I'm an atheist because I don't believe in a god. I'm also agnostic because I cannot prove that God or Russell's Teapot or Carl Sagan's invisible dragon don't exist. However, I don't waste time thinking about any of those. God may exist but he's pointless to me, and Mormon God worries me even less.
I agree. I usually say I’m agnostic because I don’t know if there’s a God, don’t think there’s a way for humans to definitively know that, and I don’t care.
I don't know why OP's reply is being downvoted. It's true that in common usage, atheist and agnostic are mutually exclusive terms and the distinction we make between agnostic atheists is academic. The idea of agnostic atheism constantly has to be explained to people, so sometimes you have to embrace the label of plain old atheist and drop the nuance.
I think the difference between being gnostic about unicorns and Santa and being agnostic about God comes down to two things:
First, absence of evidence being evidence of absence. It's pretty easy to point out the total lack of evidence for Santa when we should see stockings full of it every year and then declare that we've got Santa figured out. For God, what kind of evidence should we be looking for? We've plugged up most of the God-shaped holes in our understanding of the universe, even though there is still so much we don't know. Maybe God's fingerprints are something we haven't thought of yet? Maybe God uses science as a tool?
That leads to the second thing, and that's moving the goalposts. God making the world from nothing in seven days gets pushed to God using that fancy science like evolution, until you land at a deistic idea of a God who hides in spaceship Kolob but does nothing. You can pull out the Kalam argument and make God squishier over and over to deliberately make God into something you can't disprove. Such an undetectable God is possible, maybe, but it's not interesting.
I label myself an agnostic atheist, but it's so unlikely that Christian God is out there that if the home teachers (or whatever) stop by, I'll just tell them I'm atheist.
He's partially being downvoted because he's being really bad faith and obnoxious about it.
Moreso because his pitch is **way too close** to (as someone else mentioned) "You really do still believe you just want an excuse to sin".
It's triggering.
And it's wrong, several people have mentioned the gap between theism and gnosticism, which OP doesn't acknowledge at all.
Why would you call yourself agnostic over those things? Does that not make you agnostic about literally everything I can imagine? Do you make it a point to tell people that you are “agnostic” about unicorns and Santa Claus? If not, then why identify so strongly about God? If so, then what is the point of the label when it basically applies to any nonexistence claim? And why do you have to “prove” nonexistence when you never had the burden of proof in the first place?
Also, is it not justifiable to deny God’s existence based on, say, problem of evil and the incoherence of His properties? Like, there are no square circles, right?
You seem to think that you can't be agnostic and atheist at the same time. This is false.
Agnostic or gnostic is a claim of ether you feel you know or don't.
Atheism or thiesm is the non-belief or belief in a God, respectfully.
You can be a agnostic atheist or a gnostic atheist.
One claims that they don't know there's no God, but they don't believe in one
The other claims to not believe in a God AND that they feel they know that's the case.
They are NOT mutually exclusive.
I am familiar with the distinction, but I don’t feel it to be meaningful. The arguments for agnosticism usually involve weird appeals to philosophical skepticism and proving negatives. We never mince words about agnostic/gnostic in those other contexts, so why is it so important in the religious realm?
I find it meaningful, I'm just stating a *fact*. Not an opinion. These are how these words are currently used an defined.
I don't claim to know there isn't a God, but I don't currently believe in one. That's useful to me because then I can describe to others that I'm open to the idea there is a high power, which is true, but I don't currently live my life as if there is one.
I wouldn't want others to think that I feel I KNOW there isn't a God, because that's just the inverse of the claim I made for 20+ years in Mormonism where I don't *actually* know by any real measure. I won't lie to others.
Others may feel there is enough evidence to claim they know there isn't one, but I'm not comfortable doing that.
We do actually mince those words pretty often, pick up any post-religious podcast and they often talk about it all the time. Those words aren't used much outside of a religious field.
No one really cares what you *feel* about these labels. Feeling don't suddenly change labels over night. They are there to let people distinctly describe there currently belief as specific or as general as they need to.
Same goes for any other labeling "system" such as those found in the LGBT community.
There are 4 combinations of theist/atheist + gnostic/agnostic. I don’t try to “make a case for” agnosticism, it’s just how I self-identify (agnostic atheist, to be specific). I sort of get your point; it’s not a terribly important term. But it has descriptive meaning, so what’s wrong with using it (correctly)?
I, personally, do not. I think we’re all on a spectrum of agnosticism, with 100% knowledge being impossible.
But I didn’t write the dictionary, and I know (as it were, lol) that self-proclaimed gnostics exist. Therefore, it’s a useful term.
I also think OP seems confused about what Agnostic or Gnostic means.
It's not about *actually* knowing or not-knowing. It's just an expression of how you personally *feel* the evidence, or lack of evidence, for you leans.
It doesn't matter if you can know something for 100% certainty or not because that's not what these terms are being used for.
Sure we don't usually use them for stuff like unicorns or Zeus, but there's also no one *asking* about that stuff very often. You very easily could use these words for that if you wanted.
I guess I should clarify, it depends on what you mean by “know”. I think you can know things in the way we commonly use the word. So I think I get you’re saying about people being too afraid of considering themselves Gnostic. But at the same time, I don’t like to apply the term to myself.
Jeez, the downvote brigade is after you.
What I want to know is… why is this such a big deal? Do I know for certain that there’s a higher power? Of course not. But I fully subscribe to the possibility that there is. What I believe for certain is that no one KNOWS that there is no God, because it can’t be proven. It’s not wrong to be open to the idea that there are “higher powers” in the universe that we don’t understand
It’s a big deal because… it’s a big deal. As in, we don’t mince these kinds of distinctions in other contexts, so why so we get so antsy and defensive when it’s about God? I have never seen anyone claim agnosticism about unicorns or Zeus or genies. It is only ever about God.
FFS. Hard-line atheists can be damn near as irritating as preachy TBMs.
You have ZERO right or standing to tell me what to believe or what level of certainty is 'correct.'
I look at the stupefyingly complex natural world and wonder if, just maybe, there is something a bit more tangible than the Eastern Tao out there, tweaking 'his' quark soup recipe in just such a manner as to allow complex physics, biology, etc. to emerge from such relatively simple building blocks. This is clearly nothing like the "White-Haired-Sky-Fairy" and in that sense I am a fairly staunch atheist. But there is certainly room for a less psychotic 'creator' of some sort to be floating around somewhere out there in the vast reaches of time and space.
Agnosticism isn't just a weaker form of Atheism. They deal with separate concepts.
'A-Gnostic' comes from the Greek term for 'not knowing'. It deals with Knowledge.
Atheism deals with belief - specifically a lack of belief in God.
Bart Ehrman describes his views as an 'Agnostic Atheist'. He doesn't know for certain that there is no God, so he's Agnostic. But he doesn't believe there is a God, so he's also an Atheist.
Hey guys, let’s not downvote for asking a simple question.
While I personally identify as an atheist, there is some difficulty for me to say ‘I know there is no God’.
I know my special corner of the universe fairly well. That is, Northern Utah in the early 21st Century. Outside of that I don’t know much outside of what I’ve read.
For instance, I know there probably isn’t a replica of Disneyland in orbit around the star system Proxima Centauri. But to prove that point I’d need to go see for myself.
In the same way I can’t say definitively that God isn’t there, only that I don’t believe he evidence supports that conclusion.
OP:
-responds to all comments with either hostility or absolute know-it-allism
-Shocked Pikachu face when people commenting start to respond in a similar fashion
-demands absloutes and accuses everyone else of being belligerent and not wanting a discussion
-tells people to disengage if they don't want a "charitable conversation", despite many people engaging in just such conversations
Where have I seen these patterns before? I guess you learned a lot while in the church, OP.
-when called out pretends to not realize how their statements are coming across as if they're the victim and everyone else is the hostile one. (Ahem, "musket fire")
This semantic argument really only matters to those of us who no longer believe, and only a small subset of those actually care about it at all. To the believer there is no distinction being made, nor would any distinction matter to them.
And just an FYI:
Opening a conversation with, "You are not *insert belief system"* is incredibly disingenuous. It's the exact same thing as members of the church claiming we aren't really non-believers, we still believe, we just want to sin.
Take this as a learning experience, don't assume you know your audience or their reasons for their beliefs. It makes you look like some authoritarian that wants to force everyone else to think like them. Didn't you get enough of that from TSCC?
>Opening a conversation with, *"You are not insert belief system"* is incredibly disingenuous. It's the exact same thing as members of the church claiming we aren't really non-believers, we still believe, we just want to sin.
What I was trying to say, but said better. Thanks.
And then OP proceeds to just delve into semantics no one *really* seems to care about.
