Why Agnostic?

[Tiberius]

Well if you had read the article you would see how I explained the system. "100% certain" wasn't confusing in the context of the article, as I explained what I meant by it, same with unprovable.

[Ryft]

Attn: Tiberius:

First, I was wondering if you would explain something about your scale. I am confused over '2', which is supposed to characterize someone who {A} believes that God exists {B} despite the fact that God's existence is unproven or even unprovable; yet somehow they are {C} 100% certain about his existence. If C, then A. Pretty straight forward. But given that B, then how is it that C? If one holds that his existence is unprovable, never mind unproven, then what leads to 100% certainty that he exists? Wouldn't that which leads to the strength of C consequently alter the condition of B?

Second, if a theist is someone who views the world as though God exists, and an atheist is someone who views the world as though God doesn't exist, what other category of people are there? Even those who are apathetic or find the question tedious nevertheless, in their own life, view the world as though God doesn't exist (atheist). Can you change my mind, by describing a view of the world that is neither theistic nor atheistic?

Attn: forum members:

About three years ago I developed my own scale. Critical evaluations are welcomed.

1. Gnostic (Strong) Theists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that his existence (b) can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic (Weak) Theists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that his existence (b) cannot be conclusively established.

3. Agnostic (Weak) Atheists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God does not exist, and argue that his non-existence (b) cannot be conclusively established.

4. Gnostic (Strong) Atheists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God does not exist, and argue that his non-existence (b) can be conclusively established.

* NOTE: "Conclusively" here is meant in a logical sense, not an absolute sense. Something is proven conclusively in the logical sense when the argument is formally valid and coherent, with premises that are more probable than their denials. "Certainty" was too equivocal a term to bother with, and impossible to subdivide in a non-arbitrary way (e.g., what substantive difference is there between one who is 98% and another who is 100% certain).

[Tiberius]

First, I was wondering if you would explain something about your scale. I am confused over '2', which is supposed to characterize someone who {A} believes that God exists {B} despite the fact that God's existence is unproven or even unprovable; yet somehow they are {C} 100% certain about his existence. If C, then A. Pretty straight forward. But given that B, then how is it that C? If one holds that his existence is unprovable, never mind unproven, then what leads to 100% certainty that he exists? Wouldn't that which leads to the strength of C consequently alter the condition of B?

As I explained in my article attached to the scale, and in further posts here, the certainty is a measure of how well you think your personal beliefs represent reality. One can believe in god and accept agnosticism (in fact I found most theists I talk to are of this variety) because they accept that God can never really be proven given its nature. You cannot test any of the qualities of godhood (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc) with being omniscient yourself. Since we are not omniscient, we cannot prove God. This doesn't stop people from believing in God though, since personal beliefs depend on your own criteria of trustworthiness.

With certainty, I am discussing not the certainty of probability (i.e. a coin is 1/2 certain to land on tails), but that of which a person measures their trust they put in their own beliefs. A person can believe in God, yet still have doubts for example. They may have questions about certain actions in the world that cause them to be unsure about their faith, but they still believe in God. Likewise, someone may have no doubts about their faith, or the existence of God, yet still understand that the principles of agnosticism hold, that nothing can really be proven.

Second, if a theist is someone who views the world as though God exists, and an atheist is someone who views the world as though God doesn't exist, what other category of people are there? Even those who are apathetic or find the question tedious nevertheless, in their own life, view the world as though God doesn't exist (atheist). Can you change my mind, by describing a view of the world that is neither theistic nor atheistic?

An apathetic world is by default atheistic, but the people who live in it may simply be people who have never considered the question, or who don't even find it relevant. They are, I guess what Dawkins would refer to as "de-facto atheists".

The whole reason I made the scale was to (a) address problems with Dawkins scale, and (b) to accurately represent a scale which people could define themselves on. I do not think the scale is as simple as you make out in your 4 number example. What about the people who think that God's existence has been absolutely established? I had some people respond to my original scale who said they 1's, and likewise some people who said they were 7's. The word "gnostic" means one with knowledge of spiritual matters (or one who knows God), which doesn't come across as a logical proof as you put forward.

