Atheist v Agnostic

Great Debates
21

Common usage is not reason enough to make a definition of an agnostic. Common usage many times contains ignorance. We are in the business of fighting ignorance. The fact remains that agnosticism was not in the language until late in the 19th century. And yes, dictionaries are not very good at explaining definitions:

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So when my current dictionary explains that, “An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven, for example, but rather holds that one cannot know for certain if they exist or not” I agree that it is a correct definition. But I must add that it also describes every other person on the planet Earth. And, therefore, as a label it is meaningless.
No one, not I nor you nor the guy standing next to you, can know for certain that any god or gods exist(s). . . .

. . .The major problem in these discussions lies in the hair-splitting that goes on about whether or not an atheist simply does not acknowledge a god, or goes further and actually says there is no God. Atheists cannot make this claim. However, when we atheists emphatically state that we do not believe in a god we will sometimes say, “Oh, bull! There is no God!” But what we’re talking about are the human creations such as Jupiter, Thor, Jehovah, Krishna, Jesus, Allah and so on - the gods we’ve been spoon-fed since childhood but still find thoroughly unconvincing. So we lump them all together and pronounce them all nonexistent, and here is where the confusion comes in. When we claim nonexistence for a god we mean OF THOSE SO FAR OFFERED AS CANDIDATES.
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–Judith Hays.

What I conclude is that people who label themselves agnostics are ignoring the origins of the word. And on top of that, they ignore that atheists are indeed just like the “common usage” agnostics. Tell you what: I can not demonstrate that god exists. I also can not demonstrate he does not. But then: what god I am talking about here?
Clearly one has to get a definition of what god is and on top of that, believe in him/her/it, if one is a theist. Using the current usage of agnostic and the logical atheist position (hard atheists do not merit calling themselves that), I say they are the same. Anyhow, since we agnostics and atheists are really the same, we need to stop fighting with each other. We have to join forces, not to destroy religion, but to make sure it remains benevolent. And separated from the state.

22

I do not have faith…but I am a believer. Allow me to provide some examples:

I believe the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning at approx. 6am

I believe that there will be no monsters reaching out from under my bed to grab my foot in the middle of the night.

I believe I will make it home from work today without dying.

I believe NASA sent people to the moon, in spite of the overwhelming evidence against this “theory” <wink>

I have no faith in God.

What’s the difference?

http://www.m-w.com has the following to say about faith:

When you say atheism and/or agnosticism requires “faith”, you appear to have this confused with defintion 3 for “belief”:

Semantics? Sure, but that’s what we’re down to. You tell me dis-believing requires faith. I disagree. The lack of faith is not faith in and of itself. The difference is the “examination of evidence” thing.

Just for more semantic fun, faith in God presupposes a belief in the existence of God, but dis-belief does not presuppose faith in the nonexistence of God. As an example of this, I do not believe in the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Does this lack of belief require faith?

Perhaps I missed the point?

23

::applauds::

UncleBeer, can you justify this belief with certainty? I am inclined to ascribe to that tenet, yet how does one prove that something does not exist? Essentially, how does one make the move from Pragmatic Atheism to Dogmatic Atheism (a lack of belief to an active disbelief) based solely on logic?

24

Why is it that in these discussions, you always get a bunch of self-identified atheists saying “Well, no, that’s not what we mean by atheism…”, followed by a bunch of people who do not self-identify as atheists (agnostics or theists) saying “Yes, but atheism really means…” The etymology is certainly not against the position of most atheists; a simple a- “not, without” plus -theism, “belief in god”. “Not a theist” in other words, or “without theism”. I could see if we called ourselves antitheists or thereisnogodabsolutelynotnowayists or something. Hey, man, we use the damned word, it’s our word; dontcha think we know what it means?

As for quoting the dictionary: My unabridged dictionary has as definition 2. of atheism “godlessness esp. in conduct : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS”. Naturally, I reject all the implications and suppositions of that, too.

25

This thread crops up every now and then. I started one myself:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=36512

Even though I’m a strong atheist, I didn’t know that was the name for me until I went through the thread above. A little of my own ignorance was eliminated. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of your ignorance. The more you let go of, the more you crave the fill the void with knowledge.

26

All I know is that I consider myself an atheist, and I didn’t need to look in a dictionary to see what Someone Else’s Definition of “atheist” was.

My criteria are simple: I will believe in the existence of one or more gods when evidence of said existence is given to me for testing and verification. As it stands now, the only signs that any god exists are usually (a) some writings from a self-professed “holy book” of some sort, and (b) a bunch of groupies who insist the above constitutes “evidence”. Too shaky for me, so right now I’m an atheist.