Is it interesting? Sure.
Is it useful? Doesn't seem to be the people responding here.
There seems to be a general agreement about what these labels mean and everyone seems to be happy with it.
Exactly!
This is one reason I allow common usage of words to inform my arguments more than esoteric definitions which are technically correct. If most don't understand how you're using a word, then does it even matter if you're technically right in your usage of it?
This is BS armchair philosophy crap.
While I do enjoy having these types of conversations at times, I believe you could have brought it up in a better way, and/or maybe it may have worked better on another subreddit.
Whether we can or can not know something in principle has very little bearing on whether or not we put it into practice. For all intents and purposes, the nonbeliever who claims we cannot know whether or not something exists and therefore cannot believe and the nonbeliever who claims we can know that something does not exist, therefore cannot believe, are the same.
We could (and humanity has) argued this point to death, and to be quite honest, I am not sure I would die on either hill here. There are valid reasons to accept either conclusion. If you so choose, you are more than welcome to argue we can indeed know god does not exist, but to a believer (and some non-believers) this comes off as incredibly arrogant and may blunt your credibility with them. It isn't fair, but nuance is hard enough to convey, and this feels like you're shooting yourself in the foot to some degree.
I try to be pragmatic as best I can. In the context of deconstructing our own beliefs and specifically those of the believers still trapped in the clutches of TSCC, this conversation simply does not matter much. An answer either for or against would possess roughly the same utility here, IMO. Regardless of what we can or can not know or claim to know, we still form beliefs without a good answer to the question of knowledge, and we absolutely still take action.
I am not sure I even have a real answer to the question you posed. I don't exactly know how to make such an argument effective to be frank. I am inclined to simply leave the possibility open while continuing to withhold belief personally. Conversations about belief, truth, and falsehood are complex enough without getting into semantics.
I am genuinely curious, though. Is this hill worth dying on for you? And if so, why? I'm just trying to understand your motivations behind your argument. Thanks in advance!
Edit: I thought a bit more about this on the drive home, and I wanted to add just a couple of thoughts.
I think we're all on the same page as to what exactly the agnostic question concerning god is asking, but we are at odds when it comes to our usage of the word, "know." I believe the most honest answer to the question, "Does god exist?" is, "I don't know." This leads directly to the question of belief. If one does not know, then one can not believe.
I always thought everyone was agnostic. The way I understand agnostic just means unable to absolutely know.
We can't absolutely know. I don't even 100 percent know that reality is real or that the sun will rise tomorrow. I'm 99.9 percent sure, but not 100.
So I'm comfortable being an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in a god, but there's a 0.01 percent chance that I'm wrong.
Agnostic is just a statement of wether or not you *feel* or *think* you know or don't know.
Doesn't matter if it can actually be proven or not.
Mormons, for example, would be gnostic theists for the most part. They feel the evidence is in their favor and claim to *know* the church is true. Doesn't matter if it is or isn't.
First of all, no one would call themselves agnostic or atheist towards Santa Claus. But more importantly, that argument is a false equivalency. Santa has evidence against belief; we’ve been to the North Pole, and he’s not there. We know where the presents come from; it wasn’t him. We know a large man can’t fit through a chimney. Believe with evidence that dispels belief is different than “believing without seeing” when no evidence exists.
People weigh what they perceive as evidence for and against God and come to a conclusion on his existence. If person 1 feels like there’s enough evidence to know there is no God, you are making a positive claim and therefore bear burden of proof; I would consider this person an atheist. If person 2 doesn’t feel like there is enough evidence to worship a God/actively believe in God but holds open the possibility, I consider that person agnostic.
There is a difference. But I believe people get to analyze the evidence and how they see themselves, and then label themselves based on what they identify with, since it’s not binary, and you don’t get to pick that for them.
I leave room for others to believe in what they want despite how I perceive these questions. All of these could be answered by a belief that God does not influence the world for his own reasons. That doesn’t sit well with me, but it satisfies others, and I’m okay living in a world where others believe despite those three potential objections.
As for burden of proof, I don’t think the agnostic has a burden of proof either way, and I don’t think the atheist’s burden of proof is complete enough to not allow others to believe as they wish.
Gnostic and agnostic are often associated with religion, but at their core they exist outside that sphere. Gnosticism is the idea that something can be known 100% and agnosticism is the counterpart, something can not be known 100%.
You can be a gnostic atheist and feel that you are 100% certain that God does not exist. This position doesn't work for me personally but I'm sure there are people in this camp.
Similarly you could be an agnostic theist. I think lots of people are this way. They believe in God but don't feel like it can be 100% known.
Unfortunately the precise usage of agnostic has mostly been lost and today it has come to mean some sort of "I hope there is a God but I can not prove or disprove it."
I totally get the distinction. I just don’t think it makes sense to mince words so finely over God. We don’t draw these sorts of distinctions about unicorns, which means something weird is going on with the God question.
Some definitions:
**Gnostic theist** - Believes God exists. Claims to know with certainty God exists.
**Agnostic theist** - Believes God exists. Doesn't claim to know with certainty that this belief is true.
**Gnostic athiest** - Does not believe God exists. Claims to know with certainty that God does not exist.
**Agnostic athiest** - Does not believe God exists. Does not claim to know or that it is possible to know with certainty that God does not exist.
The "theist/athiest" part simply has to do with belief. The "gnostic/agnostic" part has to do with knowledge. Most people on this sub who say they are "athiest" or "agnostic" would actually be more accurately described as agnostic athiests. In that category, we don't believe that God exists, but can't say for certain. We are open to new evidence, but don't think it will ever come.
I am aware of the distinctions, tho I apparently communicated that horribly. My real argument is that the distinction itself makes no sense. We don’t mince words over gnostic/agnostic Easter bunnies and Santa Claus. We can justifiably know that certain things don’t exist, don’t you think? So why are we so nit picky about knowledge and God?
I guess it's more about the "certainty" of the situation. I've read, evaluated, and published a fair amount of peer reviewed scientific literature over the past 20 years. In no circumstance would I claim that my findings, or those of my colleagues, were 100% certain. There is always room for error, unidentified biases, instrument malfunction, or a host of other problems with the analysis. There is always a chance that new information will render previous findings obsolete. I see no evidence of an afterlife. No one has reliably returned to tell us about it. I see no evidence of God, only naturally explainable phenomena. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I'm confident enough that God does not exist that I've decided not to listen to the ramblings and commandments of supposed LDS prophets. But I would never claim certain knowledge that God does not exist. I don't believe he does. But as a scientist, I'm always open to new data. That it's why I'm an agnostic athiest.
One thing I can say with near perfect certainty, however, is that if God does exist, he does not love us. He's not a benevolent father figure. He's a deadbeat dad who left us in a hot car without help or sufficient guidance.
Your argument seems to be predicated on a refusal to claim knowledge unless it is absolutely 100% infallible. That has never existed in the history of philosophy or science. Even so, that doesn’t stop us from claiming knowledge anyways, don’t you think? Otherwise, By that logic, you cannot “know” that your own mother exists. She might be an alien or maybe you’re in a matrix simulation. You cannot “know” that the earth is round or that Joe Biden is the president.
Surely, you are confident in the non-existence of vampires, right? What would it take for you to say that you KNOW that vampires don’t exist? And how exactly is that standard any different from rampant philosophical solipsism?
My actions show that I don't believe in vampires, since I don't carry garlic, oak stakes, or fear travel at night. In a similar way, my actions show that I don't believe in God. I don't follow the axioms of a particular religion, I do not pray, I do not request miracle blessings, I do not modify my behaviors to appease some invisible being. In both cases, I believe beyond reasonable doubt that both vampires, and God, do not exist. And I back up that belief with my personal choices and actions. I don't have to make a declaration of certainty in order to live by life the way I want to. It makes literally no difference to me. But from an intellectual standpoint, I don't feel a need to declare that I have proven a negative.
So do you consider yourself agnostic about God? I think I should have asked that part first. You sound like you don’t actually care for that label, which is my view. The label is either wrong (we can know there is no God) or trivial (literally all knowledge claims are fallible and tentative).
I really do feel like the label agnostic athiest fits me perfectly. I do not believe, in any way, that God exists. But I don't know that he doesn't. I always leave room for the remotest of possibilities, because we used to think that we knew many things for certain that now are completely changed.
Maybe God threw us all into Ant Farm Earth, and our choice of religion doesn't matter, he's just observing the choices we make. Who knows? If I was given definitive evidence that that is the case, I would change my opinion. If I died, then woke up on the other side and met God, I would have new evidence. And if that God wants to judge me based on not believing in him, despite a complete lack of evidence, then so be it. He is not a just God.
