Is there such a thing..

TangyZizzle · 18-10-2010 4:21pm #1

..as a passive atheist?

It came up in conversation today with a friend. I said I am an atheist, but Ill happily respect others beliefs and dont belittle them as other atheists do. To which he replied "Then youre not an atheist, youre agnostic. Theres no such thing as a passive atheist,'

Someone shed a little light on this for me?

edit: jaysus, someone move this to the regular AH please?

Saila · 18-10-2010 4:26pm

IBTM

just tell him your an agnostic atheist, problem solved.

TangyZizzle · 18-10-2010 4:27pm

Would have worked better had I not acknowledged posting in the wrong forum, first.

I.. hmm, now Im confused.

Stephen · 18-10-2010 4:35pm

Your friend is a gobsh1te.

alwaysadub · 18-10-2010 4:35pm

TangyZizzle wrote: »

..as a passive atheist?

It came up in conversation today with a friend. I said I am an atheist, but Ill happily respect others beliefs and dont belittle them as other atheists do. To which he replied "Then youre not an atheist, youre agnostic. Theres no such thing as a passive atheist,'

Someone shed a little light on this for me?

edit: jaysus, someone move this to the regular AH please?

Do we have two After Hours now or something?

My name is URL · 18-10-2010 4:35pm

Your mates talking shite.. if you don't like football you don't spend your time slagging off the teams you don't support. Those who attack or belittle religious people are antitheists, though the line between the two is fast disappearing it seems.

The Recliner · 18-10-2010 4:36pm

Moved from Cool Vids

TheZohanS · 18-10-2010 4:36pm

TangyZizzle wrote: »

..as a passive atheist?

It came up in conversation today with a friend. I said I am an atheist, but Ill happily respect others beliefs and dont belittle them as other atheists do. To which he replied "Then youre not an atheist, youre agnostic. Theres no such thing as a passive atheist,'

Someone shed a little light on this for me?

edit: jaysus, someone move this to the regular AH please?

Tell your friend that they're talking out their backside and that they're mixing up atheist with anti-theist.

Snakeblood · 18-10-2010 4:36pm

TangyZizzle wrote: »

..as a passive atheist?

It came up in conversation today with a friend. I said I am an atheist, but Ill happily respect others beliefs and dont belittle them as other atheists do. To which he replied "Then youre not an atheist, youre agnostic. Theres no such thing as a passive atheist,'

Someone shed a little light on this for me?

edit: jaysus, someone move this to the regular AH please?

Atheist denies god, agnostic goes 'Well, maybe'.

What would a passive atheist say?

KeithM89_old · 18-10-2010 4:37pm

Snakeblood wrote: »

Atheist denies god, agnostic goes 'Well, maybe'.

What would a passive atheist say?

Probably not??

TangyZizzle · 18-10-2010 4:37pm

alwaysadub wrote: »

Do we have two After Hours now or something?

We have this, which is a sub-category, and the main one.

The Recliner wrote: »

Moved from Cool Vids

Sound.

TangyZizzle · 18-10-2010 4:38pm

Snakeblood wrote: »

Atheist denies god, agnostic goes 'Well, maybe'.

What would a passive atheist say?

Right, so Im atheist.

kraggy · 18-10-2010 4:41pm

Snakeblood wrote: »

Atheist denies god, agnostic goes 'Well, maybe'.

What would a passive atheist say?

"I don't believe, but I've no problem if you do".

TangyZizzle · 18-10-2010 4:44pm

kraggy wrote: »

"I don't believe, but I've no problem if you do".

So, the answer to the question at hand is.. yes, yes they do exist. All I seem to see around me are agnostics and anti-theists, hence my confusion.

Btw, before I posted this thread Id never heard of the term 'anti-theist'.

strobe · 18-10-2010 4:44pm

TangyZizzle wrote: »

..as a passive atheist?

It came up in conversation today with a friend. I said I am an atheist, but Ill happily respect others beliefs and dont belittle them as other atheists do. To which he replied "Then youre not an atheist, youre agnostic. Theres no such thing as a passive atheist,'

Someone shed a little light on this for me?

edit: jaysus, someone move this to the regular AH please?

An atheist is someone that says "I don't believe there is a god".

An agnostic is someone that says "I don't know if there is a god".

Most atheists are agnostics, and most agnostics are atheists, quite a lot of theists are also agnostics.

Your friend doesn't seem to know what agnosticism or atheism mean.

In my experience the vast majority of atheists and agnostics are "passive atheists".

TheZohanS · 18-10-2010 4:48pm

strobe wrote: »

An atheist is someone that says "I don't believe there is a god".

An agnostic is someone that says "I don't know if there is a god".

Most atheists are agnostics, and most agnostics are atheists, quite a lot of theists are also agnostics.

Your friend doesn't seem to know what agnosticism or atheism mean.

In my experience the vast majority of atheists and agnostics are "passive atheists".

Atheists are not agnostic and agnostics are not atheists, you have contradiced yourself in your post.

strobe · 18-10-2010 4:51pm

TheZohan wrote: »

Atheists are not agnostic and agnostics are not atheists, you have contradiced yourself in your post.

