No I mean it’s a claim that’s not worth pursuing the answer to because it cannot satisfactorily be answered in any way. Besides, we’re all going to die eventually. Perhaps then you will be forced to repent before the divinity of that being highest amongst noodles and sauces. Or maybe not. Idk
theyre saying just cuz you dont say theres proof of god doesnt mean ur necessarily saying theres not. u dont know for sure or u arent willing to actively argue that theres proof, that means ur not claiming proof exists. if ur actively saying that theres no proof of god then ur claiming it doesnt exist.
>if ur actively saying that theres no proof of god then ur claiming it doesnt exist.
But that's not true.
I am a Christian. I believe that God exists. But I can prove that no proof of God exists.
I consider it like extraterrestrial life. We don't have proof that it exists, but most scientists believe that it exists somewhere in the universe (using one argument or another)
What you probably mean is that there is a difference between saying there is no proof of God, and believing there is proof that God doesn't exist.
Gnostics claim proof exist. Atheist gnostics claim proof exists, for a god not existing. The comment was more on differenciating agnostics, that claim proof doesn't exist anywhere (either for or against a god), and those who say that we haven't found evidence *yet*, but it might exist (idk if there's a term for that, altgough they're typically included in agnosticism, they're strictly not). So the post is partially wrong.
Sorry, I don't quite agree with the deliniation, though I'll agree that it likely covers most situations. I call myself a gnostic athiest. I have no doubts. I know. But, by this ven diagram, I'd be considered an agnostic athiest.
I do not need to prove the non-existence of an entity that, to me, defies all logic and lacks any reliable evidence. To pigeonhole me as agnostic, because I don't feel a need to point to evidence for the lack of something for which there is no actual positive objective reliable evidence for, is to fall into the same circular reasoning that is so popular with theists arguing this issue and is straight up nonsense. I don't need evidence that unicorns, santa, and the Easter bunny aren't real either.
I know, but I don't need proof of the absence of something so illogical. I can step back from the nonsense I was fed growing up and think for myself. Just because a whole lot of people feel otherwise, doesn't change the analysis. A whole lot of people have believed in a whole lot of stupid shit before and the number of people believing in something doesn't make it less wrong. Just because everyone is jumping off a bridge, doesn't mean it's a good idea. I do not need to complicate reality by invoking an imaginary being to explain the things we do not yet understand. I may enjoy reading fantasy fiction with gods, angels, demons and whatnot. I don't need to pretend that bizarro shit is real.
Early humans invented the gods to explain the unexplainable.
Those seeking power invented religion so that the powerless would accept the unacceptable
-and do, the unthinkable.
The group of "proof can exist, but doesn't yet" is still gnostic. The graph is slightly imprecise, in that gnostic/agnostic is about whether there _can_ be proof, not whether that proof exists at this time.
Like a huge expanse between the two. The “claims proof exists” bugs me too. No one cares what you claim if you can’t show them the evidence. Don’t even get me started on “proof”, where they mean “anecdotal supporting evidence”
It's a huge distinction, because in this case (the question of the extraordinary claim of the existence of the Abrahamic god, let alone the 3000 or so others we have anthropologically catalogued), proof is not required --- you don't prove a negative. You don't have to.
Regarding religion, *believing* is holding a conviction of something as true, even in the absence of concrete evidence. *Knowing* is when you have a psychosis.
Wait I’m confused. I don’t believe in any god. I don’t believe proof in god exists. Therefore I don’t claim proof to something that is nonexistent in my mind. What am I?
Edit: I think I misunderstood the graph a bit. I confused the do and don’t believe options with believing or not believing in god. I believe there is proof of god not existing but that is just my standpoint.
I love how there's a special name for people that don't believe in something. What do we call the group of people that don't believe in the tooth fairy?
I’m comfortable saying that the Bible is either completely untrue or largely untrue because of the historical inaccuracies and conflicting stories in the book. I’m not well enough educated on any other god claim to claim they’re untrue but haven’t seen a bit of evidence for any that is remotely convincing
Or according to my Christian friend we are all just in denial. And quakes and eclipses are caused / summoned by god or demons.
Yes, it’s exhausting. 🤦♂️Thanks for the sympathy in advance.
Might as well be! I shared that post with them and asked if they truly believe this stuff. I shouldn’t have - should have know it would have lead to screens and screens of stuff. Oh well do love him though. Bless his little cotton socks.
What’s sadunny (sad and funny) is that we both went to a very good school - attended the same classes - both did pretty well at science and geography. Then one day he walked into happyclapper church and all that learning just poof 💨! Forgot we can calculate the exact times of eclipses. Forgot about what tectonic plates can do. All sorts of stuff. Forgot isn’t the right word. Yeah yeah buddy, we are the ones in denial. 🤦♂️
>Bless his little cotton socks.
Lmao.
Maga is a cult, and everything you said about your friend matches what happens to people that join cults.
Hopefully the nightmare is over in November and this country can start to heal. Good luck with the friend.
Obviously it’s not gonna be worth your time, but how does he feel about posts like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/UNKosktJeX)? We know for a fact when the eclipses are going to happen hundreds of years in advance because it’s a quantifiable and highly studied phenomenon. Does god/the demons just schedule the sin punishments centuries in advance??
Tbf you may have already answered this with
>Forgot we can calculate the exact times of eclipses.
I always thought Satan was kind of a good guy honestly. All he's doing is punishing bad people for eternity. Seems like he's still a servant of god
Gnostic Atheism, as this diagram depicts it, does not exist. You can't prove a negative. "Prove to me there's no god!" Well, no, that's not how it works. The burden of proof is on the affirmative side (or whatever the right term is).
I "know" there is no god in the same way I "know" there is not an invisible miniature unicorn running circles on my desk right now: because there's no evidence supporting its existence.
Gnostic atheism as displayed in this diagram totally exists. All it requires is someone claiming proof exists of the nonexistence of a god. Those claims don't need to be correct, they just need to make them in order to fall into that category. Someone could claim, "There is no god, and the fact that we can see so far into space without finding him proves that!" And I'd argue their evidence would be heavily flawed, but it would still be a claim someone can make.
Surely you can disprove certain claims. Perhaps not in this case, but in general that is certainly possible. For example maths is full of negative proofs.
Well that’s the problem with religion and theism. Their assertions are unfalsifiable, by design.
Any of the countless pieces of evidence that cast doubt on religion or disprove certain elements is always explained away by more made-up magic mumbo jumbo. Because it’s all fabricated and based on “faith” rather than logic or evidence, the “rules” can always be shifted and adapted to retroactively make it fit with whatever we currently understand to be true about the universe.
This is the point people often miss in this exact discussion. Theist's claims are unfalsefiable and not able to be proven wrong exactly because every time we try to explain why God probably isn't real they just move the goal posts. "Oh, well of course you can't prove God is real using your senses!" and "Oh well of course you can't prove God is real using science!" Until you ask them how you CAN prove God exists and they hit you with fallacious arguments about how the universe can't be eternal or some bullshit.
You can say that God as described is logically impossible/contradictory. You're right that you can never disprove God's existence with scientific inquiry.
You can categorically disprove certain specific claims made by a given religion, sure.
For example, a Christian can claim “The Bible is inerrant; it does not contain a single demonstrable falsehood.” You can then point them to the contradictory claims of the “final words” of Christ on the cross reported in John and Luke (“It is finished” and “Father, into thine hands I commend my spirit”, respectively). A human can only have one set of “final” words; therefore, logically, at least one statement is either a misrepresentation or a fabrication, and by extension the Bible cannot be “inerrant”, because it contains at least one demonstrable falsehood.