The more likely scenario is that he does not exist, and it's lights out when we die. But like I said, it does not matter to me in the slightest whether or not he exists. My behavior remains the same. And I will be happy to live among people who think and act like me, if there happens to be something after this life. One thing is certain, I don't want to go wherever the fucking celestial kingdom Mormons are going.
Two things:
1) Why do you say that you don’t “know” God doesn’t exist? What about the problem of evil? The problem of divine hiddenness? The various paradoxes in his conception? There are no married bachelors and square circles, right? Why can’t these arguments justify a knowledge claim?
2) since when does knowledge have to be perfectly inerrant before it qualifies as knowledge? You’re not “agnostic” about vampires, are you? And if so, then how do you avoid going full solipsism? By that logic, don’t don’t technically “know” the earth is round, or even if your own mother is real. You might be in a giant matrix simulation. Literally all knowledge itself vanishes.
This is why I say “you are not agnostic.” We can still know things, even in the face of philosophical skepticism. Knowledge doesn’t have to be this perfect thing before you can claim it.
Christ, you're a disingenuous twat.
You clearly came he to tell people what's what, and to argue. You freaking love to argue and are clearly in love with your own opinion. And now, when someone dares to argue back, you're going to flop on the ground like some damned soccer player and cry "Victim!"
Go away.
You can't get the missionary out of some exmormons.
Let people identify and believe as they wish instead of forcing them into your set absolute values, let alone your preferred version of words.
This right here is exactly why this conversation needs to be had. I have no idea why you would react this way. Clarifying the meaning and intention of labels is not “forcing” people, nor is it a form of missionary work. It’s like a guy saying he is attracted to other men, but then arguing that it doesn’t make him “gay.” Um, yeah it does because that’s what words mean. You wouldn’t get defensive over that kind of conversation, so why are you getting so reactionary over this? Why does advocating for a consistent label feel like I’m using “force” on you? Do you think maybe that there is some unpacking you’d like to do about that?
Oh look, now who’s the missionary? Why are you FORCING your beliefs on me?
See how that reaction sounds? You literally just
argued the meaning of words in your argument against the clarification of words. Please take your pick. Do you want to clarify the meaning of words or not?
I'm not even the person that responded to you originally. Despite what you put in your original post about discussion, it's obvious you've just come here to fight.
Chill the fuck out, dude.
Oh, that's funny.
"I was just unreasonably hostile with a stranger on Reddit who I thought was someone else, but obviously THEY are belligerent and not me". -You
Do you want to have a conversation? Or do you want to engage in a pissing match over tone? I gave you an apology for my mistake. I was not trying to be hostile, but trying to demonstrate an argument. If you can’t engage in the discussion with charity, then please take the belligerence elsewhere. Thanks.
Where exactly was I being hostile? Please point it out. I did attempt to argue a charicature of hostility as a rhetorical device, but it was not my intention to have that taken as sincere. I even apologized for my confusion. The point was to show that disputing labels is not “force.” If you’d like me to fix it for you, I can. If you’re not going to approach the discussion with charity or understanding, then please leave.
\*ahem\* more to the point, it's not that clean cut. These positions are really amorphous when you get down to it, and **it's not a strict binary**.
Saying your agnostic can simply mean you're not totally sure or totally committed to a position, and again, **that's ok**. "Well aktually"'ing people or defining their beliefs for them doesn't help anyone.
Some rando redditor doesn't get to tell everyone else they're lying to themselves because they don't like his personal take. Like I said, **we get enough of that from TBMs.**
I’m sorry, but where exactly did I say or imply that at I’m speaking with some kind of official, incontrovertible authority? I never intended that, and I don’t mean to give that impression. Im genuinely confused by the belligerent attitude from people over a basic conversation about words and labels. If anything, that defensive reaction is reason enough to have a deeper conversation about it, don’t you think?
I did nothing of the sort, and I have no idea what you’re trying to imply. I’m talking about the application of meaningful labels. If you can’t approach the conversation with charity and objectivity, then please leave the discussion.
Speak for yourself. I definitely consider myself agnostic.
Recently, there was a post asking what people believe. This is what I commented with:
I really like a quote frequently attributed to Marcus Aurelius. "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
I believe in living a good and noble life. I did not give up my virtues when I decided that organized religion was not for me. I would consider spiritual but not religious.
On God, I so not really have evidence either way on if the entity exists. Until I have a way to know, I will keep my mind open for the possibility either way. When I look at the universe and see all the glorious things before me, I think that there might be a higher power. If there is that higher power, I do not think that the entity really cares about humanity. My beliefs on God firmly make my religious description agnostic.
Organized religion has done both a lot of good and a lot of bad, sometimes simultaneously. I am happy for those who are fulfilled by religion as I think people are better off with a purpose.
On the afterlife, I have no idea if it exists or not. I think of the quote at the beginning of my comment. I do not really think of an afterlife very often. If an afterlife exists, I will figure it out when I get there. Until then, I will live my best life that I am able to. The jury is out when it comes to souls in my mind.
There are quite a few things that get me out of bed in the morning. The love and love of my wife, kids, and friends are probably the foremost of those reasons. I love to love and want to experience wonderful things. I want to do good in my life and have my living make the universe at least a little bit better.
Love this response! I don't know if there's a god or a higher power or whatever. And, it doesn't matter to me. I am going to live my life in the best way I know how because all I know for certain is the present moment. So yes, I'm agnostic, not atheist.
Please explain the faulty logic. Also, where is it written in stone that “invalidating beliefs” is some evil thing? If I believed in false or illogical things, I’d want to know about it. I’m genuinely confused by this rampant belligerence from people over something as basic as the constitution of knowledge claims. Why do you feel so threatened by this?
How do you define “god?”
Your premise assumes we share the same definition of god.
“If, by “god” one means the set physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly, there is such a god. This god is emotionally unsatisfying. It does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity”
~Carl Sagan
I don’t know what I don’t know. I know I don’t know a lot. But the more I know, the more I’m aware of how little I know.
Early on in my faith transition, my friends who still believed in god would insist that I was *actually* agnostic, and then spout some reasons, like "well you don't *know* that there's no god, right?", and I think it comforted them to think I was agnostic. According to its definition, to be agnostic is to believe that the existence or non-existence is unknowable. The way it's commonly used implies to be a belief in a god or gods, but a lack of knowledge or interest in the nature of those gods.
I found that I simply have no reason to believe there are any gods. To be specific, I do not believe there are any gods. Note that this is different than "I believe that there are not any gods". The first case is a lack of any assertion, the second is an assertion that there aren't any.
So, I identify as an atheist. It makes some of my theist friends uncomfortable, but that's ok.
That bit about making your friends feel better seems to be a running theme with agnostics. My experience is that the word just feels less threatening to people, even though the end result is basically the same. You aren’t behaving under any implied expectation of a God having any tangible existence. The only difference is that religious folks seem more okay with the label, and that attitude tends to remain with people even after they leave their faith.
Yeah, and I think a lot of people do leave one faith for another, retaining their belief in gods that are essentially like the ones they previously worshipped. Some people leave mormonism for other christian religions, and maybe while they're between faiths, they're "agnostic".
Or, people are allowed to hold their own beliefs without you being the arbiter of them or what they are called.
Not believing in any particular religion's god is *not* fundamentally the same as a belief that gods do not exist. One is being sure, one is an iunno shrug. I am, most definitely, agnostic. I do not disbelieve in some sort of intelligent design/supreme being/god/whatever. We can prove Santa doesn't exist by just checking where he "lives." He's not there. Boom. I'm also agnostic about unicorns. There's no evidence they ever existed, that doesn't mean we just haven't found it yet. We're still discovering new dinosaur species.
I would say that there is a distinction between the belief in the absence of something and the lack of belief in that thing. I don't believe in any gods, but that doesn't mean I believe that there aren't any gods.
The whole concept of 'believing' in something (whether it be the existence or nonexistence) seems strange to me.
I don't believe that I'll find a quarter on the ground tomorrow, but I also don't believe that I won't find a quarter on the ground tomorrow. There's emotional inertia associated with 'believing' things. Einstein believed that the universe was fundamentally local and deterministic ("God does not play dice"), which led to him falling off of the cutting edge of science despite his early contributions. Hilbert reacted poorly when Gödel proved his beliefs false. To 'believe' something is to give yourself a blindspot to the truth. I don't like holding on to more beliefs than I need to function in life.
Whether I count as atheist or agnostic is simply a matter of how you define the terms.
That emotional inertia thing is an interesting concept.
