that's my opinion, humble as it is.)

None of that matters. The point is we are trying to create a scale that everyone can use. Having pronouns where there technically should not be pronouns is not following along with that aim. Likewise, god(s) should remain or we should make it known that when we use the word "gods" we are talking about one or more.

Also, my scale did not use the philosophical term "worldview." The propositions described how people "view the world" in which they live, a phrase chosen because it describes even those who do not actively think about the issue (e.g., only when the subject comes up). And I think the phrase "believe in" can implicitly connote a level of investment or commitment that a person may not necessarily have. For example, it's not entirely accurate to say that Deists "believe in" the existence of God. They believe that he exists but do not really believe in his existence. These are just some of the reasons why I chose to describe how they "view the world."

I've already talked about the "worldview" / "view the world" and how it is not an accurate representation of what we are talking about here. I agree that "believes in" is different from "believes that", so maybe we should use the latter.

And maybe I should replace the word "argue" with the word "hold": e.g., "and hold that his non-existence ..."

Agreed.

So...

Notes
- The word "gods" in the following scale refers to both singular (god) and plural (gods), as well as any personal variant (God).
- The word "gnostic" does not refer to the Christian movement, but to the position that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.
- The word "agnostic" does not refer to the modern interpretation of "unsure" but as the original position (T. Huxley) that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

1. Gnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

3. Apatheists:
Those who hold no opinion on the existence of gods, and/or think that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit. Although an apatheist can hold a belief or disbelief in gods, they do not think that believing or disbelieving has any ultimate consequence.

4. Agnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

5. Gnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods can be conclusively established.

Now I think this scale is both unambiguous and would fit 99.9% of the population. It removes any notion of strong/weak in case they affect the results, and it gives deists a place on the scale that I think most would feel more comfortable with, and it has a midpoint which combines the 3 positions an apatheist can take into one.

I guess an alternative scale could separate out those 3 positions, giving "Deistic Apatheism", "Neutral Apatheism" and "Atheistic Apatheism". So:

1. Gnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

3. Deistic Apatheists:
Those who believe that gods exist, but hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

4. Neutral Apatheists:
Those who hold no opinion on the existence of gods, and/or hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

5. Atheistic Apatheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

6. Agnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

7. Gnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods can be conclusively established.

I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone who couldn't fit on this scale, but let's try anyway