Do I wish there was a God? To a degree, yeah; I get a small grin thinking of what it’d be like for a religious fundamentalist to die, get greeted by God, and then learn that everything the Fundamentalist believed in was wrong. “No, I didn’t write the Bible/Koran/whatever, and what you did to that other guy back in '92 was just mean.” But this is merely a pleasant fantasy, and I certainly don’t live my life under any assumptions that any supernatural beings are peeking over my shoulder.

And bickering over a dictionary’s definition of “atheist” and “agnostic” is pointless; in the end, our belief/doubt/disbelief in the existence of god(s) is a personal one. To think that a linguistic committee at a book publisher could capture everyone’s individual interpretations is silly.

27

Suppose you’re a devout member of Religion X. Chances are that you firmly believe that religions A, B, C,… are wrong.

So, you and I agree very closely. Of the many, many religions that have existed, I think all of them are false; you think all but one are false.

28

Damn fine post, beezlebubba.

Though I agree that passive/pragmatic/weak/light atheism (common usage: agnosticism) might fall into the “belief” definition, dogmatic/strong/hard atheism requires an active disbelief, and thus can be described as a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” (definition 2), because neither the existence nor the non existence of God can be proven.

**

Although definition three has a synonym of “belief”, it still means “faith” and applies to the Catholic Church as well as to those atheists with a dogmatic viewpoint. It is in no way improper to apply the word “faith” to the atheist view point (especially the dogmatic/strong/hard one).

Additionally, active disbelief does require presupposing the non-existence of God. Do you KNOW that there is no invisible pink unicorn, or is the possibility so unlikely as to be discounted. That’s the difference.

MEBuckner, I regret getting into the semantics and etymology of the word “atheist”, but I see no way out. “Atheist” is not “your” word. It belongs to the English language as a whole. If you want to be understood by the rest of the world at large, you must resort to common usage. PLDennisson mentioned, rightly, that language is constantly changing. These changes have given rise to the word “agnostic”, which the vast majority of the population understand and use. To claim that the majority of the population speaks the language incorrectly reeks of elitism. Whether you like it or not, usage is meaning.

amen, though I may be guilty of that silliness myself as evidenced by the above. However, I spent so much time typing this, I’m gonna post it anyway, by God.

I believe in God.
I believe in the afterlife.

I also believe that xanakis might be a troll.

-Beeblebrox

“Arthur,” said Ford
“Hello? Yes?” said Arthur.
“Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple.”
“Ah, well I’m not sure I believe that.”

29

I just realized that Beeblebrox and Beezlebubba are two different people. I’m a lazy reader–I’d read the Bee part, note the similar length, approximate location of ascenders, and, uh . . .

Anyway, this thread suddenly makes more sense. :wink:

30

Not rigorously. What I can do, is demonstrate some logical contradictions that theistic beliefs generate and must then be ignored or rationalized away through faith. This could be quite lengthy when you consider the sheer number of belief systems out there. Lemme work something up this evening while I have my references at hand. I’ll post my thesis early tomorrow morning. However, if I may at this point, recommend a book, I suggest, Atheism: The Case Against God by George Smith.

31

He’s my evil twin :wink:

[sub]well, he is “godless”

32

That’s precisely me problem. One can point out inconsistencies and contradictions given a particular belief system. How is the IPU both invisible and pink? I was wondering if you had postulated a proof disproving the existence of a apparent nonexistants–I like my proofs to be neat and tidy. Nonetheless, I look forward to your post tomorrow. Thanks for the book recommendation.

33

But this is not true. “Agnostic” did not grow out of some need in our culture for a new word, it was coined by Huxley specifically to oppose the concept of Gnosis, or more specifically of the Gnostics. As he said,

If any word is misused by society, it is this one. “Agnostic” doesn’t describe someone who doesn’t know one way or the other, it describes someone who believes he can’t know one way or the other.

As I said, I believe I can know one way or the other, but for the time being, all suggested evidence falls short of sufficient proof. Obviously, “agnostic” does not describe me. If not “atheist,” then what? “Skeptic”? That doesn’t seem to cover it adequately.

Actually, someone in another thread recently had a good one: “Apatheist.” Not only don’t I know, I don’t care. :smiley:

34

[sub]ahem… [/sub]pldennison, you left out the last two sentences of my quote, and appear to have missed the point.