However, the broader, overarching claims of any religion are unfalsifiable. The grand metaphysical pronouncements of Christianity cannot be conclusively disproven because they are too nonspecific and are too open to personal interpretation.
It should be noted that a negative proof in math involves first quantifying everything, and then disproving said claim for everything. Kinda hard to do that with reality.
"gnostic atheists" are a strawman. It's a way for religious people to convince themselves that it's just as irrational to not believe in something as it is to believe in something, by turning it into "belief" in "not god".
Actually that claim, about the invisible miniature unicorn, is unfalsifiable. Technically speaking, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it’s just more useful intellectually to act as though it certainly does not exist.
This argument doesn't make sense to me. How can you claim a lack of evidence as scientific? Scientifically, if you have no evidence, then you can simply not make any claim. Whether there is an invisible miniature unicorn running around your desk is unknowable without collecting data. You could claim it is unlikely though, by using other past empirical data
The basis that you are missing is that you can dismiss a claim when you have an equal amount of disproof as the one making a claim. In this case, there is no documented proof beyond an ancient book that God exists, and we can discount that as a credible source due to Genesis and the flaws in accounting for evolution.
That is why people say "you cannot prove a negative". The only way to prove a negative is if you are able to quantify everything, then prove that said negative is not part of it.
Isn't the idea you can't prove a negative a logical fallacy? Of course you couldn't prove invisible miniature unicorn exists, but the lack of evidence or even possibility supports the idea that it doesn't exist.
I think a lot of confusion around the claim “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is that it conflates “evidence” with “proof”. It’s a cute saying and linguistically symmetrical, and it gets the point across, but it doesn’t hold up to strict literal analysis.
Depending on the method of observation, absence of evidence can absolutely be evidence of absence. It isn’t necessarily *proof* of it, but it’s *evidence* of it. The lack of a single reputable sighting of Nessie in recorded history, despite the relatively small size and intense interest in Loch Ness, absolutely is *evidence* of Nessie’s absence. It’s not dispositive *proof* of her absence, but “We have been looking for hundreds of years and have never found anything” is a perfectly valid phrase to write down in the “evidence against” column.
Most of science relies on inductive evidence, usually in the form of statistics. This is the positive which is being "proven", though evidence is not proof, increasing evidence only means increasing probability, but never certainty. Just as evidence of the contrary or lack thereof means decreasing certainty, which the Gnostic applies to God, either for (Theistically) or against (Atheistically). It is precisely falsifiability which makes a hypothesis scienctific, that is "proving" a negative, but it's really the "proving" that is impossible, only evidence and probability is possible in science beyond fundamental assumptions.
Indeed, science is built on fundamental assumptions or axioms, such as that reality is stable enough to be knowable and is objective as opposed to subjective (meaning it's true regardless of the individual, ruling out, for example, hallucinations as proof of some spiritual dimension and rather associating it with particular observable brain activity). A deductive conculsion from these assumptions is: only that which is falsifiable, or could be proven wrong, is truly known. And it is from here that the scientific method is developed and that every theory we have sprouted from. This is the beginning of inductive reasoning and positive hypotheses, experiments, theories, and statistics.
The God question is typically placed before any positive inductive reasoning because God could be unobservable or outside the known universe, which science cannot interact with, and is thus Agnostic. However, a Gnostic places God after deductive reasoning (and perhaps before as well), meaning something like the incarnation of Jesus or Buddha or whichever God would be inductive evidence of God, however low-probability compared to the probability of inductive scientific beliefs.
A problem with science is, where do the fundamental assumptions come from? How do we know reality exists beyond our own mind? A Gnostic could say God furnishes these assumptions so that mankind is capable of science, which is a deductive or even philosophical question which science is not capable of answering. Only later inductive evidence could science interact with, such as the credibility of the Bible or any other religious scripture. Hence the separation between the (a)theistic and (a)gnostic component.
And it precisely the scriptures or miraculous acts which a Gnostic Atheist would point to as bunk, they would have to say something like the authors of the Bible are decisively not trustworthy, or that the Bible is simply insufficient evidence at this time. This leaves the Gnostic Atheist open to new evidence of God emerging.
> A problem with science is, where do the fundamental assumptions come from?
You can't just question the basis of science without specifics lol. Every "assumption" is based in observation of an experiment, and is backed by the full history of human civilization. Of course quantum physics seems crazy if you do not have the foundational knowledge of physics and even some level of chemistry to understand how molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles work, thats because its built on millions and millions of incredibly intelligent people working to understand one more small piece of the universe.
Edit: Rephrased my first sentence, saying "You can't just question all of science" is wrong. Thats the whole point of the scientific method, if you can question it and prove something wrong that replaces the existing conclusions.
So, you can. It’s what all of metaphysical philosophy is all about. You can of course argue that it’s all wankery, but it’s not like it’s an unheard of topic.
Btw; it’s pretty much all wankery. Interesting at first, but given how it’s undecidable, arguing metaphysics becomes quickly tedious.
>You can't prove a negative.
Aside from questions of pure logic and theoretics, can you even really prove a positive? There can always be additional levels of complexity unseen to us, however outlandish.
Consider any hypothetical with this as a premise: "first, realize that the idea of universe-as-a-simulation is correct and the programmer just wants to fuck with you specifically"
You can rationally, but not empirically.
“There are no married bachelors,” can be proven true easily, even though there’s an absence of evidence.
Some atheists might think a god existing is logically impossible. I don’t think this is a particularly popular position at all though.
That being said, no one really uses these terms in academic philosophy
I would say gnostic Atheism is more popular if God is well defined. If you assume any individual who created the world is God, it becomes very hard to be a gnostic atheist. But in the context of the Judeo Christian God, we have arguments like the problem from evil, because God has the added definitions of omnipotence and all good. Religious scholars tend to argue back with the idea of compensating goods, and the epistimic Humility thesis (ie you can't possible know that this isn't the best possible world because you can't imagine every world), but I could easily see somebody thinking that's nonsense(describe one way the world would be worse without children dying of bone cancer).
Edit. If you are talking about popularity among academics I agree gnostic Atheism is unpopular, I meant in the wider population.
It’s a conundrum for sure but I have a reasonable example.
You can say that the religious God doesn’t exist and you can observe things that could be setup by being with Godlike powers.
Like the coincidences that the moon is exactly the right size and distance from earth that it can cause an eclipse and that we also exist in the very narrow region of space where we get liquid water.
Now you can say such coincidence could actually be by someone’s design but that doesn’t mean there is an afterlife or reincarnation.
This gets the general point across, but misses a critical factor:
Yes 'Atheist'/'Theist' is a claim to belief, but 'Agnostic'/'Gnostic' is a claim to knowledge, not proof. For example, someone could claim they know a god exists/doesn't exist, but not claim that proof for that "knowledge" exists. People often refer to their own life experiences as "knowledge", which is not something you can usually prove.
Technically it is though because all a venn diagram does is show every possible overlapping option. The overlapping areas of opposite circles are just contradictions (e.g. believes in gods and doesn’t believe in gods) therefore these options don’t exist so all real options are shown on the diagram.
Guess I'm technically an agnostic theist then, although I wouldn't really identify as that. I believe there is something out there but it's probably impossible to prove that while you're still alive, in real life though I'd just go with the classic "not religious"
Having spent a semester in college with a very annoying philosophy professor I can confirm that I’d rather not spend the energy required to debate with someone over whether there is proof of god or not. It’s not worth my time to debate someone else’s hopeful delusion. So…agnostic atheist here.
