Agnosticism is not Athiesm

nesf

Just something that came up on Philosophy and that annoyed me.

Why is it that some athiests define atheism as if it was agnosticism? There is a lot of grey in this, and I appreciate that it is very easy to get confused or imprecise with definitions here but this strikes me as simple ignorance.

Atheism is not implicitly a lack of belief in a deity. Neither is agnosticism. It is more complicated than that. With regard to the existence of a deity I can take multiple positions. I can believe that this is true. I can believe that it is untrue. Or I can state that I can neither believe nor disbelieve, since it is impossible to establish the truth of the existence or non-existence of a deity, but that I either view the two possibilities as equally likely or valid or that I lean towards one or the other to a greater or lesser extent. I cannot state that I lack belief without implicitly asserting one of the above.

Agnostics would hold the middle ground of neither disbelieving or believing but holding either the existence or non-existence of a deity as being plausable with a close to even split in plausablity. As we head towards either theism or atheism we have theists or atheists who hold that we cannot establish the truth (for whatever reason) but who would definitely view either existence or non-existence as significantly more plausable.


You can create a myriad of subdivisions of the above to catagorise people but the above positions are relatively clear-cut. You cannot claim that agnosticism is atheism or that it is not a position that can be held (i.e. that only agnostic theism and agnostic atheism are valid positions and not agnosticism alone), you can, and some of us do, hold the middle ground. Please do not automatically associate agnositicism with atheism, atheism is as far from agnosticism as theism is. This is why I was opposed to this forum's creation in the first place, I don't appreciate the association that is reinforced here. Or the kids who run around mixing up the two.

(/rant)

Dave!

Yeah, I'know..



I'd say that the 2 terms are becoming interchangeable because of atheists not feeling confident enough in their belief that there is no god, because of things like science's inability to so far explain the universe, and because of the complexity of our brains which allows us to actually think like this! Surely there must be a soul or something!!!

Because of these points it's kinda hard to be an atheist. I used to describe myself as an agnostic, then agnostic with a leaning towards atheism, and now just an atheist I suppose I'm getting alot more confident in my beliefs.

That's not to take away from people who have other reasons from remaining agnostic rather than standing on one side of the fence. I believe there's a couple on this forum who remain agnostic for their own reasons.

Nevyn

Well you also have the post organised religion reaction.
I am not christain, I don't believe in the christian version of god there for I am an atheist, I reject christainity there for I must be an athiest.

Heavens forbid they take the time to figure out what they do believe and see themsleves as an agnostic and question themselves and the universe and keep an open mind.

Dave!

Thaedydal wrote:

Well you also have the post organised religion reaction.
I am not christain, I don't believe in the christian version of god there for I am an atheist, I reject christainity there for I must be an athiest.

Heavens forbid they take the time to figure out what they do believe and see themsleves as an agnostic and question themselves and the universe and keep an open mind.

Good point.

Zillah

Thaedydal wrote:

I don't believe in the christian version of god there for I am an atheist, I reject christainity there for I must be an athiest.

By that logic everyone is an atheist. According to your definition you have to accept all religions in the universe as true to not be an atheist, which clearly isn't accurate.

An atheist rejects all Gods.

If you believe in any sort of God or Gods then you're not an atheist.

EDIT: Which might have been your point all along...

nesf

Thaedydal wrote:

Well you also have the post organised religion reaction.
I am not christain, I don't believe in the christian version of god there for I am an atheist, I reject christainity there for I must be an athiest.

Heavens forbid they take the time to figure out what they do believe and see themsleves as an agnostic and question themselves and the universe and keep an open mind.

Don't get me started about them...

nesf

Zillah wrote:

EDIT: Which might have been your point all along...

It was, I believe. It's this whole naive athiesm movement, usually fueled by teenage angst or postponed teenage angst, that is so offensive really.

Of course, some Catholics view not believing in God as being an atheistic position but that's a different side of the coin. Though I honestly feel sometimes that some atheists do more to discredit agnosticism than any theist manages.

Dave!

Zillah wrote:

EDIT: Which might have been your point all along...

There's a slight chance of that!

Zillah

Shut up! I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

Dave!

Zillah wrote:

Shut up! I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

Sleep is for the weak!

