(December 17, 2009 at 8:41 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Add in gnosticism... knowledge.. I know that I believe in God.. I don't claim to know that God exists.. I cannot.. but that is never my claim. My claim is that I know I believe.That's not gnosticism. Gnosticism isn't about what you believe, it's about what you know. "Knowing that I believe" isn't a statement of gnosticism. "Knowing God exists" is a statement of gnosticism. So I object to your assertion that this is adding in gnosticism. Knowing what you believe is more in the realm of certainty.
Quote:Agnosticism is a category on it's own, defined as "the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable."It's not a confused combination. It's a combination of two words that make a more accurate description. We say "agnostic atheist" in the same way I say "english atheist". All it does is add more information about me.
"Agnostic Atheism" is a confused combination of two words, because both make a statement about deities that are different. You can be both, but you can't link the two.
Both make different statements about deities, but they cover different aspects. One covers the belief in deities (theism/atheism), the other covers knowledge of deities (gnosticism/agnosticism). You can combine the two to add more information about your views.
It's not a way of describing my atheism, but a way of describing my beliefs about god and the way I look at them (i.e. that I do not hold my beliefs as absolute knowledge).