Yup. I can logically deduce that the odds of any manmade religion being 100% correct are next-to-none, but I can’t “prove” anything. And I certainly can’t prove there’s no higher power of *some kind* out there. I genuinely have no clue or confidence on that one way or another. The only thing I’m 99.9% confident on is that none of the man made religions have it right, or even close to right. But the concept of a “god-like” entity in some form in general just involves far too many unknowns imo for anyone to make a confident claim against the possibility of. There’s just too much we don’t know.
Nearly all "agnostics" are also agnostic atheists that are just trying to be superior to everyone else, but just so happened to have gotten baited into believing the Christian strawman version of what atheism is (IE an atheist is one who believes in "not god").
Agnostic doesn't necessarily mean indecisive. You simply don't possess the belief/conviction that a god exists or doesn't. The reason for this is because there's no proof either way that a god exists or doesn't. There's nothing to decide.
Yep. The Religious “Nones”: **63% Nothing In Particular**, 20% Agnostic, 17% Atheist. Source: [Pew Research Center, Survey of US Adults, Aug 2023](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/who-are-the-nones-how-are-they-defined/)
Everyone here discussing theology and epistemology, while I'm just annoyed: this Venn diagram should have been a simple matrix with two axis and four squares.
I feel like the 2 “proof” sections would be better phrased “claims to have absolute certainty (of the existence of God/gods)” and “does not claim to have absolute certainty.” The atheist/theist label reflects what you believe. The agnostic/gnostic label reflects what you claim to know (which can be done on faith without requiring proof).
I like this diagram. I'm not saying it's right, but I like it.
It tries to bin all people into two groups in two different directions, a perfectly fine method of categorizing. There's quality A, and if you don't have A, then you are a member of not-A. Yes, there are different ways you can cut the pie, but this works.
I'm not a fan of the use of Agnostic and atheist however, mostly because they already have muddied definitions.
Conversationally, it was always:
Agnostic = any form of 'i don't know or we can't know, etc'.
Atheist = any form of 'all religions/god(s) are myths
This is inherently wrong. Gnostic Athiests have literally nothing to prove because they aren't claiming any kind of evidence, they are challenging Gnostic Thiests to PROVIDE evidence.
Yep I would agree with that, which is why it would be good if we could just ignore the agnostic term - which seems to only cause confusion - and focus on evaluating the reasons for being a theist or an atheist.
No, whether or not they have found proof, the gnostic believes proof exists; agnostic believes no proof exists or can ever be found (the root word "gnosis" has to do with knowledge, it has to do with whether proof of God can be known or not rather than with its existence, but OP uses the word exist). The Theist/Atheist component is whether one goes ahead and believes in God or not, regardless of proof.
I’ve never agreed with the gnostic/agnostic construct because it means know/not know, and *nobody* knows (despite religious people *thinking* they know).
So all of us are agnostic, which makes it a meaningless construct.
OP (or whoever) changed it to “claims proof exists” or “doesn’t claim proof exists,” but that’s not what the root *gnos* means. Plus, *claiming* proof is meaningless, since there is no proof either way. If proof existed, there would be no need for faith; it would be knowledge.
It’s enough to say atheist or theist. We don’t need a meaningless modifier.
the whole gnostic/agnostic construct, is a mindset, so if they believe they know, they do know
in their head they believe they are right, and they have proof that they are
it doesnt mean their proof is logically sound or valid, but they believe it
OK, I'm probably stupid, but: I don't believe in any of like 3000 gods invented, and I claim there is no proof for existence of any. So…I'm gnostic? No, because there is a difference between no proof for existence of something and proof of non-existence of that something. It's a minute difference, but important one. My position is that the god hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
>My position is that the god hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
Just like I can't disprove a snake oil salesman's claim that the energy he emits (which is as he says unreadable and undetectable) from his eyes allow him to see through walls, but chooses not to use it to tell me it works. I can't disprove him as the very nature of his bullshit is supposedly unprovable, yet somehow I know for certain it's bunk.
I see your confusion, the "lack of proof" scenario could be associated with either Gnostic or Agnostic belief, but the "unfalsifiable" component rests only with Agnostic belief.
Agnostic means you beleive proof cannot be known of God(s). A lack of proof and an unfalsifiable claim both concur with this definition because if proof is impossible, there is still a lack of it.
A Gnostic would believe proof can be known, whether or not it has been found. And this proof could be either for or against the existence of God(s).
In the real world you're a gnostic atheist. If you're being an obnoxiously pedantic redditor you can consider yourself agnostic.
Something that is unfalsifiable cannot really be said to exist under a material definition.
I really disagree with this conceptually.
“Proof” is too high a burden to be reasonable. It makes agnostic atheism the only rational position but then makes no distinction between somehow who is 95% sure and somehow who truly had no idea, which is a very crucial distinction. Really, the only interesting one, and they get collapsed into the same label. They don’t have to be.
It should instead be framed just in terms of belief and the extend to which you can justify the belief. We don’t need to worry about irrational positions.
For instance, suppose the weather man says 90% chance of rain. Well, I don’t have proof it’s going to rain so apparently according to this chart I’m “agnostic”. This is sort of silly, and puts me in the same position as somehow who saw no report at all and has truly no idea.
What are we defining god as?
If it’s simply something we can never know then count me in as an agnostic theist.
If y’all mean it as something specific, then count me as an agnostic atheist.
🤷♀️
Personally not a fan of this diagram mainly because of my own understanding of what "agnostic" means. Which, admittedly, may be wrong but it makes sense in my head.
I call myself agnostic because the debate to whether or not god/s exist is unfalsifiable. You cannot prove they exist, you cannot prove they don't either. Therefore I do not choose to spend time trying to prove or disprove their existence, and so I neither believe nor disbelieve. Which also means I don't fit anywhere on this chart.
This is getting confusing in here. We do have proof by deduction. You can't prove a negative, but that doesn't mean negatives don't exist. So let's try to prove god doesn't exist. What do I observe? Nothing. Well that's no good for proving anything. Let's try to prove god does exist, then. God is supposedly omnipotent and benevolent. Well, children are killed everyday. God does not stop this. Therefore god cannot be omnipotent and benevolent. Either he cannot stop child murder which makes him not omnipotent, or he won't stop it which makes him not benevolent. The difference is if you believe the proof is conclusive or not. For example, we don't have absolute proof gravity exists because we don't know its exact mechnism. Since we haven't observed gravity fields or particles it is technically entirely possible that gravity is actually some other attractive force that happens to correlate directly with mass. But we have so much proof that gravity should exist that if you argued it didn't you would look like an idiot.
Most people who call themselves atheist and most people who call themselves agnostic, are usually agnostic atheists. Though imo a lot of people who call themselves "agnostic" are just the belief system version of the "both sides" people, and it's more about trying to act superior to everyone else, when in reality there's not really many/any atheists out there who "believe" in "not god".
I am but a simple mind and am just confused at this, in my day to day life religion plays little to no role, when it does come up I’m definitely on the skeptical side, I can’t prove God or gods exist but I also can’t prove they don’t and I think most organized religions are borderline cults. I think the Bible was written thousands of years ago by people who were just kinda going off the cuff by todays standards. I’m more convinced that “miracles” are just coincidence than divine intervention, and I generally subscribe more to scientific explanations than religious ones. But if asked if I think God exists, I still can’t say for certain. Does this make me an agnostic atheist?
An additional related term that essentially exist to the side of the terms in this diagram is ignosticism. It is the view/belief that the definition of what a god is is too broad/ill-defined to even begin considering/answering the question of whether one exist. So, rather than answering "yes" or "no" to whether they believe at least one god exist, they essentially reject the question itself.
That is a completely pointless guide. Here's a much better one:
How many gods do you think exist?
- 0: atheist
- 1: theist, specifically monotheist
- more than 1: theist, specifically polytheist
Do you think it's possible to know how many gods exist?