35

I thought about including this in my earlier post: In my unabridged dictionary (the same one which gives one definition of atheism as including the trait of “wickedness”), one of the secondary definitions of the word “Jew” is (I’m paraphrasing here) “a person who is tight-fisted with money”.

I do not agree with the “popular” definition of atheism. Most self-identified atheists I know do no agree with the “popular” definition of atheism. Many “popular” definitions of words do not match the way those words are used in more technical senses.

Personally, I would not presume to tell, say, the Roman Catholic Church what the term “papal infallibility” means. I could set up a strawman argument–“The Catholic Church says the Pope is ‘infallible’, but then last Tuesday he was making a speech, and he said it was Wednesday–so much for Roman Catholicism!” I could use etymological arguments–the “normal” meaning of “infallible” is pretty clear from the dictionary, no? And I could probably find any number of Protestant fundamentalists to provide me with their views on what the definition of “papal infallibility” means. But that’s not what the Catholic Church means when it uses the term. Note that, even by the Church’s own definition, I may still disagree with the doctrine, but I should at least figure out what it is they mean by it before I go off on a strawman hunt.

Clearly, the terms “atheist” and “agnostic” both have several related meanings. For at least some of those definitions, they are synonymous. For other definitions of the two words, they are not. This is not really uncommon for the English language.

36

Websters: “Atheism: Disbelief in the existence of a god”

I think the important issue is whether “disbelief” is in fact a form of “belief”. Let me explain:

2 + 2 = 4

This is a fact (known to be true) and also a belief (regarded as true).

ie it is both objectively true AND subjectively true.

“There is a god”

This is not a fact (it is not known to be true) but it is a belief (regarded as true)

ie it is not objectively true only subjectively so

“There is not a god”

This also is not a fact (it is not known to be true), it is a belief (regarded by some as true)

ie it is not objectively true only subjectively so

Thus both theism and atheism lack objectivity and are therefore not positions for a person to take unless one

  1. considers faith to be a valid determinant of what one should believe AND/OR

  2. one is sufficiently convinced by the arguments contained within Natural Theology.

There are a number of arguments for the existence of god that do not depend on the Bible - this field of study is called Natural Theology and contains such Proofs as The Argument From Design, The Argument From Moral Conscience etc

Beeblebrox, posting a view and subsequently defending/expanding upon it does not make me a “troll”.

37

Let’s put it this way xanakis: Of the set of people who answer “yes” to the question “Are you an atheist?”, a substantial number of them–possibly even a majority–are not using the word the way you and the dictionary are. Thus, you are not arguing with these people, you are arguing past them. I agree that the statement “I know that there is no God or gods!” (with no other stipulations as to which definition of “god” we’re talking about) is probably unwarranted. I am also an atheist. So, you’re not really arguing with me, and you’re not really arguing with most of the other “atheists” who post on this message board. You are arguing with the dictionary. Which is not really likely to argue back, but hey, if that’s what floats your boat…

38

Nen wrote:

Her Pinkness is visible only to those who believe.

Blessed be Her hooves.

39

Just to come back on that point.

Im aware that language is an evolving thing, Im aware that dictionaries are merely reflections of the current usage and past history of any given word.

However since English is the language we choose to converse in and since dictionaries are the best, most impartial arbiters we have when it comes to the meaning of words then we ought to rely on them wherever possible in order to ensure that we are at least talking about the same thing!

Dictionaries are fallible, I agree. But that doesnt mean we should discard them entirely.

The reason language developed in the first place was probably because humans understood the need to converse and to have a commonly-agreed definition of what any given word meant.

Therefore I dont think you can validly dismiss my points by saying:

“Well who in Hell believes a dictionary anyway”

which is effectively what you did.

Dictionaries are imperfect but they are the best tools we have available.

40

When you insist on using a very limited, shallow definition of a philosophy that has great complexity and many facets, then we damn well can dismiss your argument by telling you that the dictionary definition isn’t adequate.

Not true. We each have a powerful tool called a brain. We can discuss what we mean by a term like “belief” or “atheism” and we can then get down to the meat of the matter, rather than appealing to the authority of a book and quibbling over definitions.

Well, at least some of us can.

Everybody agrees that the sort of atheism you describe is dogmatic and irrational.

Everyone also agrees that this is not the sort of atheism that the posters to this thread subscribe to.

You can go on ignoring what everyone is saying, but then you’re not having a discussion; you’re just shouting from your little electronic soapbox. You’re not going to convince anyone. You’re just going to make your fingers sore by retyping your OP over and over.