</spam>

aidan24326

nesf, what you are getting at (I think) is that there is alot of grey area and alot of people who fall somewhere in or around the whole spectrum of non-religious or non-believer but for who the terms atheist or agnostic don't exactly match up with their own views.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of these isms myself, as they tend to lump a certain group of people all together who may not all share the same viewpoint or even hold the same definition for what their own particular -ism means. In general I call myself atheist as a convenient quickly identifiable label, but in reality that may not give a 100% accurate picture. Near enough though.

Scofflaw

Alatrism = non-worship.

Describes me every day of the week, whether I'm feeling assertively atheist or assertively agnostic. Covers my position with respect to all known gods.

repetitively,
Scofflaw

lostexpectation

both in the recent wired article and in dibert's maker blog he refferred to atheist as the new gay, needing to come of the closet, so that makes agnostics bi, which one knows is cheating and self delusional :P

Asiaprod

lostexpectation wrote:

both in the recent wired article and in dibert's maker blog he refferred to atheist as the new gay, needing to come of the closet, so that makes agnostics bi, which one knows is cheating and self delusional :P

Interesting analogy.

Nevyn

lostexpectation wrote:

so that makes agnostics bi, which one knows is cheating and self delusional :P

Actually I find that offensive.

Dave!

Oh no.

Zillah

Thaedydal wrote:

Actually I find that offensive.

Why?

If he's right then you should accept it and move on.
If he's wrong then you shouldn't care that some silly stranger got it wrong.

Nevyn

I find the propigation of the idea that people who are bisexual are self delusional and can not be faithful to one partner to be offensive.

The analogy is incorrect and I as someone who happens to be bisexual find it offensive.

Zillah wrote:

If he's right then you should accept it and move on.
If he's wrong then you shouldn't care that some silly stranger got it wrong.

There would never be any changes or understandings reached if everyone did just that and never spoke out.
I can't leave that comment hanging there for who knows how long to be read by many people and maybe some of those young impressionible rebels.

I am sorry for going off topic but I would not leave it go unanswered,
if a comment was made like that about a persons gender rather then thier gender prference it would not be acceptible.

I do think that the fact atheists are coming out of hiding to dispell myths about themselves to be a good thing.

The idea that a person is moraless and not a good person unless they are christain or have some belief if god to be close minded and antiquated.

The dilbert blog link here use the closet concept, but there are many types of closet, indeed with in the pagan community there is the concept of the broom closet.
There have been members of the pagan community that have had it said to them after the came out of the broom closet that their parents had hoped they were gay as they could not control that but to choose to be pagan was a worse stigma then being gay.

The world is waking up at last that not everyone has the same beliefs as themsleves, be it a different religious belief or no beliefs at all and a good neighbour is a good neighbour no matter their creed or lack of it.

Evangelical fundamentalist are to be feared by everyone and while for some it can be a case of them being coming militant after thier conversion ( even to athiesism ) they settle down, I would prefer moderate neighbours then disrespectful fundamentalist of any ilk and this realisation is dawning on people.

Asiaprod

Zillah wrote:

Why?

Not aimed at me I know, but I do have a comment on that. I do not really appreciate the comparison that this statement draws in that BIs are cheating and self delusional. I have a few BI friends who would certainly disagree with this. It was just an interesting analogy.

Nevyn

I guess it is easier for people today that they are athiest then agnostic and then try to explain what that is and what is it that they do believe in or don't dis believe in enough to call themselves agnostics.

HealingBlight

Correct me if I'm right, but this is how I understand what the words mean:

a- = without/absence of
theism = belief in the existence of God
gnostic = of or relating to knowledge (in this case, the existence of god)

So atheism is the lack of a belief in god, it is as simple as that, such is the only thing that qualifies someone as atheist. Agnosticism is the lack of knowledge of gods existence (and by some extension, the idea that one could never know).

While it is correct to say that agnostics are not atheists and visa versa, I find it odd to hear people answer the question referring to their belief, by responding with their stance of knowledge. I'm pretty sure we are all atheist or theist in one form or another, same for gnostic or agnostic, however I think people who prefer to answer question a with answer b, do so out of an unwillingness to be associated with one group or another.