I haven't, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Theism deals with belief where as gnosticism deals with knowledge. You can believe something to be true without knowing it is true and you can believe something is untrue without knowing it is untrue.

Snakeblood · 18-10-2010 4:56pm

strobe wrote: »

I haven't, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Theism deals with belief where as gnosticism deals with knowledge. You can believe something to be true without knowing it is true and you can believe something is untrue without knowing it is untrue.

But it's belief either way.

You can't know god exists. That's just screwing your eyes up tight and shouting 'IKNOWIKNOWIKNOW' in the absence of verifiable evidence.

TheZohanS · 18-10-2010 4:56pm

strobe wrote: »

I haven't, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Theism deals with belief where as gnosticism deals with knowledge. You can believe something to be true without knowing it is true and you can believe something is untrue without knowing it is untrue.

Atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist., there is no doubt so there is no way they can be categorised as an agnostic.

strobe · 18-10-2010 4:58pm

TheZohan wrote: »

Atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist., there is no doubt so there is no way they can be categorised as an agnostic.

Google "agnostic atheist" and "epistemology". This has been covered in these threads plenty of times before. I'd rather not have to go over it for the 50th time.

TheZohanS · 18-10-2010 5:09pm

strobe wrote: »

Google "agnostic atheist" and "epistemology". This has been covered in these threads plenty of times before. I'd rather not have to go over it for the 50th time.

That's a new one to me tbh. I think this is a case of a Pastor hijacking the term "atheist". In my opinion it's not unlike someone with beliefs saying "I'll say a prayer for you because you are an athiest and don't know any better".

liah · 18-10-2010 5:23pm

If you claim to know there's no god you're pretty arrogant tbh, that or you've got some information you may want to let the rest of us in on?

The majority of atheists I know are agnostic atheists and are so rightly, imo, as claiming you know that something doesn't exist is sheer egotism. Nobody can ever know that 100%, the same way nobody can ever know anything 100%. They can have evidence to prove it's 99.99% likely to be true, but there's still that 0.001%.

Works the same way for agnostic theism, just replace the terms. There is indeed a big difference between belief and knowledge.

invaderjim · 18-10-2010 5:26pm

Tell them you are a dyslexic, insomniac, agnostic and that you stay up all night wondering if there really is a Dog.

TheZohanS · 18-10-2010 5:29pm

liah wrote: »

If you claim to know there's no god you're pretty arrogant tbh, that or you've got some information you may want to let the rest of us in on?

The majority of atheists I know are agnostic atheists and are so rightly, imo, as claiming you know that something doesn't exist is sheer egotism. Nobody can ever know that 100%, the same way nobody can ever know anything 100%. They can have evidence to prove it's 99.99% likely to be true, but there's still that 0.001%.

Works the same way for agnostic theism, just replace the terms. There is indeed a big difference between belief and knowledge.

I think your post is very naive. At some stage we have to either decide for ourselves that something is either true or false.

Can you say with 100% certainty that you're awake right now and not dreaming? By your reckoning if there is a 0.001% chance that you are dreaming then you'll never know.

Fremen · 18-10-2010 6:01pm

liah wrote: »

If you claim to know there's no god you're pretty arrogant tbh, that or you've got some information you may want to let the rest of us in on?

The majority of atheists I know are agnostic atheists and are so rightly, imo, as claiming you know that something doesn't exist is sheer egotism. Nobody can ever know that 100%, the same way nobody can ever know anything 100%. They can have evidence to prove it's 99.99% likely to be true, but there's still that 0.001%.

Works the same way for agnostic theism, just replace the terms. There is indeed a big difference between belief and knowledge.

There are fundamental limits on what it is possible to know, for sure. On the other hand, you can be as confident that god doesn't exist as you are that peter pan doesn't exist - in my book, this amounts to "knowing".

As for the OP's question, your friend has no idea what he or she is talking about. I'd class myself as an athiest, but I have a "live and let live" attitude. As long as people don't try to convince me to believe in their god, or deny scientific orthodoxy, or do something moronic like refuse to vaccinate their child, I'm happy for them to carry on with their religion in peace.

rossie1977 · 18-10-2010 6:09pm

My name is URL wrote: »

if you don't like football you don't spend your time slagging off the teams you don't support.

the teams maybe not but the sport yes, like this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqmYrsfpI6Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_BRMkgPHYc

Chaotic_Forces · 18-10-2010 6:09pm

Your friend is known as an idiot.

If you were a passive atheist you wouldn't believe in God but you wouldn't want to argue with someone if they claimed God was real.

An agnostic is someone who is unsure what the meaning of God is; what religion is "right" and so on but they have some belief there is a a "correct" religion but they don't know it yet.

Feeona · 18-10-2010 6:42pm

TheZohan wrote: »

Can you say with 100% certainty that you're awake right now and not dreaming? By your reckoning if there is a 0.001% chance that you are dreaming then you'll never know.

This guy seems to know a bit about this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dik_wnOE4dk&feature=related

Is there such a thing..

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