Anyway, I would like to solve this scale once and for all. I do agree that perhaps the certainty aspect could be re-worked, but I think it is important. Perhaps it could be divided much like that of belief, in a 50/50 way. Using phrases "more certain than not" perhaps. It would be good to have a theistic mindset working on this though.

[Ryft]

A person can believe in God yet still have doubts, for example.

I completely agree. But therein lies the precise problem:

• "Believes in God, holds God as unprovable (or unproven) but is still 100% certain about its existence."
  

If you believe that the existence of God is unprovable, never mind unproven, then how can it be said that you are 100% certain that God exists (where "certainty is a measure of how well you think your personal beliefs represent reality")? In other words, if you consider the existence of God to be unprovable, how are you 100% certain about it? It seems to follow that if you believe God exists but have a measure of doubt for whatever reason, then you actually are not "100% certain" that your God-belief squares with reality. Ergo, '2' on your scale suffers an internal problem.

A problem that is likely created by the "certainty" use. Perhaps it would prove more useful to replace that term with something that doesn't cause such logical problems. The reason I chose "conclusively established" in my scale is because it includes varying types of argument (from evidentialist to presuppositionalist) and degrees of certainty (from fairly certain to "absolutely" certain, as your post had inquired about).

My scale is indeed too simplistic, but only by one category: it does not account for the apathetic the way yours did. And there surely are those who are apathetic, like my brother who is an atheist but never gives the issue any thought. So I would modify my scale by inserting that one remaining category

1. Gnostic (Strong) Theists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that his existence (b) can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic (Weak) Theists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that his existence (b) cannot be conclusively established.

3. Agnostic (Apathetic) Atheists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God does not exist, and think such issues (b) are not a worthwhile pursuit.

4. Agnostic (Weak) Atheists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God does not exist, and argue that his non-existence (b) cannot be conclusively established.

5. Gnostic (Strong) Atheists:
Those who view the world (a) as though God does not exist, and argue that his non-existence (b) can be conclusively established.

So, who is left unaccounted for in such a scale?

The word "gnostic" means one with knowledge of spiritual matters (or one who knows God), which doesn't come across as a logical proof as you put forward.

Such issues are necessarily by logical proof, since transcendental arguments (which is how I interpretted "spiritual matters") by definition do not involve propositions that are empirical in nature.

[Tiberius]

It seems to follow that if you believe God exists but have a measure of doubt for whatever reason, then you actually are not "100% certain" that your God-belief squares with reality. Ergo, '2' on your scale suffers an internal problem.

How is saying God is unprovable a "measure of doubt"? It's not. It is an admission that given the limits of human knowledge, you cannot know anything absolutely, because everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism (the proposition that everything sprung into existence last Thursday, and that our memories are simply false). You can still be certain, since certainty (in this area) has nothing to do with whether the concept is true or not, just how much you think it is. Ergo, you can be certain about something and still be wrong.

So, who is left unaccounted for in such a scale?

Thinking about it, I take back my statement about an apatheistic world being atheist; it's not. An apatheist can be a believer in god or a disbeliever, they just don't think it really matters. Deists are good examples of apatheists; even though they believe in a God, they don't think it really matters, since their kind of God holds no doctrine or any kind of judgement on humanity. So I would change your 3 to just "Apatheist", a person who does not think the question of whether gods exist or not is relevant at all. There is also no need to use words like "weak, strong" because the agnostic/gnostic part already covers that.

So the full scale, removing the pronouns since god(s) may not have genders, and changing the "wolrdview" to belief since it is easier for people to understand, is:

1. Gnostic Theists:
Those who believe in the existence of god(s), and argue that this existence can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic Theists:
Those who believe in the existence of god(s), and argue that this existence cannot be conclusively established.

3. Apatheists:
Those who do not think the question of the existence of god(s) is relevant. They may ultimately believe or disbelieve in the existence of god(s), but they do not think it matters either way.

4. Agnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe in the existence of god(s), and argue that this non-existence cannot be conclusively established.

5. Gnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe in the existence of god(s), and argue that this non-existence can be conclusively established.

I think that covers everyone, and it isn't overly complicated by the need to explain words used (strong/weak, or what constitutes a "worldview").

[fr0d0]

I like the certainty angle.. it makes perfect sense to me. 'Certainty' is used in religious terminology to mean exactly what Adrian is saying. Christians are 'certain' but always require faith (they cannot know). The categorisation from my viewpoint is correct.

On the other hand, this:
"Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that his existence (b) can be conclusively established."

...doesn't make sense to me. By 'conclusively established' you I assume mean rationalise without conclusive proof? Again the exact meaning is elusive IMO.

I agree with Adrian again that 4 choices are too few.

[Ryft]

How is saying that God is unprovable a "measure of doubt"? It's not. It is an admission that given the limits of human knowledge you cannot know anything absolutely, because everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism

You asked the question, and then answered it. That's handy. If you think that the existence of God literally cannot be proven because "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism," therein lies the measure of doubt; i.e., you actually are not 100% certain that your God-belief squares with reality. But certainty in this respect, you countered, "has nothing to do with whether the concept is true or not." Ah, but it does if (a) true means that which corresponds to reality, and yet (b) for all you know "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism."

Thinking about it, I take back my statement about an apatheistic world being atheistic. It's not.

I argue that there is no middle ground. A person is either atheistic or theistic, because there is no third option; a person either views the world as though God exists (theistic) or views the world as though God does not exist (atheistic). And a Deist will not help your argument because they do believe a God exists (theistic). Such a God does not matter in the day-to-day world and is not invested in our human experience, true, but a Deist does view the world as though God exists, falling under Agnostic (Weak) Theist.

The reason why the apathetic fall under "de facto atheists" is because they view the world as though God does not exist. How the world got here, morality and values, how they know and so forth, none of these sort of questions are ever referenced to a God. They go through life as though no God exists. On the other hand, someone who is theistic, who does view the world as though God exists, has by the very nature of the case given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic.

So I would change your 3 to just "Apatheist" ...

I agree, in the sense that the "agnostic" part would seem to imply that they have given the issue some measure of thought (i.e., enough to conclude, to some degree or another, that we have either insufficient or no epistemic access). So it should read simply Apathetic Atheist. But I still reject the "apatheist" term because the apathetic are de facto atheists, since any theistic conclusion by nature carries the implication of having "given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic."

There is also no need to use words like "weak, strong" because the agnostic/gnostic part already covers that.

I used the terms parenthetically to describe how gnostic and agnostic are being used. "Agnostic" could conceivably stand alone, though even that is debatable, but I feel it necessary to distinguish "Gnostic" from the sense of pertaining to Gnosticism, a very different thing.

... removing the pronouns, since god(s) may not have genders; and changing the "worldview" to belief, since it is easier for people to understand

Bah. Fuck political correctness. I use the masculine pronoun not because God has a gender but because (i) pronouns eschew tedious repetition of the word God, (ii) the English language has a very long history, until a few decades ago, of the masculine pronoun also serving as a neutral or generic pronoun, (iii) the impersonal pronoun "it" excludes a number of theisms with personal Gods, and (iv) it uselessly confuses the shit out of things to say "he/she/it/they." (For that matter, so does using "god(s)" because then you have to parenthetically pluralize other parts of affected sentences. Bunch of useless obfuscating bullshit. But that's my opinion, humble as it is.)

However, since the statements being used are so brief, perhaps "God" can be used in both clauses; e.g., "Those who view the world (a) as though God exists, and argue that God's existence (b) cannot be conclusively established."

Also, my scale did not use the philosophical term "worldview." The propositions described how people "view the world" in which they live, a phrase chosen because it describes even those who do not actively think about the issue (e.g., only when the subject comes up). And I think the phrase "believe in" can implicitly connote a level of investment or commitment that a person may not necessarily have. For example, it's not entirely accurate to say that Deists "believe in" the existence of God. They believe that he exists but do not really believe in his existence. These are just some of the reasons why I chose to describe how they "view the world."