*Is agnostic atheist, to clear things up.*
If I'm mistaken, you understand me wrong, interpret it until it becomes correct and I will always be right, so sayith in the bible.

nesf

Don't break it into the greek, it doesn't always work like that in english. It's a bit like directly translating 'cul de sac'.


From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Atheist:
1) A person who denies or disbelieves in the existence of God or gods.
2) A person who denies God morally; a godless person.


Agnostic:
A person who holds the view that nothing can be known of the existence of God or of anything beyond material phenomena. Also, a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a particular thing.


Your above usage is actually a big problem within this entire thing these days. Some atheists choose to define atheism as being nontheism using etymology as their justification (what you did above). There are problems, and resistance to this, not only because it implicitly labels many agnostics as atheists but:

"This is evident in its very name—atheism is a-theism: the negation of theistic belief.... I think this view is profoundly mistaken. Its initial plausibility is based on a very crude piece of flawed reasoning we can call the etymological fallacy. This is the mistake of thinking that one can best understand what a word means by understanding its origin."

(Baggini 2003, p. 7 (A very short introduction to Atheism, Oxford University Press)

Personally, I agree with Baggini and consider it to be an etymological fallacy. Even though I appreciate the use of a precising defintion in logical argument, it should not be confused with "redefining" the general meaning of the word.


Defining atheism as non-theism is essentially a minority usage of the word and should not be considered to be the default usage when discussing topics with other people who haven't expressly agreed on the alternate definition. To try and argue that another person's definition is false because they use the majority definition of the word instead of your minority definition is non-sensical. It would be like me telling you that cats are birds not mammals since I define birds to include all vertebrates not just winged ones with feathers. Do you know what I mean?

Another example of an etymological fallacy:

My surname, O'Sullivan. In Irish it is ó Súilleabháin. It "sounds" like "súil + amháin". Which translates as "one eye". The problem is that that is modern Irish, the surname is far older than that. It really is "súil + dubh + án" which could translate as "hawk eyes" or "black eyes" the Irish scholars don't quite agree since it is ambigious, but you'll find sites and books everywhere talking about "one eyed" and this entire false naive etymology of the surname exists.

Dades

HealingBlight wrote:

So atheism is the lack of a belief in god, it is as simple as that

Except there's nothing simple about the definition of "god". In my experience that's usually where the disagreement comes about.

----

nesf, I understand that you don't wish to have atheism defines from an etymological view, but what definition would you give it?

You told me recently that atheism is closer to theism than agnosticism, does that mean you believe that real atheists know there is no god(s) with the same certainty that devout theists know there is?

I find that assertion difficult to agree with, given that no rational thinker can claim to know what is beyond our understanding. That definition would probably clear this forum of atheists completely.

Can a definition evolve? Perhaps the Oxford dictionary defintions are as they are because it has become accepted that a hardline atheist approach is as untenable as a theist approach.

I thought atheism divided into 1- believing there is no god and 2- not believing there is a god
and then agnosticism was 1- believing we cannot know if there's a god and 2- not knowing if there is a god....

and once again, I'm in scofflaw's camp

SonOfPerdition

Zillah wrote:

An atheist rejects all Gods.

If you believe in any sort of God or Gods then you're not an atheist.

Hey Zilah,
Been lurking on this forum for a while now, but i wanted to ask you about that statement.

Surely your statement should be about supernatural Gods? I've maintained in the last few years that it is illogical to blanket deny God when it is impossible to know all possible definitions of God.

What if someone's definition of God is "The process that created the 'something' that eventually led to my existence."

'something' being the universe if we believe our senses.
Then,whatever created our universe or the cause that created it .... *IT* can labeled as "God".

Beyond that there is no further information and no further claims are made.
The god of Abraham, or supernatural events, reincarnation etc is denied.

Could someone with those beliefs and definition of god be considered an atheist?

SOP

Esmereldina

The Atheist wrote:

Except there's nothing simple about the definition of "god". In my experience that's usually where the disagreement comes about.

----

nesf, I understand that you don't wish to have atheism defines from an etymological view, but what definition would you give it?

You told me recently that atheism is closer to theism than agnosticism, does that mean you believe that real atheists know there is no god(s) with the same certainty that devout theists know there is?