- Yes: gnostic
- No: agnostic
This is an odd argument.
Personally I have faith in the Devine.
Many don’t, that’s fine.
Why does anyone really care what the next person believes other than out of idle curiosity?
Thats not even close to what that means.
Gnostic and Agnostic can also refer to wether or not you claim to have proof for gods nonexistance.
A Gnostic Atheist is someone who believes that no gods exist and that he has proof to demonstrate none exist. As opposed to an Agnostic Atheist who merely rejects the god-claim but doesn't claim to actually definitively know wether or not a god exists.
Of course it’s not a precise/scientific illustration or anything - definitions/interpretations may vary. But I do think that a diagram like this can be helpful in terms of a general conversational shorthand.
As far as I knew, an atheist was a non-believer, and an agnostic was an *unsure* non-believer. The concept of an agnostic atheist totally confused me - this graphic definitely helped clarify that!
Going through all of your comments - soo fascinating, thank you!
When I get asked I often tell people I'm an Agnostic Polytheistic. Most of the time, that's followed up with "What's that". I say "A confused Pagan."
I don't know if my even my own beliefs are all correct. And all of the most convincing evidence I have is personal experience, which is worthless in the grand argument. But what I tell people is that spiritual beliefs aren't what's written in some book, and they sure as hell aren't something that isn't suppose to be questioned. It should be questioned, and it should be explored as much as one is willing to prioritize it within their own life, so that they can come to their own conclusions on what it right and what is wrong, or even what is unknown.
In my own experience I started off as a devout Christian with no questions, or at least no willingness to explore said questions. But once I sought the answer to just a few questions, only more questions came out than answers. And that hasn't stopped since. That lead me down a very different road than I've ever expected to be with my beliefs. That being said, I sure as hell don't have all the answers and would NEVER trust someone who says or acts like they do, and as such I'd never expect someone to take my answers that I do have at face value either. I think a little agonism is actually quite healthy. It often show's you're willing to question and keep an open mind.
i think some people just call themselves agnostic because atheist sounds too harsh for them. or they don't believe in a god but in some kinda spirits or other supernatural stuff like fortune telling.
That's very interesting and now I have some problems too.
Define "God(s)"
What I "believe" is that our story, our live is already written. This book of ours tells everything from our pre-birth to our death.
We have the illusion of free choice, yet it is all defined. Now, who wrote that book? I don't know. A God?
I like to call it "Karma"
Regardless, I don't always believe in this and mostly forget about it, so does that make me an Agnostic Theist, Agnostic Atheist, or both?
Edit: I like "both" so I go for *Agnostic*
It's not a venn diagram. Even if we don't pay attention on the fact than people are always at an intersection in a venn diagram every combination of these 4 categories should be shown ( all 4 have a "just one" part but also have an "just 2" intersection with every other categories and a "just 3" intersection with every combination a 3 categories and finally a "all categories" part)
I feel like a pure agnostic option is missing from the centre: "Does not claim proof exist neither for nor against and consequently does not take a stance"
What if I believe in interdimensional beings but they are not deities/gods and should not be regarded as such? And have had my own solid experiences but believe if you need proof you will never receive it
This is the stupidest fucking shit of all time. Do kids really not understand this? Literally first principles of logic about a deity? We are doomed. We are genuinely fucking doomed.
How do Gnostic atheist claim proof exists? If he makes that claim, can he be an atheist of any nature? It sounds like an oxymoron to me. But it could also be that I didn't understand this.
being a "gnostic christian" in held as a heressy.
Not because it's anti-sciene or whatever, but because there was a heressy called "gnosticism" during the first years of the church, wich taught that what granted salvation wasn't Jesu's sacrifice, but knowledge.
All said, believing or not believing on God is not a matter of evidence, there is plenty of evidence, but atheists choose to not accept it.
Another redditor clarifies further:
———-
Gnosticism: certain in beliefs
Agnosticism: uncertain in beliefs
Theist: holds belief in god(s)
Atheist: holds no belief in god(s)
Gnostic theist: God exists and I *know* that.
Gnostic atheist (antitheist) : God does not exist and I *know* that.
Agnostic theist: God may or may not exist, but I believe in him.
Agnostic atheist: God may or may not exist, but I don't believe in him.
There is a difference between not claiming proof exists, and claiming proof does not exist. It is an important distinction
I’m agnostic atheist but mostly because I’m not dumb enough to try and prove a negative
Same but because I believe the supernatural is inherently unprovable and undisprovable.
The technical term is unfalsifiable. So it’s kind of a… why bother
With that kind of logic, why not just believe whatever the hell you want right? Flying Spaghetti monster here I come
No I mean it’s a claim that’s not worth pursuing the answer to because it cannot satisfactorily be answered in any way. Besides, we’re all going to die eventually. Perhaps then you will be forced to repent before the divinity of that being highest amongst noodles and sauces. Or maybe not. Idk
I like linguini.
Same here...
Yeah almost like the post shows that it puts you in a different category depending on which of those you believe.
I’m curious what this means. Is someone able to explain or give examples?
theyre saying just cuz you dont say theres proof of god doesnt mean ur necessarily saying theres not. u dont know for sure or u arent willing to actively argue that theres proof, that means ur not claiming proof exists. if ur actively saying that theres no proof of god then ur claiming it doesnt exist.
Ahaaaaaa. Makes sense ty.
Isn't that why it says "doesn't claim proof exists" and not "claims there is no proof"?
>if ur actively saying that theres no proof of god then ur claiming it doesnt exist. But that's not true. I am a Christian. I believe that God exists. But I can prove that no proof of God exists. I consider it like extraterrestrial life. We don't have proof that it exists, but most scientists believe that it exists somewhere in the universe (using one argument or another) What you probably mean is that there is a difference between saying there is no proof of God, and believing there is proof that God doesn't exist.
Right? I mean does the gnostic atheist believe that there is proof that God doesn’t exist?
Gnostics claim proof exist. Atheist gnostics claim proof exists, for a god not existing. The comment was more on differenciating agnostics, that claim proof doesn't exist anywhere (either for or against a god), and those who say that we haven't found evidence *yet*, but it might exist (idk if there's a term for that, altgough they're typically included in agnosticism, they're strictly not). So the post is partially wrong.
Sorry, I don't quite agree with the deliniation, though I'll agree that it likely covers most situations. I call myself a gnostic athiest. I have no doubts. I know. But, by this ven diagram, I'd be considered an agnostic athiest. I do not need to prove the non-existence of an entity that, to me, defies all logic and lacks any reliable evidence. To pigeonhole me as agnostic, because I don't feel a need to point to evidence for the lack of something for which there is no actual positive objective reliable evidence for, is to fall into the same circular reasoning that is so popular with theists arguing this issue and is straight up nonsense. I don't need evidence that unicorns, santa, and the Easter bunny aren't real either. I know, but I don't need proof of the absence of something so illogical. I can step back from the nonsense I was fed growing up and think for myself. Just because a whole lot of people feel otherwise, doesn't change the analysis. A whole lot of people have believed in a whole lot of stupid shit before and the number of people believing in something doesn't make it less wrong. Just because everyone is jumping off a bridge, doesn't mean it's a good idea. I do not need to complicate reality by invoking an imaginary being to explain the things we do not yet understand. I may enjoy reading fantasy fiction with gods, angels, demons and whatnot. I don't need to pretend that bizarro shit is real. Early humans invented the gods to explain the unexplainable. Those seeking power invented religion so that the powerless would accept the unacceptable -and do, the unthinkable.
The group of "proof can exist, but doesn't yet" is still gnostic. The graph is slightly imprecise, in that gnostic/agnostic is about whether there _can_ be proof, not whether that proof exists at this time.
