Atheist vs. agnostic vs. agnostic atheist

[bennyboy]

Yes, this has been done many times. Many here would say "done to death". I never mind addressing it, no matter how many times it comes up.

I'm a huge Tyson fan (I just heard he's going to do a new version of 'Cosmos'!), but he is wrong here.

I appreciate his worry concerning the baggage that is attached to the atheist label, but the way to eliminate it is to address it, not ignore it.

By calling himself an agnostic, all he is addressing is his position concerning what is unknown and/or unknowable. He is not addressing his beliefs.

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true. Either one accepts a proposition or premise as true, or they don't. If someone does not hold the premise that a god exists as true, they are an atheist by definition.

Do you really think that Neil deGrasse Tyson holds the premise that a god exists as true?

Since you indicate your religious views as 'agnostic', I will ask you the same question. Do you hold the premise or proposition that a god exists as true?

I don't know. I don't think people are binary switches, where you say "Look, either you believe it or you don't." There's a third option: still processing. There's also a fourth option: simultaneously holding both positions.

Before you call me crazy, I'd point to the fact that people's brains work in parallel, and decisions are really the output of millions of parallel processes, not all of which need be aligned with each other. I'd also point out that "God" is a highly ambiguous term. If you mean is there an entity so much more intelligent than humans that we couldn't comprehend it, then I'd venture a guess: probably, somewhere, there is. If you mean "Sky Daddy who gets mad when teenagers masturbate," I'd say no, almost certainly not.

I don't accept "lack of an idea" as a substitute for "still processing." If you run an equation through a computer, I don't think it makes sense to take a position on what the outcome will be. You have to wait for it either to give an actual answer or tell you, "Cannot compute-- please refine request."