I find that assertion difficult to agree with, given that no rational thinker can claim to know what is beyond our understanding. That definition would probably clear this forum of atheists completely.

Can a definition evolve? Perhaps the Oxford dictionary defintions are as they are because it has become accepted that a hardline atheist approach is as untenable as a theist approach.

I consider myself an atheist, and would define my atheism as believing
that there is no god, rather than simply lacking a belief in a god. So I would agree in a sense with the above, although substituting 'believe' for 'know', as obviously, as was pointed out above, we cannot really 'know' whether or not there is a not. So atheist is, in a sense, as much of a leap of faith as theism... I always get annoyed when atheism is defined in the negative, ie as the lack of a belief, while for me, it is a belief which positively informs my values and outlook on life, rather than being something which I am missing and which religious people have.

Dades

SonOfPerdition wrote:

it is impossible to know all possible definitions of God.

Whose definitions are you talking about?

When I describe my beliefs I use the definition that makes sense to me. And it doesn't include the "anything I don't understand" god.

Scofflaw

The Atheist wrote:

Whose definitions are you talking about?

When I describe my beliefs I use the definition that makes sense to me. And it doesn't include the "anything I don't understand" god.

Hang on - so you're defining the God you don't believe in yourself? Doesn't that necessarily make your atheism a personal statement of belief rather than a statement of non-belief? As in "I don't believe in this God that I define thus (however you define God)" rather than "I have no belief in Gods, however defined".

cordially,
Scofflaw

SonOfPerdition

The Atheist wrote:

Whose definitions are you talking about?

Anyone who decides to define God. The entire human race past, present, and future.

When I describe my beliefs I use the definition that makes sense to me. And it doesn't include the "anything I don't understand" god.

You define beliefs that make sense to you.
Anyone can define their God in a way that makes sense to them . .and quite possibly could still fall under the label Atheist. My belief .... for now.

Esmereldina

SonOfPerdition wrote:

Hey Zilah,
Been lurking on this forum for a while now, but i wanted to ask you about that statement.

Surely your statement should be about supernatural Gods? I've maintained in the last few years that it is illogical to blanket deny God when it is impossible to know all possible definitions of God.

What if someone's definition of God is "The process that created the 'something' that eventually led to my existence."

'something' being the universe if we believe our senses.
Then,whatever created our universe or the cause that created it .... *IT* can labeled as "God".

Beyond that there is no further information and no further claims are made.
The god of Abraham, or supernatural events, reincarnation etc is denied.

Could someone with those beliefs and definition of god be considered an atheist?

SOP

See that whole 'there must be something out there that created the world and me, and it could be defined as God' argument just sounds like a play on words to me. Can't you just decide whether you believe in a higher intelligent being (god) or not...

HealingBlight

I've hade the idea, since I was about 16, that god is really just a subjective title much akin to 'King' and that there is nothing really that would ever make a being god except for the worshipers behind it and the amount brute force it can muster to perpetuate and maintain said idea? In essence, just like no 'true' king can seem to exist, would such be the case that no 'true' god can either?

Then I guess that would make me apathetically agnostic, as well as atheist. I still lack a belief in the existence of god, of course the difficulty comes with, in respect to the title idea, if one asks if I were to believe that a theist has a god, or if a subject has a king. These, it would seem would really only amount to the existence pseudogods or pesudokings.


Ugh, I need more sleep, I half-think I'm a bit all over the place. o.o;

Esmereldina

HealingBlight wrote:

I've hade the idea, since I was about 16, that god is really just a subjective title much akin to 'King' and that there is nothing really that would ever make a being god except for the worshipers behind it and the amount brute force it can muster to perpetuate and maintain said idea? In essence, just like no 'true' king can seem to exist, would such be the case that no 'true' god can either?

o.o;

I think that something like this was the idea behind 'Small Gods' by Terry Pratchett... I read it about 4 years ago so I only have a very vague memory of it, but it was definitely an amusing take on religion and the way that people worship gods ...

Esmereldina

sorry if that was slightly off topic... I should get myself to the literature forum!

Dades

Scofflaw wrote:

Hang on - so you're defining the God you don't believe in yourself? Doesn't that necessarily make your atheism a personal statement of belief rather than a statement of non-belief? As in "I don't believe in this God that I define thus (however you define God)" rather than "I have no belief in Gods, however defined".