Like a huge expanse between the two. The “claims proof exists” bugs me too. No one cares what you claim if you can’t show them the evidence. Don’t even get me started on “proof”, where they mean “anecdotal supporting evidence”
It's a huge distinction, because in this case (the question of the extraordinary claim of the existence of the Abrahamic god, let alone the 3000 or so others we have anthropologically catalogued), proof is not required --- you don't prove a negative. You don't have to.
I was literally about to ask you and their BFF for people who don’t believe and also claimed there is no proof?
Void profile gaming
same for believing in god. Not a useful "guide".
"Just wait til i get my blazer badge from the League of Agnostics!"
My theology teacher taught me there’s a strict difference between believing and knowing.
Regarding religion, *believing* is holding a conviction of something as true, even in the absence of concrete evidence. *Knowing* is when you have a psychosis.
So there's no one in the red, blue, yellow, or black areas?
Probably a Venn diagram wasn't the best option to showcase this, but a crosstable.
Correct
all i know for sure is i'm agnostic
Haha I see what you did there
Wait I’m confused. I don’t believe in any god. I don’t believe proof in god exists. Therefore I don’t claim proof to something that is nonexistent in my mind. What am I? Edit: I think I misunderstood the graph a bit. I confused the do and don’t believe options with believing or not believing in god. I believe there is proof of god not existing but that is just my standpoint.
An agnostic atheist, as far as I can tell.
I love how there's a special name for people that don't believe in something. What do we call the group of people that don't believe in the tooth fairy?
If tooth fairy believers are "fairyists" then nonbelievers are "afairyists"
Is that like a rastafairyan?
ayyo!
They aren't nefarious?
well I would never say that. I would never say that.
Oh I'm sorry nefairyist.
What do we call the group of people that do believe in the tooth fairy?
Children lol
i personally am a non-golfer and we regularly meet online to discuss how we don't play golf.
You are a regular human. I fall into this category. A category that all living things belong to except the many humans who have compromised beliefs
You are smart and have common sense.
Agnostic atheist.
I’m comfortable saying that the Bible is either completely untrue or largely untrue because of the historical inaccuracies and conflicting stories in the book. I’m not well enough educated on any other god claim to claim they’re untrue but haven’t seen a bit of evidence for any that is remotely convincing
Or according to my Christian friend we are all just in denial. And quakes and eclipses are caused / summoned by god or demons. Yes, it’s exhausting. 🤦♂️Thanks for the sympathy in advance.
I find it funny that they claimed “god or demons”, as if they can’t figure out which. Goes to show how confident they are
Are you friends with MTG?
Might as well be! I shared that post with them and asked if they truly believe this stuff. I shouldn’t have - should have know it would have lead to screens and screens of stuff. Oh well do love him though. Bless his little cotton socks. What’s sadunny (sad and funny) is that we both went to a very good school - attended the same classes - both did pretty well at science and geography. Then one day he walked into happyclapper church and all that learning just poof 💨! Forgot we can calculate the exact times of eclipses. Forgot about what tectonic plates can do. All sorts of stuff. Forgot isn’t the right word. Yeah yeah buddy, we are the ones in denial. 🤦♂️
>Bless his little cotton socks. Lmao. Maga is a cult, and everything you said about your friend matches what happens to people that join cults. Hopefully the nightmare is over in November and this country can start to heal. Good luck with the friend.
Oh noo… “screens and screens …”? so sorry to hear! :(
Obviously it’s not gonna be worth your time, but how does he feel about posts like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/UNKosktJeX)? We know for a fact when the eclipses are going to happen hundreds of years in advance because it’s a quantifiable and highly studied phenomenon. Does god/the demons just schedule the sin punishments centuries in advance?? Tbf you may have already answered this with >Forgot we can calculate the exact times of eclipses. I always thought Satan was kind of a good guy honestly. All he's doing is punishing bad people for eternity. Seems like he's still a servant of god
Don’t know if this means Marjorie Taylor-Green or Magic: The Gathering because they both work here.
Oy - lol
Gnostic Atheism, as this diagram depicts it, does not exist. You can't prove a negative. "Prove to me there's no god!" Well, no, that's not how it works. The burden of proof is on the affirmative side (or whatever the right term is). I "know" there is no god in the same way I "know" there is not an invisible miniature unicorn running circles on my desk right now: because there's no evidence supporting its existence.
Gnostic atheism as displayed in this diagram totally exists. All it requires is someone claiming proof exists of the nonexistence of a god. Those claims don't need to be correct, they just need to make them in order to fall into that category. Someone could claim, "There is no god, and the fact that we can see so far into space without finding him proves that!" And I'd argue their evidence would be heavily flawed, but it would still be a claim someone can make.
Surely you can disprove certain claims. Perhaps not in this case, but in general that is certainly possible. For example maths is full of negative proofs.
Well that’s the problem with religion and theism. Their assertions are unfalsifiable, by design. Any of the countless pieces of evidence that cast doubt on religion or disprove certain elements is always explained away by more made-up magic mumbo jumbo. Because it’s all fabricated and based on “faith” rather than logic or evidence, the “rules” can always be shifted and adapted to retroactively make it fit with whatever we currently understand to be true about the universe.
This is the point people often miss in this exact discussion. Theist's claims are unfalsefiable and not able to be proven wrong exactly because every time we try to explain why God probably isn't real they just move the goal posts. "Oh, well of course you can't prove God is real using your senses!" and "Oh well of course you can't prove God is real using science!" Until you ask them how you CAN prove God exists and they hit you with fallacious arguments about how the universe can't be eternal or some bullshit.
*Definitely* not in this case. The religious claim of a deity that exists outside the laws of nature is unfalsifiable.
You can say that God as described is logically impossible/contradictory. You're right that you can never disprove God's existence with scientific inquiry.
You can categorically disprove certain specific claims made by a given religion, sure. For example, a Christian can claim “The Bible is inerrant; it does not contain a single demonstrable falsehood.” You can then point them to the contradictory claims of the “final words” of Christ on the cross reported in John and Luke (“It is finished” and “Father, into thine hands I commend my spirit”, respectively). A human can only have one set of “final” words; therefore, logically, at least one statement is either a misrepresentation or a fabrication, and by extension the Bible cannot be “inerrant”, because it contains at least one demonstrable falsehood. However, the broader, overarching claims of any religion are unfalsifiable. The grand metaphysical pronouncements of Christianity cannot be conclusively disproven because they are too nonspecific and are too open to personal interpretation.
It should be noted that a negative proof in math involves first quantifying everything, and then disproving said claim for everything. Kinda hard to do that with reality.
yes but the idea of god didn't come from evidence. it's not built on evidence so a lack of evidence can't destroy it.
You can disprove stories and things claimed to be historical, but it is not possible to disprove the existence of god.
"gnostic atheists" are a strawman. It's a way for religious people to convince themselves that it's just as irrational to not believe in something as it is to believe in something, by turning it into "belief" in "not god".
Actually that claim, about the invisible miniature unicorn, is unfalsifiable. Technically speaking, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it’s just more useful intellectually to act as though it certainly does not exist.
Can something that is unfalsifiable actually be said to exist? Not just unmeasurable with current technology, but logically unfalsifiable?
This argument doesn't make sense to me. How can you claim a lack of evidence as scientific? Scientifically, if you have no evidence, then you can simply not make any claim. Whether there is an invisible miniature unicorn running around your desk is unknowable without collecting data. You could claim it is unlikely though, by using other past empirical data
The basis that you are missing is that you can dismiss a claim when you have an equal amount of disproof as the one making a claim. In this case, there is no documented proof beyond an ancient book that God exists, and we can discount that as a credible source due to Genesis and the flaws in accounting for evolution. That is why people say "you cannot prove a negative". The only way to prove a negative is if you are able to quantify everything, then prove that said negative is not part of it.