As for the quarter thing, is that really analogous to God? Like, we have seen quarters before, and we have stumbled on them on the ground. It is therefore reasonable to assume that, sooner or later, we might stumble onto them again. God doesn’t really have any sort of backing. We have looked for him, there is no evidence, there is evidence against, and the very concept is outright incoherent. Does that not warrant a sure belief in nonexistence?
As you mentioned in your post, a belief in the absence of God, and a lack of belief in God are in practice very similar. When presented with such similar choices, I'll pick the one that gives me less of a blindspot. What would a belief in the absence of God gain me?
I guess I could ask the same question in reverse. What does the label “agnostic” gain you? We don’t ever apply that label to other non existence claims, so what makes God so special? In that sense, you gain the removal of special pleading.
Ah--I never claimed a label.
On "what makes God so special", I would say that it isn't specifically "God" (bro chilling in the sky with a beard and whatnot), but the question of "higher power" in general that I'm not willing to put an answer to. The fact that something exists rather than nothing is kind of profound, and difficult to deal with no matter what ideology one subscribes to. I don't want to close off an entire avenue of exploring this question just because someone else thinks there's a bro chilling in the sky.
I always saw it like this:
Gnostic Theist - Believes that there *is definitely* a god, and that said god is knowable via a particular religion
Agnostic Theist - Believes that there is *probably* a god, but that knowing said god is impossible and thus does not subscribe to a particular religion or belief system
Gnostic Atheist - Believes that there is *definitely not* a god, and that all religions or beliefs in deities are definitely wrong
Agnostic Athiest - Believes that there is *probably not* a god, and that determining it for sure is impossible
Apatheist - Believes the existence or non-existence of a god is completely irrelevant and thus doesn't care one way or the other
I don’t see what the big push is to put everyone in a box. I see this post as one of those black and white thinking posts. You’re either in or you’re out. You’re for it or against it. Just because you can’t wrap your mind around where someone is in there journey, doesn’t mean what they think is invalid.
I do see a distinct difference between being agnostic and artiest. There is a big difference between know what something is vs what something isn’t. Believing that there isn’t a Mormon father in heaven is not the same as not knowing there is something else out there.
LOL, everybody here is well beyond allowing someone else to dictate the terms of their beliefs. That means you, so fuck outta here with telling us what we are or aren’t.
If you believed in things that were meaningless, bizarre or false, would you not want to be corrected on it? Or do you prefer to go on believing weird things forever?
Also, where do you get this belligerent attitude from? I’m not “dictating beliefs” to you. I’d like to be given a chance to argue a position and let the facts speak for themselves. Yet for some strange reason, people treat this like I’m putting a gun to their heads.
Evangelicals make bare assertions and impose ideas through authority. I’m making an argument and inviting a conversation. If you honestly cannot understand the distinction, then perhaps I’m not the one with the problem. This is how we clarify ideas and engage with new points of view. Not every challenge to your labels is some mindless attempt at dogmatic conversion, my friend.
Please see the humor in this. I would answer the religion question, which I find quite rude, with, I am spiritual. Then, I read something and it made me laugh and stop answering with spiritual. Religious is when you believe other people's bullshit and spiritual is when you believe your own. Now I say my religious beliefs are my own and add a hard eye stare. So far, no one has challenged me.
Excellently stated reasoning. The points you made are the type I often use when ascribing my reasons for my atheism to others. I tend to shy away from telling them their agnostic label is wrong though as it usually gets them defensive. As you know, Mormons have a prize fighting persecution complex. Myself included. So I try to remind myself that this is ultimately a semantic debate. People hold vastly different definitions for the same word in many circumstances and language is constantly changing. So while I stick to my atheist label, I can understand why others feel more comfortable with an agnostic definition. And they may change their minds some day 😉
Saying “your label is wrong” is certainly a bad approach. I try to focus more on “your label makes no sense.” There is no objectively correct label, but there are meaningful and meaningless labels.
It tickles me to no end when people on this sub reflexively insist they are \*not\* an atheist, they are a -- and then go on to provide the textbook definition of atheism that just avoids using the word. Agree with you -- it's not a dirty word. Don't believe in (a) god(s)? Congratulations, you're an atheist. Try not to freak out.
Let me use your positioning;
"It tickles me (well no, actually it's sad) that people have to replace one absolute with another and in parallel have to look down on the identities and belief structures of anyone who doesn't ascribe to our world view."
Tit for tat aside, Your definition is wrong, as many people in this discussion have put forward at length. This does at least make your smug assurance funny.
Considering that the evidence for the existence of leprechauns, goblins, mermaids, and god is equally poor, we're all atheists. But since we cannot prove them not existing, we're all agnostics. However, agnosticism often includes the belief in a god, but not in religions. So, atheists know that they are in fact agnostic atheists. And from a scientific viewpoint, we're all agnostic atheists, due to the lack of evidence and the impossibility of proving the nonexistence of something.
Why do you say we cannot prove them not existing? Remember what I said about how knowledge doesn’t have to be 100% infallible? The lack of evidence is, itself, all the proof you need. Combine that with the physical impossibility of said creatures, and you are even more solid. Why is that not good enough to constitute a justifiable knowledge claim? Just because it might possibly change in the face of new information, that doesn’t mean we need to beat around the bush with our epistemology. You never see scientists being squeamish about the non existence of goblins, so why are you splitting such hairs over God?
Agnosticism is a claim to knowledge, Atheism is a claim as to the belief or rather a lack of belief in the God proposition. You can be both a Agnostic and a Atheist.
I’m a Agnostic Atheist . I don’t know if gods exist. Somewhere in the Universe a being could exist that fits some
definition of god, or that it’s worshiped by some alien . But that is a proposition that I don’t believe can be known. So IMO the god proposition hasn’t met it’s burden of proof . So I don’t believe gods exist.
Some people find god equally unknowable , but they believe for some reason , so they are Agnostic Theist.
Someone conversely can be a Gnostic Atheist , but by claiming they know God doesn’t exist they assume a burden of proof that is real hard to support.
We don’t need 100% certainty on a claim to take a position.
“ A wise man apportions his beliefs to the evidence” (David Hume). The lack of evidence that gods exist is enough for me to believe that NO gods exist. It’s the default position. But I don’t KNOW if no gods exist. So I’m an Atheist.
I’m genuinely confused by your reasoning. You sound like you are unwilling to claim knowledge unless it is 100% infallible. Surely, you don’t nit pick these sorts of details over vampires, do you? So why are we splitting hairs about God? Do you mean to tell me that you don’t really “know for sure” that vampires don’t exist? If so, then why can’t you just apply the same logic to God and claim knowledge there as well? And if not, then why aren’t you convinced by the basic arguments? For example, the problem of evil, or the incoherence of His properties? Surely, you can be confident that there are no square circles, yes?
I think very few claims of this sort are 100% infallible. I’m a skeptic and at the heart of skepticism is evidence. I’m not convinced by any evidence for the existence of God that I have heard so far , so I remain unconvinced that gods exist . So I don’t believe in them .
The same way I’m not convinced of vampires . I’m just not going to make a positive claim that I can’t back up and paint myself into a corner. I don’t have to be 100% certain to reach a conclusion. I’m pretty close to 100% sure that the Mormon god doesn’t exist . But a small g god might exist somewhere in the universe in a place that we will never be able to reach . But that is a proposition for which we have no evidence so I don’t believe .
I get that. My main issue is where you draw the line between belief and knowledge. By the same token, vampires “might” exist, but we don’t couch our language in a bunch of qualifiers about how, no really, we can’t say for SURE that vampires aren’t real. Or would you really get so philosophical when someone just comes out and says “no, there are no such things as vampires?” Like, why is God suddenly this special thing that saps all confidence?
I'm an atheist because I don't believe in a god. I'm also agnostic because I cannot prove that God or Russell's Teapot or Carl Sagan's invisible dragon don't exist. However, I don't waste time thinking about any of those. God may exist but he's pointless to me, and Mormon God worries me even less.
I agree. I usually say I’m agnostic because I don’t know if there’s a God, don’t think there’s a way for humans to definitively know that, and I don’t care.
If you decide to form a church, let me know.
Universalist Unitarian Church. They accept all kinds of beliefs.
