Can Someone be Simply "An Agnostic?"

[MindForgedManacle]

1: That goes completely against the definition of the term, as well as its origin, which is: knowledge. Agnostic = Without knowledge. Gnostic = With knowledge.

Okay, firstly how did I go against the common usage? I specifically said that agnosticism is about the supposed inability to justify either atheism or theism. Justification is usually considered a necessary component of knowledge.

Secondly, that etymology is just sloppy and cannot be outright be used like that. Otherwise we get hilariously false results like this:

"a" - without
float - staying above the ground

therefore, "afloat" should mean one is on the ground.... except it it means to be above the ground. The alpha primitive "a" does not unilaterally mean a negation of the word in front of it; language is rarely so uniform.

2: That still doesn't answer the question, which is: Do "agnostics" believe in the existence of one or more deities or not? You've completely missed the point, apparently. Belief or non-belief. Those are the only two options. Whether you believe your position is justified or not is irrelevant to the question.

No it isn't and I just addressed that. You're 1) conflating the definition of atheism with something that atheists and agnostics share and 2) rebranding atheism as if it were that commonality between agnostics and atheists. This is patently absurd. As I just illustrated, this is like calling the number 0 a negative number simply because it isn't a positive number.


The question isn't "belief vs. lack of belief", it's "belief vs. contrary belief". But there is obviously a middle ground which agnostics take, which is abstention. This is a lack of belief, but you're kidding yourself if you're claiming that's atheism. Perhaps another analogy will help.

Say I'm asked whether the proposition "Life exists elsewhere in the universe than Earth" is true or not. Clearly that proposition can only be true or false. However, given the current lack of evidence supporting that they do in fact exist, I cannot say they do. Likewise, I have no good reason to think the proposition is impossible. The only sensible course is to say "I don't know", becoming the equivalent of an agnostic on this topic. Sure, you can say "Ah, but you lack belief in the existence of ETs, so you're an a-ET-ist!" But that doesn't follow, since I'm clearly not saying Ets don't exist. I cannot assess the proposition's truth value, so I cannot rationally take a side. That is what agnostics typically do on the gods question.