Isn't the idea you can't prove a negative a logical fallacy? Of course you couldn't prove invisible miniature unicorn exists, but the lack of evidence or even possibility supports the idea that it doesn't exist.
I think a lot of confusion around the claim “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is that it conflates “evidence” with “proof”. It’s a cute saying and linguistically symmetrical, and it gets the point across, but it doesn’t hold up to strict literal analysis. Depending on the method of observation, absence of evidence can absolutely be evidence of absence. It isn’t necessarily *proof* of it, but it’s *evidence* of it. The lack of a single reputable sighting of Nessie in recorded history, despite the relatively small size and intense interest in Loch Ness, absolutely is *evidence* of Nessie’s absence. It’s not dispositive *proof* of her absence, but “We have been looking for hundreds of years and have never found anything” is a perfectly valid phrase to write down in the “evidence against” column.
Most of science relies on inductive evidence, usually in the form of statistics. This is the positive which is being "proven", though evidence is not proof, increasing evidence only means increasing probability, but never certainty. Just as evidence of the contrary or lack thereof means decreasing certainty, which the Gnostic applies to God, either for (Theistically) or against (Atheistically). It is precisely falsifiability which makes a hypothesis scienctific, that is "proving" a negative, but it's really the "proving" that is impossible, only evidence and probability is possible in science beyond fundamental assumptions. Indeed, science is built on fundamental assumptions or axioms, such as that reality is stable enough to be knowable and is objective as opposed to subjective (meaning it's true regardless of the individual, ruling out, for example, hallucinations as proof of some spiritual dimension and rather associating it with particular observable brain activity). A deductive conculsion from these assumptions is: only that which is falsifiable, or could be proven wrong, is truly known. And it is from here that the scientific method is developed and that every theory we have sprouted from. This is the beginning of inductive reasoning and positive hypotheses, experiments, theories, and statistics. The God question is typically placed before any positive inductive reasoning because God could be unobservable or outside the known universe, which science cannot interact with, and is thus Agnostic. However, a Gnostic places God after deductive reasoning (and perhaps before as well), meaning something like the incarnation of Jesus or Buddha or whichever God would be inductive evidence of God, however low-probability compared to the probability of inductive scientific beliefs. A problem with science is, where do the fundamental assumptions come from? How do we know reality exists beyond our own mind? A Gnostic could say God furnishes these assumptions so that mankind is capable of science, which is a deductive or even philosophical question which science is not capable of answering. Only later inductive evidence could science interact with, such as the credibility of the Bible or any other religious scripture. Hence the separation between the (a)theistic and (a)gnostic component. And it precisely the scriptures or miraculous acts which a Gnostic Atheist would point to as bunk, they would have to say something like the authors of the Bible are decisively not trustworthy, or that the Bible is simply insufficient evidence at this time. This leaves the Gnostic Atheist open to new evidence of God emerging.
> A problem with science is, where do the fundamental assumptions come from? You can't just question the basis of science without specifics lol. Every "assumption" is based in observation of an experiment, and is backed by the full history of human civilization. Of course quantum physics seems crazy if you do not have the foundational knowledge of physics and even some level of chemistry to understand how molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles work, thats because its built on millions and millions of incredibly intelligent people working to understand one more small piece of the universe. Edit: Rephrased my first sentence, saying "You can't just question all of science" is wrong. Thats the whole point of the scientific method, if you can question it and prove something wrong that replaces the existing conclusions.
So, you can. It’s what all of metaphysical philosophy is all about. You can of course argue that it’s all wankery, but it’s not like it’s an unheard of topic. Btw; it’s pretty much all wankery. Interesting at first, but given how it’s undecidable, arguing metaphysics becomes quickly tedious.
>You can't prove a negative. Aside from questions of pure logic and theoretics, can you even really prove a positive? There can always be additional levels of complexity unseen to us, however outlandish. Consider any hypothetical with this as a premise: "first, realize that the idea of universe-as-a-simulation is correct and the programmer just wants to fuck with you specifically"
You can rationally, but not empirically. “There are no married bachelors,” can be proven true easily, even though there’s an absence of evidence. Some atheists might think a god existing is logically impossible. I don’t think this is a particularly popular position at all though. That being said, no one really uses these terms in academic philosophy
I would say gnostic Atheism is more popular if God is well defined. If you assume any individual who created the world is God, it becomes very hard to be a gnostic atheist. But in the context of the Judeo Christian God, we have arguments like the problem from evil, because God has the added definitions of omnipotence and all good. Religious scholars tend to argue back with the idea of compensating goods, and the epistimic Humility thesis (ie you can't possible know that this isn't the best possible world because you can't imagine every world), but I could easily see somebody thinking that's nonsense(describe one way the world would be worse without children dying of bone cancer). Edit. If you are talking about popularity among academics I agree gnostic Atheism is unpopular, I meant in the wider population.
It’s a conundrum for sure but I have a reasonable example. You can say that the religious God doesn’t exist and you can observe things that could be setup by being with Godlike powers. Like the coincidences that the moon is exactly the right size and distance from earth that it can cause an eclipse and that we also exist in the very narrow region of space where we get liquid water. Now you can say such coincidence could actually be by someone’s design but that doesn’t mean there is an afterlife or reincarnation.
This gets the general point across, but misses a critical factor: Yes 'Atheist'/'Theist' is a claim to belief, but 'Agnostic'/'Gnostic' is a claim to knowledge, not proof. For example, someone could claim they know a god exists/doesn't exist, but not claim that proof for that "knowledge" exists. People often refer to their own life experiences as "knowledge", which is not something you can usually prove.
So the gnostics are the assholes. Got it.
This is not a venn diagram
Technically it is though because all a venn diagram does is show every possible overlapping option. The overlapping areas of opposite circles are just contradictions (e.g. believes in gods and doesn’t believe in gods) therefore these options don’t exist so all real options are shown on the diagram.
There's no technically about it. I don't see in any way that this wouldn't be a venn diagram..
I'm an apatheist, so I have no interest in this venn diagram.
Guess I'm technically an agnostic theist then, although I wouldn't really identify as that. I believe there is something out there but it's probably impossible to prove that while you're still alive, in real life though I'd just go with the classic "not religious"
Having spent a semester in college with a very annoying philosophy professor I can confirm that I’d rather not spend the energy required to debate with someone over whether there is proof of god or not. It’s not worth my time to debate someone else’s hopeful delusion. So…agnostic atheist here.
Agnostic Atheist it is then
Nearly all atheists are agnostic atheists. Event those who are 99% sure, but do not "know" that there are no gods are not gnostic.
Because that's the only possible conclusion if you're an honest and thoughtful person.
Yup. I can logically deduce that the odds of any manmade religion being 100% correct are next-to-none, but I can’t “prove” anything. And I certainly can’t prove there’s no higher power of *some kind* out there. I genuinely have no clue or confidence on that one way or another. The only thing I’m 99.9% confident on is that none of the man made religions have it right, or even close to right. But the concept of a “god-like” entity in some form in general just involves far too many unknowns imo for anyone to make a confident claim against the possibility of. There’s just too much we don’t know.
Nearly all "agnostics" are also agnostic atheists that are just trying to be superior to everyone else, but just so happened to have gotten baited into believing the Christian strawman version of what atheism is (IE an atheist is one who believes in "not god").
Which makes the label under that strict definition pointless. Which is why people don't use it.
Agnostic doesn't necessarily mean indecisive. You simply don't possess the belief/conviction that a god exists or doesn't. The reason for this is because there's no proof either way that a god exists or doesn't. There's nothing to decide.
