Gnostic v. Agnostic

[CleanShavenJesus]

Many of us (including myself) use the terms "agnostic" as "gnostic" almost like adjectives. I call myself an agnostic atheist. But is that really how those words are used? "Gnostic" isn't even a word in that sense, it just means someone who follows the religion of Gnosticism.

Another question: most theists are gnostic, and that's a different road. But how can atheists be gnostic? I know a gnostic atheist recently joined, maybe he could respond in this thread. Nobody can know with 100% certainty that there is no God, but that's exactly what being gnostic (in our definition of the word) means.

[Darth]

A/an- a morpheme (prefix in this case) meaning without or not. The root of the word, gnost would mean knowledge (-ic forms adjectives, so it's approrpriate that we use them, 'almost' like adjectives). It may have been like the -gruntle- in dis-gruntle-d, a bound root morpheme, or it may not have been. I'm not entirely sure how people have been using the word gnostic throughout history (though it definitely ALSO refers to that wiped out religion), only that people, perhaps working from agnostic, are using it to mean with knowledge.

If it was only recently coined, then so what, that's how english works, and 'opposite of agnostic atheist' sounds so silly, especially when a/an- already means 'without/not'

Linguistics penguin AWAAAAYYYYYY

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Many of us (including myself) use the terms "agnostic" as "gnostic" almost like adjectives. I call myself an agnostic atheist. But is that really how those words are used? "Gnostic" isn't even a word in that sense, it just means someone who follows the religion of Gnosticism.

Another question: most theists are gnostic, and that's a different road. But how can atheists be gnostic? I know a gnostic atheist recently joined, maybe he could respond in this thread. Nobody can know with 100% certainty that there is no God, but that's exactly what being gnostic (in our definition of the word) means.

The Gnostics were some early also-ran versions of Christianity that lost out to the Byzantine version. Generally they held there was secret knowledge to be told only to advanced Christians. The Byzantine cult held that everyone was told everything.

The two terms do have opposite meanings but they are not opposites in the sense of black and white, true or false. The word comes from the Greek for knowledge thus secret knowledge. Agnostic simply means do not know if.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nobody can know with 100% certainty that there is no God.

Why not? Whats so challenging about the concept of a god?

[Darth]

Yup, depends on which god, agnostic atheist regarding deistic gods, gnostic atheist in terms of Yahweh the Malevolent.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Nobody can know with 100% certainty that there is no God.

Why not? Whats so challenging about the concept of a god?

The only way we will know 100% there is no god is when we die. Until then, it's just highly improbable.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why not? Whats so challenging about the concept of a god?

The only way we will know 100% there is no god is when we die. Until then, it's just highly improbable.

Why would we know then, if we cant know now. I don't understand? What is it about death that somehow enhances our ability to accumulate knowledge.......

It seems kind of the opposite...from where I stand.

[Tiberius]

I call myself an agnostic atheist. But is that really how those words are used? "Gnostic" isn't even a word in that sense, it just means someone who follows the religion of Gnosticism.

The term 'agnosticism' was created by Thomas Huxley because the early Christian church used the Greek word 'gnosis' to describe spiritual knowledge. It was never meant in reference to the Gnostic movement.

However, as the Gnostics died out, the word 'gnostic' started being used as the opposite of 'agnostic'; that is, someone who knows (or claims to know) that God exists.

[CleanShavenJesus]

The only way we will know 100% there is no god is when we die. Until then, it's just highly improbable.

Why would we know then, if we cant know now. I don't understand? What is it about death that somehow enhances our ability to accumulate knowledge.......

It seems kind of the opposite...from where I stand.

Because if there is an afterlife, I think we'll notice.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because if there is an afterlife, I think we'll notice.

Oh, so granting one very specific vision of the supernatural...and perhaps not realizing that an afterlife is not interchangeable with a god...and presuming you woke up in it one day...you would just jump to god?

Forgive me for being so bold, but I'd be willing to bet that granting an afterlife, you'd still require exactly what you would require here for "knowing" whether or not there was a god. Whether that's nothing (in the case of the faithful) or something (in the case of the skeptic). Even further, if you know here that you cannot absoltuely trust your experience what would change that scenario then? Is the spirit mind more reliable? What removes the barrier to knowledge that exists here, supposing you found yourself there? If you were capable of knowing there, why not here?

I'm not grilling you, not earnestly, because I realize that some of this is just meh for you. Just trying to highlight all of the oddness in this conjecture.