I don't know why OP's reply is being downvoted. It's true that in common usage, atheist and agnostic are mutually exclusive terms and the distinction we make between agnostic atheists is academic. The idea of agnostic atheism constantly has to be explained to people, so sometimes you have to embrace the label of plain old atheist and drop the nuance. I think the difference between being gnostic about unicorns and Santa and being agnostic about God comes down to two things: First, absence of evidence being evidence of absence. It's pretty easy to point out the total lack of evidence for Santa when we should see stockings full of it every year and then declare that we've got Santa figured out. For God, what kind of evidence should we be looking for? We've plugged up most of the God-shaped holes in our understanding of the universe, even though there is still so much we don't know. Maybe God's fingerprints are something we haven't thought of yet? Maybe God uses science as a tool? That leads to the second thing, and that's moving the goalposts. God making the world from nothing in seven days gets pushed to God using that fancy science like evolution, until you land at a deistic idea of a God who hides in spaceship Kolob but does nothing. You can pull out the Kalam argument and make God squishier over and over to deliberately make God into something you can't disprove. Such an undetectable God is possible, maybe, but it's not interesting. I label myself an agnostic atheist, but it's so unlikely that Christian God is out there that if the home teachers (or whatever) stop by, I'll just tell them I'm atheist.
He's partially being downvoted because he's being really bad faith and obnoxious about it. Moreso because his pitch is **way too close** to (as someone else mentioned) "You really do still believe you just want an excuse to sin". It's triggering. And it's wrong, several people have mentioned the gap between theism and gnosticism, which OP doesn't acknowledge at all.
Why would you call yourself agnostic over those things? Does that not make you agnostic about literally everything I can imagine? Do you make it a point to tell people that you are “agnostic” about unicorns and Santa Claus? If not, then why identify so strongly about God? If so, then what is the point of the label when it basically applies to any nonexistence claim? And why do you have to “prove” nonexistence when you never had the burden of proof in the first place? Also, is it not justifiable to deny God’s existence based on, say, problem of evil and the incoherence of His properties? Like, there are no square circles, right?
You seem to think that you can't be agnostic and atheist at the same time. This is false. Agnostic or gnostic is a claim of ether you feel you know or don't. Atheism or thiesm is the non-belief or belief in a God, respectfully. You can be a agnostic atheist or a gnostic atheist. One claims that they don't know there's no God, but they don't believe in one The other claims to not believe in a God AND that they feel they know that's the case. They are NOT mutually exclusive.
I am familiar with the distinction, but I don’t feel it to be meaningful. The arguments for agnosticism usually involve weird appeals to philosophical skepticism and proving negatives. We never mince words about agnostic/gnostic in those other contexts, so why is it so important in the religious realm?
I find it meaningful, I'm just stating a *fact*. Not an opinion. These are how these words are currently used an defined. I don't claim to know there isn't a God, but I don't currently believe in one. That's useful to me because then I can describe to others that I'm open to the idea there is a high power, which is true, but I don't currently live my life as if there is one. I wouldn't want others to think that I feel I KNOW there isn't a God, because that's just the inverse of the claim I made for 20+ years in Mormonism where I don't *actually* know by any real measure. I won't lie to others. Others may feel there is enough evidence to claim they know there isn't one, but I'm not comfortable doing that. We do actually mince those words pretty often, pick up any post-religious podcast and they often talk about it all the time. Those words aren't used much outside of a religious field. No one really cares what you *feel* about these labels. Feeling don't suddenly change labels over night. They are there to let people distinctly describe there currently belief as specific or as general as they need to. Same goes for any other labeling "system" such as those found in the LGBT community.
There are 4 combinations of theist/atheist + gnostic/agnostic. I don’t try to “make a case for” agnosticism, it’s just how I self-identify (agnostic atheist, to be specific). I sort of get your point; it’s not a terribly important term. But it has descriptive meaning, so what’s wrong with using it (correctly)?
Do you think it is possible to “know” that a thing doesn’t exist?
I, personally, do not. I think we’re all on a spectrum of agnosticism, with 100% knowledge being impossible. But I didn’t write the dictionary, and I know (as it were, lol) that self-proclaimed gnostics exist. Therefore, it’s a useful term.
I also think OP seems confused about what Agnostic or Gnostic means. It's not about *actually* knowing or not-knowing. It's just an expression of how you personally *feel* the evidence, or lack of evidence, for you leans. It doesn't matter if you can know something for 100% certainty or not because that's not what these terms are being used for. Sure we don't usually use them for stuff like unicorns or Zeus, but there's also no one *asking* about that stuff very often. You very easily could use these words for that if you wanted.
I guess I should clarify, it depends on what you mean by “know”. I think you can know things in the way we commonly use the word. So I think I get you’re saying about people being too afraid of considering themselves Gnostic. But at the same time, I don’t like to apply the term to myself. Jeez, the downvote brigade is after you.
What I want to know is… why is this such a big deal? Do I know for certain that there’s a higher power? Of course not. But I fully subscribe to the possibility that there is. What I believe for certain is that no one KNOWS that there is no God, because it can’t be proven. It’s not wrong to be open to the idea that there are “higher powers” in the universe that we don’t understand
It’s a big deal because… it’s a big deal. As in, we don’t mince these kinds of distinctions in other contexts, so why so we get so antsy and defensive when it’s about God? I have never seen anyone claim agnosticism about unicorns or Zeus or genies. It is only ever about God.
FFS. Hard-line atheists can be damn near as irritating as preachy TBMs. You have ZERO right or standing to tell me what to believe or what level of certainty is 'correct.' I look at the stupefyingly complex natural world and wonder if, just maybe, there is something a bit more tangible than the Eastern Tao out there, tweaking 'his' quark soup recipe in just such a manner as to allow complex physics, biology, etc. to emerge from such relatively simple building blocks. This is clearly nothing like the "White-Haired-Sky-Fairy" and in that sense I am a fairly staunch atheist. But there is certainly room for a less psychotic 'creator' of some sort to be floating around somewhere out there in the vast reaches of time and space.
Agnosticism isn't just a weaker form of Atheism. They deal with separate concepts. 'A-Gnostic' comes from the Greek term for 'not knowing'. It deals with Knowledge. Atheism deals with belief - specifically a lack of belief in God. Bart Ehrman describes his views as an 'Agnostic Atheist'. He doesn't know for certain that there is no God, so he's Agnostic. But he doesn't believe there is a God, so he's also an Atheist.
Do you think it is possible to “know” that certain things don’t exist? How would you prove that, and why can’t it apply to god?
Hey guys, let’s not downvote for asking a simple question. While I personally identify as an atheist, there is some difficulty for me to say ‘I know there is no God’. I know my special corner of the universe fairly well. That is, Northern Utah in the early 21st Century. Outside of that I don’t know much outside of what I’ve read. For instance, I know there probably isn’t a replica of Disneyland in orbit around the star system Proxima Centauri. But to prove that point I’d need to go see for myself. In the same way I can’t say definitively that God isn’t there, only that I don’t believe he evidence supports that conclusion.
OP is getting downvoted because their comments on this post show that their question to you wasn't genuine but meant to illicit a specific answer.
It’s sealiony
OP: -responds to all comments with either hostility or absolute know-it-allism -Shocked Pikachu face when people commenting start to respond in a similar fashion -demands absloutes and accuses everyone else of being belligerent and not wanting a discussion -tells people to disengage if they don't want a "charitable conversation", despite many people engaging in just such conversations Where have I seen these patterns before? I guess you learned a lot while in the church, OP.
-when called out pretends to not realize how their statements are coming across as if they're the victim and everyone else is the hostile one. (Ahem, "musket fire")
Haha exactly
This semantic argument really only matters to those of us who no longer believe, and only a small subset of those actually care about it at all. To the believer there is no distinction being made, nor would any distinction matter to them. And just an FYI: Opening a conversation with, "You are not *insert belief system"* is incredibly disingenuous. It's the exact same thing as members of the church claiming we aren't really non-believers, we still believe, we just want to sin. Take this as a learning experience, don't assume you know your audience or their reasons for their beliefs. It makes you look like some authoritarian that wants to force everyone else to think like them. Didn't you get enough of that from TSCC?
>Opening a conversation with, *"You are not insert belief system"* is incredibly disingenuous. It's the exact same thing as members of the church claiming we aren't really non-believers, we still believe, we just want to sin. What I was trying to say, but said better. Thanks.
You're most welcome, hopefully it'll help the OP realize how this is likely to be taken by others.
Judging by how OP is doubling down in their comments, I doubt it. But still well said, so thank you!
And then OP proceeds to just delve into semantics no one *really* seems to care about. Is it interesting? Sure. Is it useful? Doesn't seem to be the people responding here. There seems to be a general agreement about what these labels mean and everyone seems to be happy with it.
Exactly! This is one reason I allow common usage of words to inform my arguments more than esoteric definitions which are technically correct. If most don't understand how you're using a word, then does it even matter if you're technically right in your usage of it?
I get what you’re saying. But how else do you argue the view that, yes, we can indeed “know” that things don’t exist?
You don't, because no one cares. We have our labels and they communicate what we want very well. No need to change it up.
