Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Locke on June 28, 2011 at 12:30am

Even Richard Dawkins admitted he is not 100% sure there is no god.  He is 99.999% sure but that .001 percent is still doubt.  Yet, he calls himself an atheist.  He illustrated this on a 1-7 point scale of strong theist to strong atheist.  He qualifies a 6 as "very low probability, but short of zero". As strong an atheist he is, he still claims that he would be a 6 on his scale.  I think it would be nearly impossible to be a 7 and have ABSOLUTELY no doubt at all.  You can have doubt and still be an atheist

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 27, 2011 at 9:16pm

"I dont know if there is a god or not, all I can say is that all churches got it wrong."

 

That statement makes no rational sense, if you don't know, then you also can't know that churches are wrong...

 

It's equivalent to saying: I don't know why I think this, but you're all wrong!

 

If you're going to say other people are wrong, you bloody well better KNOW why!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Ashley on June 27, 2011 at 6:54pm

In my own opinion, I think that Agnostics just don't want to offend anyone. I don't understand why, since religious people don't seem to care if Atheists are offended.

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Permalink Reply by Jess Schonberg on June 27, 2011 at 7:24pm

That's a pretty big generalization. It also implies that Agnostics are all Atheists, which is not true. The biggest difference between the two is that Atheists believe or know that god(s) do(es) not exist, while Agnostics simply don't know either way.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 27, 2011 at 9:11pm

You are only partially right... a majority of believers are technically agnostics, since a vast majority of them are not gnostic (if you want to stick to etymology instead of the "modern definition). Agnosticism is fundamentally a theistic position.

 

A Positive statement: I BELIEVE, needs qualification of either certain or uncertain.

Lack of belief mentality/delusion does not require such qualifiers. Its only been a few decades of history that non-believers have attempted to qualify non-belief and it's a ridiculous concept in my mind, born out of fear and misplaced modesty. There is no problem with the word atheist, it is a clear position. Agnostics however muddle the water with religious dogmas over certainties.

 

However, given that for a great many agnostics, it is a temporary philosophical position on their way to total contentedness with the obviousness of atheism, I have been, and am prepared to continue to live with "agnostic atheists. If one is to place effort into atheist conversions, I think: better to place that effort on agnostics instead of full fledged religious :p

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Permalink Reply by Samm Stein-Azen on June 27, 2011 at 7:04pm

Agnostics believe that nothing can be known about god/God; they have an actual belief rather than just not knowing whether to be atheist or not. So they are not just unsure atheists.  In fact, unsure atheists would probably just be unsure atheists.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Walski on June 27, 2011 at 7:08pm

I know some are visual learners so maybe this will help

 

 

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Permalink Reply by dataguy on June 29, 2011 at 11:05am

I'm sorry, but this diagram makes absolutely no sense to me, and I'm the Dataguy!
From what I understand in this thread, Atheism is the opposite of Theism, and Agnosticism is a sub-section of Atheism. A venn diagram would seem more appropriate.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Walski on June 29, 2011 at 11:43am

Its an X, Y coordinate graph. knowledge and belief being the intersecting points.

 

Im not sure venn would work as well.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 29, 2011 at 12:02pm

Anosticism is not a subset of anything. The term should not even apply! ;)

In fact, one cannot partially un-believe, one can only partially believe. We have to stop applying qualifiers to negatives, it is semantically ridiculous. It is akin to multiplying by zero on a theist scale:

If the born again Christian is a 10 multiplied by a level of certainty of 10... 100

If the Southern baptist is a 9 multiplied by a level of certainty of 8... 80

If the frustrated Catholic is a 5 multiplied by a level of certainty of 2... 10

If the secular Jew is a 2, multiplied by a level of certainty of 3... 6

The atheist has 0 belief, multiplied by any no matter the level of certainty... ZERO possibility

 

agnosticism only makes sense as a qualifier of a positive statement, not a negative statement.

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Permalink Reply by dataguy on June 29, 2011 at 12:11pm

Then I'm completely confused.

Can one be an Agnostic without being an Atheist?

Can one be an Atheist without being an Agnostic?

Can one be an Agnostic while being a Atheist?

Obviously (or maybe I shouldn't assume) one cannot be an Atheist nor an Agnostic while being a Theist.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 29, 2011 at 12:16pm

Most theists on this planet are agnostic about their theism. Gnosticism was but a passing fad in religion.

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