What is the right definition of agnostic?

[Tiberius]

I'll just leave this here: https://atheistforums.org/thread-3817.html

[TheHuxleyAgnostic]

So what is the right definition?

For any claim: X, you can believe X is true, believe X is false, or have no belief either way. 

Person A: belief X is true, no belief X is false
Person B: no belief X is true, no belief X is false
Person C: no belief X is true, belief X is false

16th century: The word "atheos" was taken from the Greek, in full, and an "ist" suffix was added to it. Regarding belief, it meant "someone who believed no gods exist". "Atheist" was defined as C. 

17th century: The word "theos" was taken from the Greek, and an "ist" suffix was added to it. There was no word "theist", to attach an "a" prefix to, for almost 100 years after the word "atheist" was put together. For another 100 years, this word "theist", referred mainly to deist types. "Theist" was defined as A.

18th century: You can find opponents of D'Holbach, representing the common usage Christian majority, using a faulty logic that said not believing X = believing not X. So, while "atheist" was defined as C, it was being used on B and C. 

So, they were offering a false dichotomy ... you either believed X is true, or they considered you to believe X is false. 

19th century: That was still the way things were, when Huxley came along. Huxley then defined B. He was a scientist, above all else. He saw the scientific method in picking apples at the market. The agnosticism Huxley defined amounted to a form of demarcation. No objective testable evidence = a subjective unfalsifiable claim. Results: unscientific and inconclusive. No belief as to the truth, or falsehood, of the claim. It is not compatible with athe-ism, the belief gods do not exist, or the-ism, the belief gods do exist.

"Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." ~ Thomas Huxley, 1884

20th century: The turn of the century saw a number of writers calling it the "age of agnosticism". Defining B was quite popular, and caught on in a big way. In the 20th century, the likes of Einstein, Popper, and Sagan, identified as agnostics. What also came along was a push to use a broader definition of "atheist". George H Smith gave us implicit, explicit, and the basis for weak and strong, a-theism. Antony Flew gave us negative and positive a-theism. 

"In this interpretation an atheist becomes: not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God; but someone who is simply not a theist. Let us, for future ready reference, introduce the labels ‘positive atheist’ for the former and ‘negative atheist’ for the latter.

The introduction of this new interpretation of the word ‘atheism’ may appear to be a piece of perverse Humpty-Dumptyism, going arbitrarily against established common usage. ‘Whyever’, it could be asked, ‘don’t you make it not the presumption of atheism but the presumption of agnosticism?’" ~ Antony Flew, 1984 

That is still not the more popular definition outside of a-theist circles. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, which uses Flew's terminology, itself, still fully admits that the narrow definition of "atheist" is still the more common. It also acknowledges agnosticism to be purely a form of negative a-theism, with no belief, either way. Even amongst non-theists, on surveys, more choose "nothing" or "agnostic" than choose "atheist". Even the majority of the people who a-theists consider "atheists", don't seem to be using their definition or label.

[brewer]

First: Welcome!

B: It would be nice if you would make an introduction thread.

Next: Please read the rules. There is this "necro" thing we try to avoid. We kinda like to bodies to remain where we left them. Plus the rules have all other kinds of goodies.

http://atheistforums.org/rules.php

Have fun here!

[AFTT47]

T.H. Huxley introduced a definition of agnosticism in the 19th century.  His agnosticism was that neither the existence nor non-existence of God could ultimately be known, and that positions on the topic were akin to groundless speculation.

The problem is that there are multitudes of God-concepts. Many are indeed unknowable but plenty more - like the Abrahamic religions - make bogus claims, are riddled with contradictions, are based on faulty logic, ect so as to be to be pretty close to knowably false IMO. So I positively disbelieve in the God of the Torah, Bible and Koran but I'm agnostic about a generic God concept.

The agnostic label is unusable IMO.

[abaris]

Seems like any newcomer tres their hands at zombification. Is there some rule I'm not aware of demanding necroposting as a requirement for new members?

[Edwardo Piet]

Welcome, Huxley Agnostic.

The thing is.... I do believe there are no gods but I don't believe that 100%. I don't claim that there are no gods but I certainly consider them extremely improbable, so despite not knowing there is no god and being open to the possibility of a god: it's not true to say I have no belief either way either. I believe there are no gods, just not 100%.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Agnostic" is one of those terms that's ended up being used for something other than which it's etymology orignally refered, like terrific.  Language is a working tool, it changes, and I understand what agnostics mean to say when they use the term in regards to their status of belief. Personally, I'd just call them atheists and we'd be referring to the same thing...but they prefer the other term, for whatever reason...so, fuck it, does it matter? Not really. Different terms for the same thing are easy to handle...it's when we use the same terms for different things...that things get confused, lol.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah let's not commit the etymological fallacy.

Words don't have to be their original meanings. You're right Rhythm.

If words had to be their original meanings then that would be like denying that protons exist because they reside in atoms and atoms originally were supposed to be indivisible so they can't contain protons, and since protons are supposed to reside in atoms they therefore can't exist. The etymological fallacy is a more specific form of the equivocation fallacy.