And maybe I should replace the word "argue" with the word "hold": e.g., "and hold that his non-existence ..."

So...

1. Gnostic (Strong) Theists:
Those who view the world as though God exists, and hold that God's existence can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic (Weak) Theists:
Those who view the world as though God exists, and hold that his existence cannot be conclusively established.

3. Apathetic Atheists:
Those who view the world as though God does not exist, and think such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

4. Agnostic (Weak) Atheists:
Those who view the world as though God does not exist, and hold that his non-existence cannot be conclusively established.

5. Gnostic (Strong) Atheists:
Those who view the world as though God does not exist, and hold that his non-existence can be conclusively established.

Most theists I think fall under 2 (including Deists and Pantheists, etc.), and most atheists I think fall under 4.

By "conclusively established" I assume you mean rationalize without conclusive proof? Again the exact meaning is elusive IMO.

I chose the word "conclusively" to suggest arguing toward a conclusion that withstands critical analysis, in order to disqualify ipse dixit pronouncements and airy-fairy arguments that don't really have any clout (e.g., personal testimony or experiences that don't escape the biographical). And I didn't like the word "proven" because that only characterizes evidentialist arguments, ignoring presuppositionalist arguments which don't have God's existence in the conclusion. But the word "established" captures both types.

[Tsuyoiko]

Well done, you just made an atheist's version of the Ontalogical argument, and the original sucked as badly as this one does. You cannot simply define God into existence (or non-existence as you do).

On reflection, although my argument sucked, it's not a version of the Ontological argument. It looked as though I was attempting to "define god into non-existence", but I was actually making a pathetic attempt at proof by contradiction or reductio ad absurdum.

By "incoherent" I mean "having incompatible or contradictory properties". I should have made that clear in my OP. If we can show that a particular god concept is held to have certain properties, and we can show that these properties are incompatible or contradictory, then haven't we shown (proved by contradiction) that that particular god doesn't exist?

I take Eilonnwy's point that in order to prove the non-existence of all possible gods in this way we would need absolute knowedge; we would need to define and examine every possible god-concept. But on a case-by-case basis, I think it's possible to disprove the existence of particular gods in this way.

Pondering on Tiberius's "6" last night, the use of the word "certainty" started to trouble me, so it's good to see that so many of you have similar objections.

6. Strong Agnostic Atheist – Disbelieves in God, holds God as unprovable (and unproven), but is 100% certain about its non-existence.

I could think of two ways in which you might be using the term "100% certain":

1) 100% certain as in 99.999...% certain. It is mathematically defensible to use 100% in this way, but misleading, since we would need to declare the level of approximation that is acceptable.

2) 100% certain in an absolute sense of the non-existence of something accepted as unprovable: this just equates to faith in the sense of "belief that is not based on proof".

I suspected you might have some other definition in mind, which turned out to be the case:

As for certainty, I am talking about relative certainty, not absolute. I'm near enough 100% certain about most things I do (for instance I'm 100% certain I will not get shot by a sniper when I open my door tomorrow), and that includes my disbelief in God. The key thing to remember about certainty is that it is not knowledge. You can be 100% certain about something and still be wrong. Certainty is an attitude.

As others have said, relative certainty isn't certainty at all; it seems to me to be a kind of faith, in the sense of "trust in the reliability of my conclusions".

I don't like the subjectivity of it; as you say, it's an attitude. You are making a statement about yourself, not about reality. Of course, just to say "I'm an atheist" is to make a statement about oneself, but my aim in declaring myself an atheist is to strip away as much subjectivity as possible. I can't do that if I define my atheism in terms of any attitude I may hold, so for that reason I reject your concept of "relative certainty".

First, I was wondering if you would explain something about your scale. I am confused over '2', which is supposed to characterize someone who {A} believes that God exists {B} despite the fact that God's existence is unproven or even unprovable;

I don't see a problem with this definition on the deist side; isn't that what faith is, i.e., certainty that is not based on proof?

I argue that there is no middle ground. A person is either atheistic or theistic, because there is no third option; a person either views the world as though God exists (theistic) or views the world as though God does not exist (atheistic).

