RE: Atheists, what are your thoughts on us Agnostics?
June 25, 2017 at 3:38 pm
(This post was last modified: June 25, 2017 at 3:53 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
This is one of those things, where the history of how we came to be in this position (quibbling over whether we are agnostics or atheists or agnostic atheists or gnostic atheists) is a deep and informative one (it's essentially the history of apologism, western culture, and western philosophy)...I get dissuaded from really diving in, -sometimes I think that people rail against the idea that...even in their non-belief...the way that the discussion has been framed - at a fundamental level- has been to disadvantage and discourage atheism insomuch as would be possible.
The standards of knowledge, for example, have been tilted. The faithful need merely to refer to the articles of their faith in order to consider the contents of their beliefs knowledge...but an atheist has to scour the universe and not-not know something? Well, I'm sure that was convenient for the shamans who were actively dicking with early atheist thinkers....but other than that, it makes little sense.
Between atheists, who wants to be the guy claiming that they know everything, claiming that they know - for example, what is or isn't on the other side of the universe? Not that any gnostic has to claim that, but the religious have been insisting that they do for so long that even atheists feel as though..if they didn't know what was on the other side of the universe, they couldn't claim knowledge. They couldn't say there were no gods there. Couldn't be gnostic atheists.
The standards of knowledge, for example, have been tilted. The faithful need merely to refer to the articles of their faith in order to consider the contents of their beliefs knowledge...but an atheist has to scour the universe and not-not know something? Well, I'm sure that was convenient for the shamans who were actively dicking with early atheist thinkers....but other than that, it makes little sense.
Between atheists, who wants to be the guy claiming that they know everything, claiming that they know - for example, what is or isn't on the other side of the universe? Not that any gnostic has to claim that, but the religious have been insisting that they do for so long that even atheists feel as though..if they didn't know what was on the other side of the universe, they couldn't claim knowledge. They couldn't say there were no gods there. Couldn't be gnostic atheists.
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