(August 31, 2010 at 5:47 pm)Existentialist Wrote: There's an interesting parallel for me in terms of atheism and vegetarianism. For me, atheism means believing there is no God, a stance that the majority of rationalistic atheists insist on correcting me on. Their problem, from my point of view, is that they are agnostics in denial about their agnosticism, not atheists. These arguments get quite heated.I'm not in denial about my agnosticism; I'm just aware that atheism & agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive positions when you look at what they actually mean (as opposed to what you think they mean, or believe they mean).
As for the arguments getting heated; that tends to happen when one side is arguing from nonsensical definitions. There is no shame in agnosticism; in fact, agnosticism makes a better atheist, since one is able to be completely intellectually honest whilst at the same time neatly deflecting every philosophical bullet that is fired at them by the opposition. The same cannot be said of the gnostic atheist (the atheist who says "there is no God").