I think there is a middle ground in inconsistency. Couldn't someone who's unsure whether or not god exists be inconsistent in their outlook and behaviour? Couldn't they sometimes act like god exists and sometimes act like god doesn't exist?

(iii) the impersonal pronoun "it" excludes a number of theisms with personal Gods,

I think your use of the pronoun "he" excludes some deisms with an impersonal god. I can't rate myself under a definition of atheism that refers to the concept of god with a personal pronoun.

In conclusion, I agree that Richard Dawkins' scale is somewhat ill-defined, but it's easy for me to rate myself there as a 6.

I would characterise my position in this way: the balance of evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the non-existence of god.

[fr0d0]

By "conclusively established" I assume you mean rationalize without conclusive proof? Again the exact meaning is elusive IMO.

I chose the word "conclusively" to suggest arguing toward a conclusion that withstands critical analysis, in order to disqualify ipse dixit pronouncements and airy-fairy arguments that don't really have any clout (e.g., personal testimony or experiences that don't escape the biographical). And I didn't like the word "proven" because that only characterizes evidentialist arguments, ignoring presuppositionalist arguments which don't have God's existence in the conclusion. But the word "established" captures both types.

To the lay person I think that would mean someone who has established conclusively that God exists. I think that sounds a bit final and over stepping the mark. Is that a correct reading?

[Tiberius]

You asked the question, and then answered it. That's handy. If you think that the existence of God literally cannot be proven because "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism," therein lies the measure of doubt; i.e., you actually are not 100% certain that your God-belief squares with reality. But certainty in this respect, you countered, "has nothing to do with whether the concept is true or not." Ah, but it does if (a) true means that which corresponds to reality, and yet (b) for all you know "everything could just be a result of Last Thursdayism."

That is not a measure of doubt, it is an understanding of reality. Like I have said previously, my take on certainty is that it is relative, not absolute. Certainty is an attitude about knowledge, whilst knowledge is...well... knowledge. Just because you can never really know anything, does not mean that you cannot believe that your answer is the correct one. Anyway, we'll leave certainty out of the equation for now. Onwards...

I argue that there is no middle ground. A person is either atheistic or theistic, because there is no third option; a person either views the world as though God exists (theistic) or views the world as though God does not exist (atheistic). And a Deist will not help your argument because they do believe a God exists (theistic). Such a God does not matter in the day-to-day world and is not invested in our human experience, true, but a Deist does view the world as though God exists, falling under Agnostic (Weak) Theist.

Tsuyoiko brought up the point that there is a middle ground in inconsistency. A person who views the world through both veils, trying to decide which one they think is more accurate. (or not trying at all if they are apatheists). Here is where the scale I think needs to be more complex, since most deists would argue that deism is separate from theism, and so they would both reject all "theist" and "atheist" labels.

A potential solution to this which combines both our views is to have two separate labels covering apatheism, Apatheism, and Atheistic Apatheism, however I think it would be much easier for people to place themselves in a single category rather than have to choose one or the other (or indeed both). I think a lot of people (especially some of my friends) would choose a position inbetween, that they are completely unsure about the existence of gods, but say there are good arguments from either side. Or, that they simply do not care what the answer is.

Just to back up my point about apatheism not being atheistic, here is what Wikipedia says on the subject (as quoted from Reference.com's article on Apatheists):

Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and atheism.

The reason why the apathetic fall under "de facto atheists" is because they view the world as though God does not exist. How the world got here, morality and values, how they know and so forth, none of these sort of questions are ever referenced to a God. They go through life as though no God exists. On the other hand, someone who is theistic, who does view the world as though God exists, has by the very nature of the case given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic.

Apatheists do not view the world as if god does not exist though. That would be a complete waste of a label. "view the world" is an active stance, and apatheists would not say something like that. This is actually another reason I don't like the "view the world" thing. I don't view the world as if there is no god, I don't view the world in any particular way at all. I simply do not believe in gods. Your scale currently would not go down well with a large number of atheists who say that atheism is not a worldview, and that all it says is that they do not believe in god. "go through life" is yet another highly ambiguous term. I haven't gone through life as though no god exists (for half of my life I did believe there was a god). Belief and non-belief is something people can easily relate to. You either believe that god(s) exist or you don't. It's not ambiguous either.