But before you can say you disbelieve, or have a lack or belief, or even believe, you have to define what it is you're talking about. I'm simply saying that the definition at the centre of the argument is somewhat subjective.

Anyhoo I'm off on my Christmas party.

nesf

The Atheist wrote:

nesf, I understand that you don't wish to have atheism defines from an etymological view, but what definition would you give it?

Its actual definition from usage, that being its lexical defintion. The etymological fallacy is someone saying that word X should be defined as Y not it's usual/majority/lexical definition Z because the etymology of X appears to be Y. Where a word comes from does not necessarily indicate how it should be used.

The Atheist wrote:

You told me recently that atheism is closer to theism than agnosticism, does that mean you believe that real atheists know there is no god(s) with the same certainty that devout theists know there is?

I said, or at least meant to say, that atheism is as far from agnosticism as theism is. I didn't mean to say that atheism is closer to theism than agnosticism.

The Atheist wrote:

Can a definition evolve? Perhaps the Oxford dictionary defintions are as they are because it has become accepted that a hardline atheist approach is as untenable as a theist approach.

A definition can most definitely evolve (The Shorter Oxford Dictionary is great since it lists meanings since the 17 century so you can see how meanings changed or fell out of use and so on) however this takes time and to reject a lexical definition in general discussion is intellectually dishonest. If you want to present an argument where you clearly define beforehand that atheism means lack of belief within the context of this argument then that's perfectly valid in my eyes.

But if you decide to have a general discussion or speak generally on the topic then it is intellectually dishonest to stray from the accepted lexical meaning of the word atheist while making a point or argument. If we aren't all working off the same meanings for words how are we meant to communicate?

pH

nesf wrote:

The other side of it is that the a- prefix in greek indicates negation. The negation of theism, defined as the belief in a God or gods, would be disbelief, not the lack of it. See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

The a- prefix can also just as validly mean 'without' in Greek, so atheism can equally mean lack of belief, many use it in that context all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

[edited to add]I see you rethought that and removed it in your edit

nesf

pH wrote:

The a- prefix can also just as validly mean 'without' in Greek, so atheism can equally mean lack of belief, many use it in that context all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

[edited to add]I see you rethought that and removed it in your edit

I removed it because I didn't want to get turn this into an argument about greek prefixes. I thought about clarifying what I meant originally but decided that it wasn't really that relevant to what I was saying and would distract from my actual argument. But since you caught me...

My point was that the etymology is ambigious in that it can mean the negation of theism or without theism both would appear to be equally valid if this is the only point of reference that we have. However we have another point of reference in the lexical definitions which take the a- prefix to mean negation in this context and this removes the ambiguity. It seems intially plausable to argue that a- means without in this context, but when you look at the other points of reference beyond the etymology it is no longer plausable.

SonOfPerdition

The Atheist wrote:

Except there's nothing simple about the definition of "god". In my experience that's usually where the disagreement comes about.

I missed this the first time around. Guess it's basically what i'm pondering over at the moment.

Is the personal definition of god(s) held by a single individual, no matter how strange that definition is, is it a valid definition? If not, why not?

lostexpectation

HealingBlight wrote:

I've hade the idea, since I was about 16, that god is really just a subjective title much akin to 'King' and that there is nothing really that would ever make a being god except for the worshipers behind it and the amount brute force it can muster to perpetuate and maintain said idea? In essence, just like no 'true' king can seem to exist, would such be the case that no 'true' god can either?

Then I guess that would make me apathetically agnostic, as well as atheist. I still lack a belief in the existence of god, of course the difficulty comes with, in respect to the title idea, if one asks if I were to believe that a theist has a god, or if a subject has a king. These, it would seem would really only amount to the existence pseudogods or pesudokings.

yeah im mean how many people belive in god and how many believe in religion.

is that deism?

its make you more athiest if you don't believe in the function of religions, most people I think don't believe in bearded man but the idea of the divine, the idea of purpose and meaning and way of life.


wht's the word for a-religious
I didn't suggest the bisexuals are more prone to fidelity, it was just the ol joke that they cheat by being able to be involved with both sexes, of course you knew that.