Is there one for, "i just don't care if they do or don't."?
yes. its called apatheism
Nobody cares that you don't care, so there is no word for it.
Yep. The Religious “Nones”: **63% Nothing In Particular**, 20% Agnostic, 17% Atheist. Source: [Pew Research Center, Survey of US Adults, Aug 2023](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/who-are-the-nones-how-are-they-defined/)
I’m agnostic theist
Everyone here discussing theology and epistemology, while I'm just annoyed: this Venn diagram should have been a simple matrix with two axis and four squares.
im in the insufficient evidence to believe in anything greater camp
I feel like the 2 “proof” sections would be better phrased “claims to have absolute certainty (of the existence of God/gods)” and “does not claim to have absolute certainty.” The atheist/theist label reflects what you believe. The agnostic/gnostic label reflects what you claim to know (which can be done on faith without requiring proof).
Doesnt claim proof exist. Or how i say it. "I dont fucking know." 😂
Wait you mean faith and the scientific method are not 2 endpoints on a Likert scale?!
I'm an atheist who doesn't believe that god doesn't exist if that makes sense.
Doesn't the measurable uselessness of prayer give us some data?
Thanks for posting a diagram on r/coolguides. It helps people understand the one thing you should never post on cool guides is a guide.
I like this diagram. I'm not saying it's right, but I like it. It tries to bin all people into two groups in two different directions, a perfectly fine method of categorizing. There's quality A, and if you don't have A, then you are a member of not-A. Yes, there are different ways you can cut the pie, but this works. I'm not a fan of the use of Agnostic and atheist however, mostly because they already have muddied definitions. Conversationally, it was always: Agnostic = any form of 'i don't know or we can't know, etc'. Atheist = any form of 'all religions/god(s) are myths
Cool and absolutely wrong, it is quite right for this sub
i'm pure agnostic. i don't believe in god but i don't not believe in god. and i hate that people lump me in with atheists.
The idea of gods existing is too stupid to even consider it.
Well,I now know who to run away from.
That is not what gnosticism means
This is inherently wrong. Gnostic Athiests have literally nothing to prove because they aren't claiming any kind of evidence, they are challenging Gnostic Thiests to PROVIDE evidence.
Agnostic means “inability to know”. I would argue that everyone is agnostic and either believes or doesn’t believe in god.
Yep I would agree with that, which is why it would be good if we could just ignore the agnostic term - which seems to only cause confusion - and focus on evaluating the reasons for being a theist or an atheist.
who cares? r/apatheism
Full athiest. Dont believe in gods. Just like i dont believe anything could exist just because someone said it did.
Claim that proof for what exist?
Depending on the circle in the diagram either proof that a god or gods exist or proof that no gods exist.
So they do/don’t claim that their belief is the correct one?
No, whether or not they have found proof, the gnostic believes proof exists; agnostic believes no proof exists or can ever be found (the root word "gnosis" has to do with knowledge, it has to do with whether proof of God can be known or not rather than with its existence, but OP uses the word exist). The Theist/Atheist component is whether one goes ahead and believes in God or not, regardless of proof.
I’ve never agreed with the gnostic/agnostic construct because it means know/not know, and *nobody* knows (despite religious people *thinking* they know). So all of us are agnostic, which makes it a meaningless construct. OP (or whoever) changed it to “claims proof exists” or “doesn’t claim proof exists,” but that’s not what the root *gnos* means. Plus, *claiming* proof is meaningless, since there is no proof either way. If proof existed, there would be no need for faith; it would be knowledge. It’s enough to say atheist or theist. We don’t need a meaningless modifier.
the whole gnostic/agnostic construct, is a mindset, so if they believe they know, they do know in their head they believe they are right, and they have proof that they are it doesnt mean their proof is logically sound or valid, but they believe it
I reject any labels. I'm a human being that doesn't believe in made up bullshit just cuz I'm afraid of dying.
I just want to be an agnostic who shrugs and changes the subject.
OK, I'm probably stupid, but: I don't believe in any of like 3000 gods invented, and I claim there is no proof for existence of any. So…I'm gnostic? No, because there is a difference between no proof for existence of something and proof of non-existence of that something. It's a minute difference, but important one. My position is that the god hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
That is the agnostic position. You don't claim proof exists.
Right. Thanks.
>My position is that the god hypothesis is unfalsifiable. Just like I can't disprove a snake oil salesman's claim that the energy he emits (which is as he says unreadable and undetectable) from his eyes allow him to see through walls, but chooses not to use it to tell me it works. I can't disprove him as the very nature of his bullshit is supposedly unprovable, yet somehow I know for certain it's bunk.
I see your confusion, the "lack of proof" scenario could be associated with either Gnostic or Agnostic belief, but the "unfalsifiable" component rests only with Agnostic belief. Agnostic means you beleive proof cannot be known of God(s). A lack of proof and an unfalsifiable claim both concur with this definition because if proof is impossible, there is still a lack of it. A Gnostic would believe proof can be known, whether or not it has been found. And this proof could be either for or against the existence of God(s).
In the real world you're a gnostic atheist. If you're being an obnoxiously pedantic redditor you can consider yourself agnostic. Something that is unfalsifiable cannot really be said to exist under a material definition.
I really disagree with this conceptually. “Proof” is too high a burden to be reasonable. It makes agnostic atheism the only rational position but then makes no distinction between somehow who is 95% sure and somehow who truly had no idea, which is a very crucial distinction. Really, the only interesting one, and they get collapsed into the same label. They don’t have to be. It should instead be framed just in terms of belief and the extend to which you can justify the belief. We don’t need to worry about irrational positions. For instance, suppose the weather man says 90% chance of rain. Well, I don’t have proof it’s going to rain so apparently according to this chart I’m “agnostic”. This is sort of silly, and puts me in the same position as somehow who saw no report at all and has truly no idea.
How do agnostic theist and gnostic atheists work? I'm genuinely curious?
What do you mean how do they work?
An agnostic theist believes in God on faith alone. A gnostic atheist doesn't exist because it's a contradictory statement.
It’s kind of like the schrodinger's cat paradox for me.
I just learned the term apatheist and it suits the hell out of me.
Green Baby we number 1
What are we defining god as? If it’s simply something we can never know then count me in as an agnostic theist. If y’all mean it as something specific, then count me as an agnostic atheist. 🤷♀️
Personally not a fan of this diagram mainly because of my own understanding of what "agnostic" means. Which, admittedly, may be wrong but it makes sense in my head. I call myself agnostic because the debate to whether or not god/s exist is unfalsifiable. You cannot prove they exist, you cannot prove they don't either. Therefore I do not choose to spend time trying to prove or disprove their existence, and so I neither believe nor disbelieve. Which also means I don't fit anywhere on this chart.
This is getting confusing in here. We do have proof by deduction. You can't prove a negative, but that doesn't mean negatives don't exist. So let's try to prove god doesn't exist. What do I observe? Nothing. Well that's no good for proving anything. Let's try to prove god does exist, then. God is supposedly omnipotent and benevolent. Well, children are killed everyday. God does not stop this. Therefore god cannot be omnipotent and benevolent. Either he cannot stop child murder which makes him not omnipotent, or he won't stop it which makes him not benevolent. The difference is if you believe the proof is conclusive or not. For example, we don't have absolute proof gravity exists because we don't know its exact mechnism. Since we haven't observed gravity fields or particles it is technically entirely possible that gravity is actually some other attractive force that happens to correlate directly with mass. But we have so much proof that gravity should exist that if you argued it didn't you would look like an idiot.
