Agnosticism vs Atheism

Castiel said:
Where an agnostic will simply say that the existence God is unknowable, I content that first we need to make a coherent definition of God before we can even ask the question to begin with.

So in very basic terms, we need to first decide what God is, before we can decide whether one exists or not.
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Fine then I'm an ignostic agnostic atheist, because I:

- Don't know what defines a deity.
- If I did I wouldn't be able to know one way or the other whether or not one existed.
- ...but I'd be erring on the side of it not existing if a definition did exist.

Getting ridiculous now, the point is that if you ask any agnostic to define a deity, they won't be able to because they've never experienced one. It's impossible, therefore all agnostics are ignostic.

Edit: except for the fact that ignostics won't even entertain the question until deity is defined I suppose. Hurumph.
 
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The argument that you cannot be absolutely sure there is or is not a god has to have an element of common sense in it.
We've seen it mentioned numerous times on this forum with pink elephants & unicorns ,tooth faeries etc as an example.
No you can't prove there is no such things but where do you draw the line before it makes a person claiming that there is no proof either way look totally ridiculous ?
 
I'm an epistemological atheist. I take the view that there isn't anyway we can tell that a God exists.

I used to be very much interested about religion/divinity/theology, to the extent I was considering reading it at University, however I've moved to be quite 'meh' about it all now. Just doesn't hold me interest as much.
 
Usher said:
The argument that you cannot be absolutely sure there is or is not a god has to have an element of common sense in it.
We've seen it mentioned numerous times on this forum with pink elephants & unicorns ,tooth faeries etc as an example.
No you can't prove there is no such things but where do you draw the line before it makes a person claiming that there is no proof either way look totally ridiculous ?
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well from past OCUK GD discussions, you draw your line in a spot that suits your agenda the best.
 
Usher said:
The argument that you cannot be absolutely sure there is or is not a god has to have an element of common sense in it.
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Agreed. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single atheist who wouldn't agree that they could be wrong, if only to the extent that it's possible to be wrong about anything. I could be an insane alien banging one of my heads against a padded wall and gibbering about a place called earth and mavity and other made up stuff.
 
Since this is essentially an argument about semantics, I might as well list my preferred definitions. These are what I feel are the most useful definitions:

Atheist: "there is no God", "God is so unlikely it's highly probable he doesn't exist".

Agnostic: "I don't know if God exists", "There is no way of knowing if God exists", "I don't care if God exists".

Watering down the term "atheist" to include those who don't hold an opinion either way is misleading and assumes that the default position should be that "God does not exist". The default position (if one is required at all...) should be a position of agnosticism.
 
saying someone without an explicit belief in god is an atheist is like saying someone without a favorite football team is a snooker player...

Atheism and theism are both explicitly held positions, requiring a minimum statement of explicit belief or disbelief, rather than exclusive buckets where you are either one or the other.
 
XRAY said:
It is a way of leading your life without believing in a God.
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That is Secular Humanism, not Atheism.

Which illustrates once again just how people don't really understand the complexity surrounding the philosophical positions they profess to hold. Atheism is not a way of leading your life, it is simply a philosophical position.

I think that it only becomes an issue when people like Richard Dawkins try to force their particular philosophy and life choice onto others, in much the same way that some Religions are proselytising, so are some among the Militant Atheist community. This causes people to re-evaluate their positions in such a way that they feel the need to get more distance from those that hold extreme viewpoints, be they Theist or Atheist.

People should be allowed to identify with whichever of the philosophical positions they wish without criticism and ridicule. We need to understand that being a theist is not synonymous with belonging to a religion and that where there are Atheists who do not belief in the existence of God, but still question that premise, equally so do theists, only in the opposite direction.
 
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XRAY said:
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Dawkins tried to get this across with his scale of belief, but I think failed as he didn't explain the terminology very well so is now criticized as being an agnostic instead of an atheist.
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Dawkins doesn't profess to be an Atheistic Agnostic either. He was quite clear about that in the God Delusion with his Faeries nonsense. I think at least Chris Hitchens is more honest when he states that he is an Anti-Theist, which is what militant atheism or New Atheism really is.
 
Castiel said:
Agnosticism is the philosophical position that as the hypothesis for a Creator God is currently untestable the truth of the matter is unknown.

Huxley said:



The problem with all these philosophical labels is that they generally encompass a huge and diverse demographic and as such cannot easily be defined.

In reply to those who say that agnostics are simply atheists who cannot admit the truth:
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I was giving up hope for a moment there with all the twisted definitions of Agnosticism .. Nice one Castiel :cool: Logic prevails.
 
I'm an atheist and rather fed up of being lumped in with intolerant plonkers. I'm far more tolerant to the various religions than any of my religious family (mix of Catholic and Protestant), most of whom assume that they're right and all other religions and non-believers are clearly wrong/evil/misguided. I don't believe in a god but that doesn't give the right to try to put anyone else off believing what they want, just as I don't see why their beliefs should be forced on me. Live and let live, no need to hate each other and as I keep pointing out to my family - that wouldn't be very Christian would it ? ( I was raised a Roman Catholic).

Agnostics in my opinion are simply those folks who would like there to be a god or at least some proof either way but since they can't quite find a group to hang with, they decide to stay outside of religious circles.

Religious belief like the lack of it has throughout history been both a good and a bad thing. If people get some comfort from it then that's clearly got to be positive.

I don't believe in god though, or any deity for that matter. However by definition if someone managed to provide me with proof of it then I'd no longer be an atheist. I don't really see what the confusion is or why it offends some people that I am an atheist - I'm not offended by people who aren't and I'll happily sit and discuss it over a pint of beer without coming to blows.
 
I'm agnostic

The definition I've always followed has been

Agnostics have their minds open to the possibility

Atheists do not. and their belief is that there isnt the possibility
 
If you walked through the town centre and saw two groups of people in a standoff, with one group shouting "LUKE SKYWALKER DOES EXIST AND HE SAVED THE GALAXY" and the other shouting back "NO HE DOESN'T DAMN IT", you probably continue to walk past thinking "Wow, what a bunch of idiots".

This is how I feel about athiests and theists.
 
XRAY said:
Dawkins never implicitly calls himself an agnostic atheist. He does however place himself in group 6 of his belief scale:

"6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'"

He doesn't believe, but he cannot know. Therefore: agnostic atheist.
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And yet he finds it acceptable, in fact necessary to belittle and ridicule those who believe in something he cannot possibly know the truth of.

Like I said, at least Christopher Hitchens defines his position in a more accurate and decisive way.
 
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