Zillah

SonOfPerdition wrote:

What if someone's definition of God is "The process that created the 'something' that eventually led to my existence."

'something' being the universe if we believe our senses.
Then,whatever created our universe or the cause that created it .... *IT* can labeled as "God".

Definitions such as the above render the word "God" completely useless. We may as well say "X". God implies an intelligence, an entity, self aware in the same manner as a human, or more.

Definitions of God that fail to include that have successfully defined themsevles out of existence; we're back to "x".

SonOfPerdition

Zillah wrote:

Definitions such as the above render the word "God" completely useless. We may as well say "X". God implies an intelligence, an entity, self aware in the same manner as a human, or more.

Definitions of God that fail to include that have successfully defined themsevles out of existence; we're back to "x".

OK,.... so you are saying the discussion of God in regards to atheism must be a sentient god?

Would you hold the same view of Pandeism? Is pandeism just as useless as a discussion for atheists? i know in this case it was a sentient God, but it would appear to me that such a discussion of pandeism would be equally as useless for you.

hmmm .. i must think on this further .. to be honest i'm just voicing some of the thoughts churning around in my head. I'm not sure if i agree or disagree with you.

and apologies if i don't make sense, i rarely make sense to myslef.

Dades

SonOfPerdition wrote:

OK,.... so you are saying the discussion of God in regards to atheism must be a sentient god?

Frankly, yes. Otherwise we could be talking about space dust, the wind or a cup of hot tea.

SonOfPerdition wrote:

Would you hold the same view of Pandeism? Is pandeism just as useless as a discussion for atheists? i know in this case it was a sentient God, but it would appear to me that such a discussion of pandeism would be equally as useless for you.

Well pandeism is a belief in a specific incarnation of "god". At least it is defined in some fashion. That way you can either subscribe to it or not.

Tar.Aldarion

Scofflaw wrote:

Alatrism = non-worship.

Describes me every day of the week, whether I'm feeling assertively atheist or assertively agnostic. Covers my position with respect to all known gods.

repetitively,
Scofflaw

Well this is also me, an alatrist.
A question though, with alatrism, nothing can be a god to us, nothing can satisfy the requirements of being a god to us, therefore a god can not exist.
You see, a god can exist to satisfy other peoples definitions of one, which is why I was agnostic, but nothing can exist that I would deem a god/worship etc.
Does this make us inherently atheistic or agnostic as a 'god' can exist by a definition?

Zillah

SonOfPerdition wrote:

OK,.... so you are saying the discussion of God in regards to atheism must be a sentient god?

What is a non-sentient God other than a completely normal thing that just happens to have been really really badly renamed?

Like the ficitonal second moon of Earth? Its now what I call God. Is someone an Atheist if they don't believe in Luna 2?

Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Well this is also me, an alatrist.
A question though, with alatrism, nothing can be a god to us, nothing can satisfy the requirements of being a god to us, therefore a god can not exist.
You see, a god can exist to satisfy other peoples definitions of one, which is why I was agnostic, but nothing can exist that I would deem a god/worship etc.
Does this make us inherently atheistic or agnostic as a 'god' can exist by a definition?

I know what you mean - it seems terribly solipsistic to simply determine by ourselves that no gods can exist, when it is clear that other people believe they do - the atheist position.

Yet at the same time we are admitting that gods certainly seem to exist to other people, and these people may or may not be right for themselves - the agnostic position.

I would say the alatrist is closer to the agnostic - taking a few thought-experiment examples:

1. the Biblical literalist's God - this would be, say, Brian's God. I accept that he is Brian's god insofar as Brian worships him, and I can see why Brian worships him, given the very unpleasant penalties claimed for not doing so - but I wouldn't worship him myself, and don't believe he's real anyway (at the very least he's been dead or missing for a couple of thousand years). The only proof for him is a badly-written, contradictory text of uncertain provenance and meaning, which shows every sign of tampering. I consider Brian deluded, and am atheist about his god..

2. the deist God - a being so vague as to mean almost anything, but in general considered to be benevolent. I accept that this is, say, John's God insofar as John worships him, although I can't really see why he bothers, since such a God is likely no more aware of his worship than an elephant would be of a particularly respectful gut microbe. His God is non-falsifiable. I regard John as wanting to be a better person, needing a reason for doing so, and slapping a humanoid face over the top of it to give himself a personal trainer - one that cannot be dispelled by logic. I consider John harmless and am agnostic about his god.