Since any theistic conclusion by nature carries the implication of having "given the issue some thought and reached some manner of conclusion; ergo, not apathetic."

If you are to argue this, then why doesn't atheism also carry the implication of having given the issue some thought?

I used the terms parenthetically to describe how gnostic and agnostic are being used. "Agnostic" could conceivably stand alone, though even that is debatable, but I feel it necessary to distinguish "Gnostic" from the sense of pertaining to Gnosticism, a very different thing.

I think the terms "strong" and "weak" might actually have a bad influence on people's decisions. Nobody likes to be called "weak", and so perhaps more people might label themselves as "strong" in order to feel like they are "stronger" in faith. As for distinguishing, doesn't that already happen in the label description? Or could it not be added to the overall explanation of the scale?

Bah. Fuck political correctness. I use the masculine pronoun not because God has a gender but because (i) pronouns eschew tedious repetition of the word God, (ii) the English language has a very long history, until a few decades ago, of the masculine pronoun also serving as a neutral or generic pronoun, (iii) the impersonal pronoun "it" excludes a number of theisms with personal Gods, and (iv) it uselessly confuses the shit out of things to say "he/she/it/they." (For that matter, so does using "god(s)" because then you have to parenthetically pluralize other parts of affected sentences. Bunch of useless obfuscating bullshit. But that's my opinion, humble as it is.)

None of that matters. The point is we are trying to create a scale that everyone can use. Having pronouns where there technically should not be pronouns is not following along with that aim. Likewise, god(s) should remain or we should make it known that when we use the word "gods" we are talking about one or more.

Also, my scale did not use the philosophical term "worldview." The propositions described how people "view the world" in which they live, a phrase chosen because it describes even those who do not actively think about the issue (e.g., only when the subject comes up). And I think the phrase "believe in" can implicitly connote a level of investment or commitment that a person may not necessarily have. For example, it's not entirely accurate to say that Deists "believe in" the existence of God. They believe that he exists but do not really believe in his existence. These are just some of the reasons why I chose to describe how they "view the world."

I've already talked about the "worldview" / "view the world" and how it is not an accurate representation of what we are talking about here. I agree that "believes in" is different from "believes that", so maybe we should use the latter.

And maybe I should replace the word "argue" with the word "hold": e.g., "and hold that his non-existence ..."

Agreed.

So...

Notes
- The word "gods" in the following scale refers to both singular (god) and plural (gods), as well as any personal variant (God).
- The word "gnostic" does not refer to the Christian movement, but to the position that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.
- The word "agnostic" does not refer to the modern interpretation of "unsure" but as the original position (T. Huxley) that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

1. Gnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

3. Apatheists:
Those who hold no opinion on the existence of gods, and/or think that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit. Although an apatheist can hold a belief or disbelief in gods, they do not think that believing or disbelieving has any ultimate consequence.

4. Agnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

5. Gnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods can be conclusively established.

Now I think this scale is both unambiguous and would fit 99.9% of the population. It removes any notion of strong/weak in case they affect the results, and it gives deists a place on the scale that I think most would feel more comfortable with, and it has a midpoint which combines the 3 positions an apatheist can take into one.

I guess an alternative scale could separate out those 3 positions, giving "Deistic Apatheism", "Neutral Apatheism" and "Atheistic Apatheism". So:

1. Gnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods can be conclusively established.

2. Agnostic Theists:
Those who believe that gods exist, and hold that the existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

3. Deistic Apatheists:
Those who believe that gods exist, but hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

4. Neutral Apatheists:
Those who hold no opinion on the existence of gods, and/or hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

5. Atheistic Apatheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that such issues are not a worthwhile pursuit.

6. Agnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods cannot be conclusively established.

7. Gnostic Atheists:
Those who do not believe that gods exist, and hold that the non-existence of gods can be conclusively established.

I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone who couldn't fit on this scale, but let's try anyway