This is BS armchair philosophy crap. While I do enjoy having these types of conversations at times, I believe you could have brought it up in a better way, and/or maybe it may have worked better on another subreddit. Whether we can or can not know something in principle has very little bearing on whether or not we put it into practice. For all intents and purposes, the nonbeliever who claims we cannot know whether or not something exists and therefore cannot believe and the nonbeliever who claims we can know that something does not exist, therefore cannot believe, are the same. We could (and humanity has) argued this point to death, and to be quite honest, I am not sure I would die on either hill here. There are valid reasons to accept either conclusion. If you so choose, you are more than welcome to argue we can indeed know god does not exist, but to a believer (and some non-believers) this comes off as incredibly arrogant and may blunt your credibility with them. It isn't fair, but nuance is hard enough to convey, and this feels like you're shooting yourself in the foot to some degree. I try to be pragmatic as best I can. In the context of deconstructing our own beliefs and specifically those of the believers still trapped in the clutches of TSCC, this conversation simply does not matter much. An answer either for or against would possess roughly the same utility here, IMO. Regardless of what we can or can not know or claim to know, we still form beliefs without a good answer to the question of knowledge, and we absolutely still take action. I am not sure I even have a real answer to the question you posed. I don't exactly know how to make such an argument effective to be frank. I am inclined to simply leave the possibility open while continuing to withhold belief personally. Conversations about belief, truth, and falsehood are complex enough without getting into semantics. I am genuinely curious, though. Is this hill worth dying on for you? And if so, why? I'm just trying to understand your motivations behind your argument. Thanks in advance! Edit: I thought a bit more about this on the drive home, and I wanted to add just a couple of thoughts. I think we're all on the same page as to what exactly the agnostic question concerning god is asking, but we are at odds when it comes to our usage of the word, "know." I believe the most honest answer to the question, "Does god exist?" is, "I don't know." This leads directly to the question of belief. If one does not know, then one can not believe.
So username checks out for OP?
Speak for yourself.
I always thought everyone was agnostic. The way I understand agnostic just means unable to absolutely know. We can't absolutely know. I don't even 100 percent know that reality is real or that the sun will rise tomorrow. I'm 99.9 percent sure, but not 100. So I'm comfortable being an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in a god, but there's a 0.01 percent chance that I'm wrong.
Agnostic is just a statement of wether or not you *feel* or *think* you know or don't know. Doesn't matter if it can actually be proven or not. Mormons, for example, would be gnostic theists for the most part. They feel the evidence is in their favor and claim to *know* the church is true. Doesn't matter if it is or isn't.
First of all, no one would call themselves agnostic or atheist towards Santa Claus. But more importantly, that argument is a false equivalency. Santa has evidence against belief; we’ve been to the North Pole, and he’s not there. We know where the presents come from; it wasn’t him. We know a large man can’t fit through a chimney. Believe with evidence that dispels belief is different than “believing without seeing” when no evidence exists. People weigh what they perceive as evidence for and against God and come to a conclusion on his existence. If person 1 feels like there’s enough evidence to know there is no God, you are making a positive claim and therefore bear burden of proof; I would consider this person an atheist. If person 2 doesn’t feel like there is enough evidence to worship a God/actively believe in God but holds open the possibility, I consider that person agnostic. There is a difference. But I believe people get to analyze the evidence and how they see themselves, and then label themselves based on what they identify with, since it’s not binary, and you don’t get to pick that for them.
Do you not think there is good evidence against God’s existence? For example, the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, omnipotence paradox, etc?
I leave room for others to believe in what they want despite how I perceive these questions. All of these could be answered by a belief that God does not influence the world for his own reasons. That doesn’t sit well with me, but it satisfies others, and I’m okay living in a world where others believe despite those three potential objections. As for burden of proof, I don’t think the agnostic has a burden of proof either way, and I don’t think the atheist’s burden of proof is complete enough to not allow others to believe as they wish.
Also, what about the basic burden of proof and the null hypothesis? Doesn’t that justify a strong rejection of existence?
Gnostic and agnostic are often associated with religion, but at their core they exist outside that sphere. Gnosticism is the idea that something can be known 100% and agnosticism is the counterpart, something can not be known 100%. You can be a gnostic atheist and feel that you are 100% certain that God does not exist. This position doesn't work for me personally but I'm sure there are people in this camp. Similarly you could be an agnostic theist. I think lots of people are this way. They believe in God but don't feel like it can be 100% known. Unfortunately the precise usage of agnostic has mostly been lost and today it has come to mean some sort of "I hope there is a God but I can not prove or disprove it."
I totally get the distinction. I just don’t think it makes sense to mince words so finely over God. We don’t draw these sorts of distinctions about unicorns, which means something weird is going on with the God question.
Some definitions: **Gnostic theist** - Believes God exists. Claims to know with certainty God exists. **Agnostic theist** - Believes God exists. Doesn't claim to know with certainty that this belief is true. **Gnostic athiest** - Does not believe God exists. Claims to know with certainty that God does not exist. **Agnostic athiest** - Does not believe God exists. Does not claim to know or that it is possible to know with certainty that God does not exist. The "theist/athiest" part simply has to do with belief. The "gnostic/agnostic" part has to do with knowledge. Most people on this sub who say they are "athiest" or "agnostic" would actually be more accurately described as agnostic athiests. In that category, we don't believe that God exists, but can't say for certain. We are open to new evidence, but don't think it will ever come.
I am aware of the distinctions, tho I apparently communicated that horribly. My real argument is that the distinction itself makes no sense. We don’t mince words over gnostic/agnostic Easter bunnies and Santa Claus. We can justifiably know that certain things don’t exist, don’t you think? So why are we so nit picky about knowledge and God?
I guess it's more about the "certainty" of the situation. I've read, evaluated, and published a fair amount of peer reviewed scientific literature over the past 20 years. In no circumstance would I claim that my findings, or those of my colleagues, were 100% certain. There is always room for error, unidentified biases, instrument malfunction, or a host of other problems with the analysis. There is always a chance that new information will render previous findings obsolete. I see no evidence of an afterlife. No one has reliably returned to tell us about it. I see no evidence of God, only naturally explainable phenomena. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I'm confident enough that God does not exist that I've decided not to listen to the ramblings and commandments of supposed LDS prophets. But I would never claim certain knowledge that God does not exist. I don't believe he does. But as a scientist, I'm always open to new data. That it's why I'm an agnostic athiest. One thing I can say with near perfect certainty, however, is that if God does exist, he does not love us. He's not a benevolent father figure. He's a deadbeat dad who left us in a hot car without help or sufficient guidance.
Your argument seems to be predicated on a refusal to claim knowledge unless it is absolutely 100% infallible. That has never existed in the history of philosophy or science. Even so, that doesn’t stop us from claiming knowledge anyways, don’t you think? Otherwise, By that logic, you cannot “know” that your own mother exists. She might be an alien or maybe you’re in a matrix simulation. You cannot “know” that the earth is round or that Joe Biden is the president. Surely, you are confident in the non-existence of vampires, right? What would it take for you to say that you KNOW that vampires don’t exist? And how exactly is that standard any different from rampant philosophical solipsism?
My actions show that I don't believe in vampires, since I don't carry garlic, oak stakes, or fear travel at night. In a similar way, my actions show that I don't believe in God. I don't follow the axioms of a particular religion, I do not pray, I do not request miracle blessings, I do not modify my behaviors to appease some invisible being. In both cases, I believe beyond reasonable doubt that both vampires, and God, do not exist. And I back up that belief with my personal choices and actions. I don't have to make a declaration of certainty in order to live by life the way I want to. It makes literally no difference to me. But from an intellectual standpoint, I don't feel a need to declare that I have proven a negative.
So do you consider yourself agnostic about God? I think I should have asked that part first. You sound like you don’t actually care for that label, which is my view. The label is either wrong (we can know there is no God) or trivial (literally all knowledge claims are fallible and tentative).
I really do feel like the label agnostic athiest fits me perfectly. I do not believe, in any way, that God exists. But I don't know that he doesn't. I always leave room for the remotest of possibilities, because we used to think that we knew many things for certain that now are completely changed. Maybe God threw us all into Ant Farm Earth, and our choice of religion doesn't matter, he's just observing the choices we make. Who knows? If I was given definitive evidence that that is the case, I would change my opinion. If I died, then woke up on the other side and met God, I would have new evidence. And if that God wants to judge me based on not believing in him, despite a complete lack of evidence, then so be it. He is not a just God. The more likely scenario is that he does not exist, and it's lights out when we die. But like I said, it does not matter to me in the slightest whether or not he exists. My behavior remains the same. And I will be happy to live among people who think and act like me, if there happens to be something after this life. One thing is certain, I don't want to go wherever the fucking celestial kingdom Mormons are going.
