Agnostic: a pointless term?

[robvalue]

We're not neutral. We say there is absolutely no good reason to think such a thing exists.

What do you think about Santa claus? Or invisible pink unicorns?

[Mystic]

We're not neutral. We say there is absolutely no good reason to think such a thing exists.

Which would only make sense if God doesn't exist. In the case of God existing, there is no logical reason to think there is no good reason to believe in his existence.

[robvalue]

You are kidding right?

[FatAndFaithless]

Because epistemelogical knowledge requires absolute certainty, and there's no way we could possible examine every instance of every problem from every angle and every viewpoint. It's a red herring.

[Mystic]

You are kidding right?

No, I'm not.

[abaris]

You are kidding right?

No, I'm not.

Feared as much.

[MechViking]

I just use agnostic to describe my fence sitting. I added deist because I favor that side, but I have no real arguments for that position, nor do I care to create any.

[Mudhammam]

As I have yet to meet a definition of God that I find credible in weight of the evidence, I'm comfortable with defining atheism as either "I don't believe in gods" (which agnosticism is also reducible to) or the stronger affirmation, "I believe there are no gods."

[abaris]

I just use agnostic to describe my fence sitting. I added deist because I favor that side, but I have no real arguments for that position, nor do I care to create any.

Some ten years ago I wouldn have leaned in the deist direction too. Right now I'm down to show me rock solid evidence for any god and I might reconsider my position of not believing in any higher being.

[bennyboy]

I agree about "agnostic atheism" being redundant and mostly pointless-- to me, it's kind of a philosophical cop-out.

A more charitable way of saying it would be to describe it as truth in advertising. I'm not trying to tack my jib to catch multiple winds when I call myself that; I'm merely saying that I don't know, but I certainly don't believe.

It also is useful shorthand when dealing with assholes on the Internet who want to impute positions to me that I don't hold, such as "You're stating that you know god(s) don't exist."

Fair enough.

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As I have yet to meet a definition of God that I find credible in weight of the evidence, I'm comfortable with defining atheism as either "I don't believe in gods" (which agnosticism is also reducible to) or the stronger affirmation, "I believe there are no gods."

I want to talk about the relationship between beliefs and an -ism. I think for most -ists, the actual feeling of belief is variable, while the position is (for the most part) invariable.

Maybe I do lack an active belief that God is real, in an emotional sense. But I don't think that is sufficient to merit the term "atheist," as that lack of belief isn't really a defining feature for me, any more than it is for my beagle or for my big toe (both of which also lack the belief in God).

More accurate is that I think the universe is infinitely complex, far, FAR beyond our understanding, and that if I was face-to-face with any of that complexity, I wouldn't be able to discern that experience from a religious one. So my chosen position is that of not really knowing anything except what's right in front of my face-- and that doesn't include any good information about many of the important "mysteries" in life-- why there is consciousness, why there's a universe, etc.

I'm only atheist about ideas that are obviously made up, and that includes any definition of God concrete enough to be put into words.