(May 11, 2013 at 8:26 pm)CleanShavenJesus Wrote: Many of us (including myself) use the terms "agnostic" as "gnostic" almost like adjectives. I call myself an agnostic atheist. But is that really how those words are used? "Gnostic" isn't even a word in that sense, it just means someone who follows the religion of Gnosticism.
Another question: most theists are gnostic, and that's a different road. But how can atheists be gnostic? I know a gnostic atheist recently joined, maybe he could respond in this thread. Nobody can know with 100% certainty that there is no God, but that's exactly what being gnostic (in our definition of the word) means.
The Gnostics were some early also-ran versions of Christianity that lost out to the Byzantine version. Generally they held there was secret knowledge to be told only to advanced Christians. The Byzantine cult held that everyone was told everything.
The two terms do have opposite meanings but they are not opposites in the sense of black and white, true or false. The word comes from the Greek for knowledge thus secret knowledge. Agnostic simply means do not know if.