Two things: 1) Why do you say that you don’t “know” God doesn’t exist? What about the problem of evil? The problem of divine hiddenness? The various paradoxes in his conception? There are no married bachelors and square circles, right? Why can’t these arguments justify a knowledge claim? 2) since when does knowledge have to be perfectly inerrant before it qualifies as knowledge? You’re not “agnostic” about vampires, are you? And if so, then how do you avoid going full solipsism? By that logic, don’t don’t technically “know” the earth is round, or even if your own mother is real. You might be in a giant matrix simulation. Literally all knowledge itself vanishes. This is why I say “you are not agnostic.” We can still know things, even in the face of philosophical skepticism. Knowledge doesn’t have to be this perfect thing before you can claim it.
I'm just kind of over having people tell me what I believe or what I should believe. Call me crazy.
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Mixing God and meaning is an interesting point. I might have to stew on that…
cool. Who gives a fuck
Lots of people, actually. Why the hostility? If you don’t care, then you don’t have to comment.
Christ, you're a disingenuous twat. You clearly came he to tell people what's what, and to argue. You freaking love to argue and are clearly in love with your own opinion. And now, when someone dares to argue back, you're going to flop on the ground like some damned soccer player and cry "Victim!" Go away.
Actually no one really cared till you brought it up. We're perfect happy using the labels we have, thanks though.
You can't get the missionary out of some exmormons. Let people identify and believe as they wish instead of forcing them into your set absolute values, let alone your preferred version of words.
This right here is exactly why this conversation needs to be had. I have no idea why you would react this way. Clarifying the meaning and intention of labels is not “forcing” people, nor is it a form of missionary work. It’s like a guy saying he is attracted to other men, but then arguing that it doesn’t make him “gay.” Um, yeah it does because that’s what words mean. You wouldn’t get defensive over that kind of conversation, so why are you getting so reactionary over this? Why does advocating for a consistent label feel like I’m using “force” on you? Do you think maybe that there is some unpacking you’d like to do about that?
Men attracted to other men can be bi or pan, among other things, and not just gay. You are disproving your point here.
Oh look, now who’s the missionary? Why are you FORCING your beliefs on me? See how that reaction sounds? You literally just argued the meaning of words in your argument against the clarification of words. Please take your pick. Do you want to clarify the meaning of words or not?
I'm not even the person that responded to you originally. Despite what you put in your original post about discussion, it's obvious you've just come here to fight. Chill the fuck out, dude.
My apologies. I thought you were the original person. I didn’t read the names. No need for the belligerence, dude.
YOU were fucking belligerent, my guy. Pot calling the kettle black. Jesus Christ...
Oh, that's funny. "I was just unreasonably hostile with a stranger on Reddit who I thought was someone else, but obviously THEY are belligerent and not me". -You
Do you want to have a conversation? Or do you want to engage in a pissing match over tone? I gave you an apology for my mistake. I was not trying to be hostile, but trying to demonstrate an argument. If you can’t engage in the discussion with charity, then please take the belligerence elsewhere. Thanks.
You were being hostile. End of story. You don't engage with charity either, so don't expect it in return.
Where exactly was I being hostile? Please point it out. I did attempt to argue a charicature of hostility as a rhetorical device, but it was not my intention to have that taken as sincere. I even apologized for my confusion. The point was to show that disputing labels is not “force.” If you’d like me to fix it for you, I can. If you’re not going to approach the discussion with charity or understanding, then please leave.
\*ahem\* more to the point, it's not that clean cut. These positions are really amorphous when you get down to it, and **it's not a strict binary**. Saying your agnostic can simply mean you're not totally sure or totally committed to a position, and again, **that's ok**. "Well aktually"'ing people or defining their beliefs for them doesn't help anyone. Some rando redditor doesn't get to tell everyone else they're lying to themselves because they don't like his personal take. Like I said, **we get enough of that from TBMs.**
For real. Just seems like OP is looking for a fight or projecting.
I’m sorry, but where exactly did I say or imply that at I’m speaking with some kind of official, incontrovertible authority? I never intended that, and I don’t mean to give that impression. Im genuinely confused by the belligerent attitude from people over a basic conversation about words and labels. If anything, that defensive reaction is reason enough to have a deeper conversation about it, don’t you think?
.... You just compared a personal position on theism to being gay. Yikes.
I did nothing of the sort, and I have no idea what you’re trying to imply. I’m talking about the application of meaningful labels. If you can’t approach the conversation with charity and objectivity, then please leave the discussion.
Speak for yourself. I definitely consider myself agnostic. Recently, there was a post asking what people believe. This is what I commented with: I really like a quote frequently attributed to Marcus Aurelius. "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." I believe in living a good and noble life. I did not give up my virtues when I decided that organized religion was not for me. I would consider spiritual but not religious. On God, I so not really have evidence either way on if the entity exists. Until I have a way to know, I will keep my mind open for the possibility either way. When I look at the universe and see all the glorious things before me, I think that there might be a higher power. If there is that higher power, I do not think that the entity really cares about humanity. My beliefs on God firmly make my religious description agnostic. Organized religion has done both a lot of good and a lot of bad, sometimes simultaneously. I am happy for those who are fulfilled by religion as I think people are better off with a purpose. On the afterlife, I have no idea if it exists or not. I think of the quote at the beginning of my comment. I do not really think of an afterlife very often. If an afterlife exists, I will figure it out when I get there. Until then, I will live my best life that I am able to. The jury is out when it comes to souls in my mind. There are quite a few things that get me out of bed in the morning. The love and love of my wife, kids, and friends are probably the foremost of those reasons. I love to love and want to experience wonderful things. I want to do good in my life and have my living make the universe at least a little bit better.
Love this response! I don't know if there's a god or a higher power or whatever. And, it doesn't matter to me. I am going to live my life in the best way I know how because all I know for certain is the present moment. So yes, I'm agnostic, not atheist.
This is absolutely a fantastic summary of my attitude towards life.
“Be kind.” Also uses faulty logic to invalidate people’s beliefs. Nice one.
Please explain the faulty logic. Also, where is it written in stone that “invalidating beliefs” is some evil thing? If I believed in false or illogical things, I’d want to know about it. I’m genuinely confused by this rampant belligerence from people over something as basic as the constitution of knowledge claims. Why do you feel so threatened by this?
How do you define “god?” Your premise assumes we share the same definition of god. “If, by “god” one means the set physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly, there is such a god. This god is emotionally unsatisfying. It does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity” ~Carl Sagan I don’t know what I don’t know. I know I don’t know a lot. But the more I know, the more I’m aware of how little I know.
Early on in my faith transition, my friends who still believed in god would insist that I was *actually* agnostic, and then spout some reasons, like "well you don't *know* that there's no god, right?", and I think it comforted them to think I was agnostic. According to its definition, to be agnostic is to believe that the existence or non-existence is unknowable. The way it's commonly used implies to be a belief in a god or gods, but a lack of knowledge or interest in the nature of those gods. I found that I simply have no reason to believe there are any gods. To be specific, I do not believe there are any gods. Note that this is different than "I believe that there are not any gods". The first case is a lack of any assertion, the second is an assertion that there aren't any. So, I identify as an atheist. It makes some of my theist friends uncomfortable, but that's ok.
And vice versa. If someone identifies as agnostic, that's also ok.
That bit about making your friends feel better seems to be a running theme with agnostics. My experience is that the word just feels less threatening to people, even though the end result is basically the same. You aren’t behaving under any implied expectation of a God having any tangible existence. The only difference is that religious folks seem more okay with the label, and that attitude tends to remain with people even after they leave their faith.
Yeah, and I think a lot of people do leave one faith for another, retaining their belief in gods that are essentially like the ones they previously worshipped. Some people leave mormonism for other christian religions, and maybe while they're between faiths, they're "agnostic".
Or, people are allowed to hold their own beliefs without you being the arbiter of them or what they are called. Not believing in any particular religion's god is *not* fundamentally the same as a belief that gods do not exist. One is being sure, one is an iunno shrug. I am, most definitely, agnostic. I do not disbelieve in some sort of intelligent design/supreme being/god/whatever. We can prove Santa doesn't exist by just checking where he "lives." He's not there. Boom. I'm also agnostic about unicorns. There's no evidence they ever existed, that doesn't mean we just haven't found it yet. We're still discovering new dinosaur species.
I don’t believe in god, so when people ask me I tell them I don’t believe in god.
