RE: Arguments against existence of God.
July 11, 2012 at 10:11 pm
(This post was last modified: July 11, 2012 at 10:13 pm by Whateverist.)
(July 11, 2012 at 8:51 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Again this is war of semantics. Commonly, people referred to the position as being agnostic. Now there is a war going on about the usage of atheism and agnosticism.
It's used in both ways, whether you acknowledge it or not. You can't just say a word means what I want it to mean only but it's used in a way ( and has been used for a long time) that opposes your desire of how the word is to be used.
Well it is important that we arrive at a common convention if we are to discuss it at all. Since you do not claim to be an atheist or agnostic, perhaps you should allow us to tell you what they mean to those of us who use them to describe our positions.
Honestly anyone who defines agnosticism in terms of what one doesn't believe is simply way off base. The theist community makes very little distinction between belief and knowledge. (That is sort of the problem.) I assume you are familiar with the formal philosophic sense of "knowledge", otherwise this might be the problem.
If we were on a theist/deist site and insisted on referring to "religious beliefs" as a form of superstitious bullshit, we would probably not be allowed to post, even if that actually is the most common colloquial use most of us encounter (here).
Since you say you don't want to get bogged down in semantics and you are in 'our house', I would ask that you work with the more formal meanings of the words in play .. as we use them here. I'd be willing to discuss ways to convey what you mean with you if that helped.