3. the personal God - something I would not usually consider to fall under the heading of deity at all, but that is worshipped as such by, say, Steve. It might be another person, or an idol, or a corporation, or a monarch, or anything else which I can clearly state that Steve treats as holy and passes responsibility for his life over to. I consider Steve weird, and am atheist about his god.

So I, at least, would be atheist about some gods, and agnostic about others - a case-by-case basis. I'm happy with that - essentially, I cobbled together 'alatrist' because neither atheist nor agnostic was entirely applicable.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion

Ah yes that will do, poor weird steve.
The three examples you use, are how I feel about them.
1)Atheistic towards any 'Earthly' religion.
2)Agnostic to something that could be considered by a lot of people to exist and be a god, benevolant or otherwise.
Like superman, but more powerful. We'll call them the ancients.
3) I will call 3 the Significant Other.

Now, for one and two, I can be athiestic/agnostic towards their gods but even if one or the other exists it does not make it a god to me. That meaning, I am atheistic towards any 'god' with 'god' being a namby-pamby terma s it can not exist for me.
Therefore I would say to myself I am an alatrist, a handy way to describe it.
An atheist because a god can't exist to me, but to another person an agnostic, because I believe their god(Number 2.) could exist under their definition of a god.

Asiaprod

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

An atheist because a god can't exist to me, but to another person an agnostic, because I believe their god(Number 2.) could exist under their definition of a god.

Nicely put. I would prefer this amendment to the latter:
because I believe their god(Number 2.) could exist, to them, under their definition of a god.

Dades

I kind of concur. Although number 2 does leave itself open to abuse of the system...

Tar.Aldarion

Asiaprod wrote:

Nicely put. I would prefer this amendment to the latter:
because I believe their god(Number 2.) could exist, to them, under their definition of a god.

I didn't put that in, because if it exists, it exists to me too.
The only difference being that it is a god under their definition, not under mine.

I kind of concur. Although number 2 does leave itself open to abuse of the system...

But...but..malevolant gods are the best ones!

pH

the entry under GOD in the Guide to Humanistic Judaism wrote:

After Kant, theology shifted its emphasis from proofs to the religious
experience, the experience of God as a psychological phenomenon.
Ultimately, theology degenerated into discussions about the "need to
believe." God was no longer an objective being with an independent
existence. He became a subjective being, a convenient illusion for people
who could not bear to live without him.

As a just Supreme Being became less credible, theology turned to redefining
the word God. God became nature, love, goodness, positive power. The
motivation for this redefinition is questionable. If God refers to a unique
supernatural being, then the need for the word is obvious. But if God refers
to powers and values for which other terms exist, then the usefulness of the
word God is doubtful. If God is love, why not simply use the word love? If
God is nature, why not use the word nature? Most modern theology is an
intellectual version of the "emperor's clothing" -- words without real
meaning.

http://home.teleport.com/~hellman/archive/whoisgod.shj

I think that folks seem to get confused in these arguments, they end up defining God in a wishy-washy way, but still are convinced that belief or not in God matters (thinking about God as a more traditional biblical God).

If God created us, gave us a soul and everlasting life, loves us and wants us to follow his rules, then whether I believe or not in such an entity is genuinely important. My eternal soul could be at risk, there's more to life that the 70 odd years we get on this planet.

If however your God is something more vague, something that may have created everything but hasn't revealed himself here on earth, nor has he given us souls, nor does he have any requirements for our behaviour, then surely belief, non-belief or a philosophical position of 'unprovable' are all equal. Neither one makes any difference to our lives here on earth.

The God doesn't require worship, nor does he expect us to live by any standards, nothing exists after death, so a believer and a non-believer both live life in exactly the same way. Being agnostic to such a 'God' seems to be an obscure and contrary position, one of intellectual snobbery, the sole purpose for which seems to be 'clever' philosophical debate.

Dades

Good points pH.

For the definition of either atheism or agnosticism to have any relevance, it must relate to something tangible. Or at least that's how I read it...