Re: RE: apparently atheist agnostic is contradictory
May 1, 2013 at 7:51 pm
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2013 at 7:55 pm by frz.)
(May 1, 2013 at 6:25 pm)Ryantology Wrote: I really don't like the introduction of agnostic/gnostic in this. Nobody who claims gnosticism on either side is telling the truth.
I was just thinking today about that. That there are about just two categories really that sound true, agnostic atheist and agnostic theist. While atheists don't believe in god/s, and theists do, no one can say they know there is a god. So that makes us all agnostics really, atheists and theists alike. Yay!
(May 1, 2013 at 7:08 pm)apophenia Wrote:
The use of the term 'agnostic' was popularized by Thomas Henry Huxley in the latter half of the nineteenth century. When it was originally popularized by Huxley, it typically did refer to theists who were agnostic because of their beliefs about the knowability of the specifics of God, rather than that they doubted His existence. Thus, there is historical precedent for suggesting that being an agnostic and an atheist are contradictory terms. However, words, like anything else, change over time, and its current usage appears neutral toward belief or non-belief. Regarding your family and others brow beating you over it, simply point out to them that it is an example of the to insist that the original usage and the etymology of a word dictate usage beyond that era, and that its current usage by both theists and atheists is the only fact that is relevant; any other argument is simply 'invalid'.
How you always find the right and comforting words for almost everything is really something.