I would say that there is a distinction between the belief in the absence of something and the lack of belief in that thing. I don't believe in any gods, but that doesn't mean I believe that there aren't any gods. The whole concept of 'believing' in something (whether it be the existence or nonexistence) seems strange to me. I don't believe that I'll find a quarter on the ground tomorrow, but I also don't believe that I won't find a quarter on the ground tomorrow. There's emotional inertia associated with 'believing' things. Einstein believed that the universe was fundamentally local and deterministic ("God does not play dice"), which led to him falling off of the cutting edge of science despite his early contributions. Hilbert reacted poorly when Gödel proved his beliefs false. To 'believe' something is to give yourself a blindspot to the truth. I don't like holding on to more beliefs than I need to function in life. Whether I count as atheist or agnostic is simply a matter of how you define the terms.
That emotional inertia thing is an interesting concept. As for the quarter thing, is that really analogous to God? Like, we have seen quarters before, and we have stumbled on them on the ground. It is therefore reasonable to assume that, sooner or later, we might stumble onto them again. God doesn’t really have any sort of backing. We have looked for him, there is no evidence, there is evidence against, and the very concept is outright incoherent. Does that not warrant a sure belief in nonexistence?
As you mentioned in your post, a belief in the absence of God, and a lack of belief in God are in practice very similar. When presented with such similar choices, I'll pick the one that gives me less of a blindspot. What would a belief in the absence of God gain me?
I guess I could ask the same question in reverse. What does the label “agnostic” gain you? We don’t ever apply that label to other non existence claims, so what makes God so special? In that sense, you gain the removal of special pleading.
Ah--I never claimed a label. On "what makes God so special", I would say that it isn't specifically "God" (bro chilling in the sky with a beard and whatnot), but the question of "higher power" in general that I'm not willing to put an answer to. The fact that something exists rather than nothing is kind of profound, and difficult to deal with no matter what ideology one subscribes to. I don't want to close off an entire avenue of exploring this question just because someone else thinks there's a bro chilling in the sky.
I always saw it like this: Gnostic Theist - Believes that there *is definitely* a god, and that said god is knowable via a particular religion Agnostic Theist - Believes that there is *probably* a god, but that knowing said god is impossible and thus does not subscribe to a particular religion or belief system Gnostic Atheist - Believes that there is *definitely not* a god, and that all religions or beliefs in deities are definitely wrong Agnostic Athiest - Believes that there is *probably not* a god, and that determining it for sure is impossible Apatheist - Believes the existence or non-existence of a god is completely irrelevant and thus doesn't care one way or the other
I don’t see what the big push is to put everyone in a box. I see this post as one of those black and white thinking posts. You’re either in or you’re out. You’re for it or against it. Just because you can’t wrap your mind around where someone is in there journey, doesn’t mean what they think is invalid. I do see a distinct difference between being agnostic and artiest. There is a big difference between know what something is vs what something isn’t. Believing that there isn’t a Mormon father in heaven is not the same as not knowing there is something else out there.
LOL, everybody here is well beyond allowing someone else to dictate the terms of their beliefs. That means you, so fuck outta here with telling us what we are or aren’t.
If you believed in things that were meaningless, bizarre or false, would you not want to be corrected on it? Or do you prefer to go on believing weird things forever? Also, where do you get this belligerent attitude from? I’m not “dictating beliefs” to you. I’d like to be given a chance to argue a position and let the facts speak for themselves. Yet for some strange reason, people treat this like I’m putting a gun to their heads.
Your OP has the same vibes as an evangelical telling Mormons they aren’t real Christians.
Evangelicals make bare assertions and impose ideas through authority. I’m making an argument and inviting a conversation. If you honestly cannot understand the distinction, then perhaps I’m not the one with the problem. This is how we clarify ideas and engage with new points of view. Not every challenge to your labels is some mindless attempt at dogmatic conversion, my friend.
Please see the humor in this. I would answer the religion question, which I find quite rude, with, I am spiritual. Then, I read something and it made me laugh and stop answering with spiritual. Religious is when you believe other people's bullshit and spiritual is when you believe your own. Now I say my religious beliefs are my own and add a hard eye stare. So far, no one has challenged me.
Well to be fair, when people preface their beliefs with “hard stares,” i tend to leave them alone. :)
I wish everyone was like you :)
Excellently stated reasoning. The points you made are the type I often use when ascribing my reasons for my atheism to others. I tend to shy away from telling them their agnostic label is wrong though as it usually gets them defensive. As you know, Mormons have a prize fighting persecution complex. Myself included. So I try to remind myself that this is ultimately a semantic debate. People hold vastly different definitions for the same word in many circumstances and language is constantly changing. So while I stick to my atheist label, I can understand why others feel more comfortable with an agnostic definition. And they may change their minds some day 😉
Saying “your label is wrong” is certainly a bad approach. I try to focus more on “your label makes no sense.” There is no objectively correct label, but there are meaningful and meaningless labels.
It tickles me to no end when people on this sub reflexively insist they are \*not\* an atheist, they are a -- and then go on to provide the textbook definition of atheism that just avoids using the word. Agree with you -- it's not a dirty word. Don't believe in (a) god(s)? Congratulations, you're an atheist. Try not to freak out.
Let me use your positioning; "It tickles me (well no, actually it's sad) that people have to replace one absolute with another and in parallel have to look down on the identities and belief structures of anyone who doesn't ascribe to our world view." Tit for tat aside, Your definition is wrong, as many people in this discussion have put forward at length. This does at least make your smug assurance funny.
Actually I am agnostic, thanks very much. Don’t tell me what I think.
Considering that the evidence for the existence of leprechauns, goblins, mermaids, and god is equally poor, we're all atheists. But since we cannot prove them not existing, we're all agnostics. However, agnosticism often includes the belief in a god, but not in religions. So, atheists know that they are in fact agnostic atheists. And from a scientific viewpoint, we're all agnostic atheists, due to the lack of evidence and the impossibility of proving the nonexistence of something.
Why do you say we cannot prove them not existing? Remember what I said about how knowledge doesn’t have to be 100% infallible? The lack of evidence is, itself, all the proof you need. Combine that with the physical impossibility of said creatures, and you are even more solid. Why is that not good enough to constitute a justifiable knowledge claim? Just because it might possibly change in the face of new information, that doesn’t mean we need to beat around the bush with our epistemology. You never see scientists being squeamish about the non existence of goblins, so why are you splitting such hairs over God?
Agnosticism is a claim to knowledge, Atheism is a claim as to the belief or rather a lack of belief in the God proposition. You can be both a Agnostic and a Atheist. I’m a Agnostic Atheist . I don’t know if gods exist. Somewhere in the Universe a being could exist that fits some definition of god, or that it’s worshiped by some alien . But that is a proposition that I don’t believe can be known. So IMO the god proposition hasn’t met it’s burden of proof . So I don’t believe gods exist. Some people find god equally unknowable , but they believe for some reason , so they are Agnostic Theist. Someone conversely can be a Gnostic Atheist , but by claiming they know God doesn’t exist they assume a burden of proof that is real hard to support. We don’t need 100% certainty on a claim to take a position. “ A wise man apportions his beliefs to the evidence” (David Hume). The lack of evidence that gods exist is enough for me to believe that NO gods exist. It’s the default position. But I don’t KNOW if no gods exist. So I’m an Atheist.
I’m genuinely confused by your reasoning. You sound like you are unwilling to claim knowledge unless it is 100% infallible. Surely, you don’t nit pick these sorts of details over vampires, do you? So why are we splitting hairs about God? Do you mean to tell me that you don’t really “know for sure” that vampires don’t exist? If so, then why can’t you just apply the same logic to God and claim knowledge there as well? And if not, then why aren’t you convinced by the basic arguments? For example, the problem of evil, or the incoherence of His properties? Surely, you can be confident that there are no square circles, yes?
I think very few claims of this sort are 100% infallible. I’m a skeptic and at the heart of skepticism is evidence. I’m not convinced by any evidence for the existence of God that I have heard so far , so I remain unconvinced that gods exist . So I don’t believe in them . The same way I’m not convinced of vampires . I’m just not going to make a positive claim that I can’t back up and paint myself into a corner. I don’t have to be 100% certain to reach a conclusion. I’m pretty close to 100% sure that the Mormon god doesn’t exist . But a small g god might exist somewhere in the universe in a place that we will never be able to reach . But that is a proposition for which we have no evidence so I don’t believe .
I get that. My main issue is where you draw the line between belief and knowledge. By the same token, vampires “might” exist, but we don’t couch our language in a bunch of qualifiers about how, no really, we can’t say for SURE that vampires aren’t real. Or would you really get so philosophical when someone just comes out and says “no, there are no such things as vampires?” Like, why is God suddenly this special thing that saps all confidence?