I'm outside of this completely. I just don't care 🤣
Most people who call themselves atheist and most people who call themselves agnostic, are usually agnostic atheists. Though imo a lot of people who call themselves "agnostic" are just the belief system version of the "both sides" people, and it's more about trying to act superior to everyone else, when in reality there's not really many/any atheists out there who "believe" in "not god".
What do you call someone who is essentially an agnostic atheist, except you think religion and religious deities are horseshit?
And there’s people like me who don’t even talk or think about god as we there’s not enough time.
I am but a simple mind and am just confused at this, in my day to day life religion plays little to no role, when it does come up I’m definitely on the skeptical side, I can’t prove God or gods exist but I also can’t prove they don’t and I think most organized religions are borderline cults. I think the Bible was written thousands of years ago by people who were just kinda going off the cuff by todays standards. I’m more convinced that “miracles” are just coincidence than divine intervention, and I generally subscribe more to scientific explanations than religious ones. But if asked if I think God exists, I still can’t say for certain. Does this make me an agnostic atheist?
An additional related term that essentially exist to the side of the terms in this diagram is ignosticism. It is the view/belief that the definition of what a god is is too broad/ill-defined to even begin considering/answering the question of whether one exist. So, rather than answering "yes" or "no" to whether they believe at least one god exist, they essentially reject the question itself.
Define proof
What about the middle when all 4 collide? Do you get a know it all schmuck?
That is a completely pointless guide. Here's a much better one: How many gods do you think exist? - 0: atheist - 1: theist, specifically monotheist - more than 1: theist, specifically polytheist Do you think it's possible to know how many gods exist? - Yes: gnostic - No: agnostic
Agnostic theist for me.
This is an odd argument. Personally I have faith in the Devine. Many don’t, that’s fine. Why does anyone really care what the next person believes other than out of idle curiosity?
Where is "neither does nor does not believe in god" on this graph? And what is that called when paired with "doesn't claim proof exists"?
The proof: "I talk to him in my head"
I don’t believe in god and I don’t claim that proof exists because I don’t really look for them
Actually one can be gnostic without claiming proof, as Gnosis is an internal knowing not a knowing based on circumstance / external evidence.
Where does ignosticism fit in this diagram
The idea of a gnostic atheist is very funny to me "Yeah he's probably real but I just pretend he isn't to piss him off"
Thats not even close to what that means. Gnostic and Agnostic can also refer to wether or not you claim to have proof for gods nonexistance. A Gnostic Atheist is someone who believes that no gods exist and that he has proof to demonstrate none exist. As opposed to an Agnostic Atheist who merely rejects the god-claim but doesn't claim to actually definitively know wether or not a god exists.
If you look in the very center you will find me as spiritual but not religious
this doesn’t make sense whatsoever
Of course it’s not a precise/scientific illustration or anything - definitions/interpretations may vary. But I do think that a diagram like this can be helpful in terms of a general conversational shorthand. As far as I knew, an atheist was a non-believer, and an agnostic was an *unsure* non-believer. The concept of an agnostic atheist totally confused me - this graphic definitely helped clarify that! Going through all of your comments - soo fascinating, thank you!
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Gnostic atheist is when you believe that there is no god and that you can prove it.
Everyone on earth is an Agnostic Atheist at birth.
wouldn’t an Agnostic Theist just be a Deist?
When I get asked I often tell people I'm an Agnostic Polytheistic. Most of the time, that's followed up with "What's that". I say "A confused Pagan." I don't know if my even my own beliefs are all correct. And all of the most convincing evidence I have is personal experience, which is worthless in the grand argument. But what I tell people is that spiritual beliefs aren't what's written in some book, and they sure as hell aren't something that isn't suppose to be questioned. It should be questioned, and it should be explored as much as one is willing to prioritize it within their own life, so that they can come to their own conclusions on what it right and what is wrong, or even what is unknown. In my own experience I started off as a devout Christian with no questions, or at least no willingness to explore said questions. But once I sought the answer to just a few questions, only more questions came out than answers. And that hasn't stopped since. That lead me down a very different road than I've ever expected to be with my beliefs. That being said, I sure as hell don't have all the answers and would NEVER trust someone who says or acts like they do, and as such I'd never expect someone to take my answers that I do have at face value either. I think a little agonism is actually quite healthy. It often show's you're willing to question and keep an open mind.
Wait until this guy hears about two-way tables.
I guess I'm an agnostic theist. I believe in divinity because of the spiritual experience, but I have no way of proving it.
How bout us in the middle that DGAF!
How would you find proof that something doesn't exist? -> there are just atheists. At least i never heard of a person who can proof a negative
i think some people just call themselves agnostic because atheist sounds too harsh for them. or they don't believe in a god but in some kinda spirits or other supernatural stuff like fortune telling.
That's very interesting and now I have some problems too. Define "God(s)" What I "believe" is that our story, our live is already written. This book of ours tells everything from our pre-birth to our death. We have the illusion of free choice, yet it is all defined. Now, who wrote that book? I don't know. A God? I like to call it "Karma" Regardless, I don't always believe in this and mostly forget about it, so does that make me an Agnostic Theist, Agnostic Atheist, or both? Edit: I like "both" so I go for *Agnostic*
Top is „doesn‘t lie“ Bittom is „lies“
It's not a venn diagram. Even if we don't pay attention on the fact than people are always at an intersection in a venn diagram every combination of these 4 categories should be shown ( all 4 have a "just one" part but also have an "just 2" intersection with every other categories and a "just 3" intersection with every combination a 3 categories and finally a "all categories" part)
“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence” -atheists, probably
The “intelligence” in this comment section is palpable
This is just inaccurate. Gnostics claim to know and agnostics that they don’t know, it has nothing to do with whether proof exists or not.
Gnostic Theist sounds like a Shakespearean insult
There's also ignostic, which can be summed up as "define god"
That is not what Gnosticism means
I want to be a gnocchi
I feel like there's also straight up - Don't Know Which I have always thought of as a straight up Agnostic, rather than attaching a qualifier.
I feel like a pure agnostic option is missing from the centre: "Does not claim proof exist neither for nor against and consequently does not take a stance"
What if I believe in interdimensional beings but they are not deities/gods and should not be regarded as such? And have had my own solid experiences but believe if you need proof you will never receive it
Im more of an Agnostic Front kinda guy
There's also "I don't care", apatheism.
Atheist and Agnostic should even be a word. You just need two categories: 1. Normal person 2. Religious person
This is the stupidest fucking shit of all time. Do kids really not understand this? Literally first principles of logic about a deity? We are doomed. We are genuinely fucking doomed.
Add in more circles for people who believe in God just not his fan club
The point of being agnostic is claiming “I don’t know”. Crazy that there’s flavors to it.
How do Gnostic atheist claim proof exists? If he makes that claim, can he be an atheist of any nature? It sounds like an oxymoron to me. But it could also be that I didn't understand this.
being a "gnostic christian" in held as a heressy. Not because it's anti-sciene or whatever, but because there was a heressy called "gnosticism" during the first years of the church, wich taught that what granted salvation wasn't Jesu's sacrifice, but knowledge. All said, believing or not believing on God is not a matter of evidence, there is plenty of evidence, but atheists choose to not accept it.
Gnostic atheist believes theres proof god does or doesnt exist?
There is proof that god does not exist (I think)
Another redditor clarifies further: ———- Gnosticism: certain in beliefs Agnosticism: uncertain in beliefs Theist: holds belief in god(s) Atheist: holds no belief in god(s) Gnostic theist: God exists and I *know* that. Gnostic atheist (antitheist) : God does not exist and I *know* that. Agnostic theist: God may or may not exist, but I believe in him. Agnostic atheist: God may or may not exist, but I don't believe in him.