Every time I read things by agnostics, like the Civil War era’s Robert Ingersoll, it seems they really are indistinguishable from atheists, but have the “doubt” factor as a way to stop churchie critics: When somebody starts into them, they can just stop the tirade with “Well, I’m open to all possibilities.” But they actually know better.
Agnosticism is a subset of atheism, but I have no problem with the distinction. And I sure don’t have a problem with using any means possible to duck those tirades.
Agnosticism is simply the lack of belief that I know whether God exists. There’s nothing inherently atheistic about it, and there’s no reason why agnostic theists can’t exist. A lot of self-proclaimed agnostics really are atheists, but that’s not relevant.
Some agnostics strongly suspect God exists. However, they demand proof before belief. What if the real God considers the worst possible sin worshipping a false god?
I see atheism as dis-belief and agnosticism as non-belief or the default mode.
I see no reason or evidence to believe in deities or the supernatural. I also see no clearcut proof they don’t exist.
As far as there not being anyway to prove the existence of a god or gods, well I don’t follow that tenet of agnosticism. There may or may not be, I don’t know. Just haven’t been presented with it yet.
I am a true agnostic.
I don’t like atheism because it pretends to have a confident answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything: “We are born, we live, and we die”. Tons of legitimate questions are still open for me. The most basic is why there isn’t nothingness. Something caused the universe to occur and we don’t understand what that was. That part I am sure of. I am also convinced that the universe is stranger than we can imagine and possibly unexplainable by human minds especially from our tiny little viewing window. I have also given a lot of thought to the infinite nature of the universe. There are several viable scenarios based in solid physics that lead to an infinite universe, or multiverses and those lead to even more questions.
None of this means that there is a God in the biblical sense but it doesn’t rule out something like it and I can guarantee whatever the real answer is, it will be a surprise based on what we know now.
I disagree. I think it’s more whether “man’s god” exists or not. I personally find man created in his god’s image to be very self serving.
I tend to regard agnostiscm as motivated by fear, given the level of hatred there is for atheism. I remember as a kid reading the religion section of the newspaper ( Press Democrat IIRC ), and seeing some bishop calling atheists “worse than murderers, sacrificing people to Kali”. That sort of thing sticks in the head.
I’m agnostic, and I don’t think it’s the same as atheism. For one, I am open to the possibility that a deity exists. “Hard” atheists (and I think everyone who is less than a hard atheist is really some variety of agnostic) believe that there is NO god, and can’t be swayed from their position. I’ve heard some atheists on this board say that if God came down and spoke today that they would think it was a hallucination or big hoax, anything but the supernatural no matter how much proof they had that it was a deity. I might think the same thing, though it would depend on circumstances.
I am already semi-theistic, in a “the universe itself is alive” way. What I doubt, and need proof of, is whether or not the universe is conscious in its aliveness (a conscious and living God) or if it is just following a predetermined program or form of instinct (sort of like a giant computer or matrix). And that, I think, is unprovable. How exactly does one sort out the nature of reality?
You didn’t read my explanation above or you just didn’t understand it. Atheism implies proof for something that you can’t have proof for. All atheists that I know of simply default to the “the universe just is, life just is, and death is inevitable” belief. There are plenty of unanswered questions even if you look at it purely scientifically. Atheism becomes a faith once you close your mind to the possibility that humans may not understand everything about human existence and the universe in general.
I see we are thinking along the same lines. I tend to think on a grander scale than this little time-line on earth. I think about the entire universe (which is mind-boggling), whatever has been, and whatever will be in the most massive sense.
I always got the impression that atheists simply think on the smallest scale possible and I can’t respect that.
Technically speaking, agnosticism is an epistemological position, not a theistic one. It is the belief that it is not possible to know whether God exists, it is not, strictly speaking, a per se opinion on the existence of God. You can have an opinion on the existence of God and still be agnostic in the sense that you distinguish your opinion from knowledge. In popular venacular, agnosticism is used pretty much synonomously with weak atheism but they are not precisely the same.
As to the OP, I think that weak atheism is a hedge or a pretense of open-mindedness so much as is simply the logical default. It is the absence of belief in God coupled with the recognition that God is not something that can be disproven empirically.
Where is that implied by “I don’t believe in any gods?”
Have you ever hard anyone assert that humans do in fact understand everything about human existence and the universe in general? I am not sure why such an assertion would assign the status of ‘faith’ to atheism, but surely no rational, coherent pereson would make such a claim.
Have you ever hard anyone assert that humans do in fact understand everything about human existence and the universe in general? I am not sure why such an assertion would assign the status of ‘faith’ to atheism, but surely no rational, coherent person would make such a claim.
Atheists do not make any claim that humans presently do or necessarily ever will understand everything about the universe. That’s a strawman. There’s unanswered questions? So what? Why insert magic?
That is not atheism, but materialism. Atheism is simply disbelief in gods; materialism is disbelief in the spiritual/supernatural. I’m both, but not every atheist is.
No, I’m saying that I think many “agnostics” are fearful atheists. It’s just a guess of course; without telepathy, there no way of knowing what people really believe.
No, it’s Occam’s Razor. Unless a reason is found to believe in a god, disbelief is the only rational choice. There are an infinity of evidence-free ideas; there is no rational reason to choose gods out of them. Why not claim the universe was made by Sauron instead ? It’s just as plausible as God.
That hardly justifies belief in gods. It’s much more sensible to look to science for meaningful answers, because science has been known to produce meaningful answers, unlike religion.
I don’t understand. Doesn’t admitting that absence of knowledge about the origin, direction, or the destination or the universe or multiverses preclude one from being an atheist? Those are some pretty huge questions. Personally, I like to have an idea about how systems work before I make sweeping statements of fact about them. Atheists tend to have a pretty narrow view. There is also the matter of faith that one must have to support (or militantly support) an unprovable view.
I am about to become a militant agnostic and I didn’t even know there was such a thing until this thread.
There is no insertion of magic. The laws of physics prove themselves to be what we have considered “magic” just a few years before. Look at relativity, string theory, multiverses etc. Who knows where all that stuff is coming from?
As far as I’m concerned Atheism requires just as much belief and Theism. Stating that there definitely is no god requires faith, even if it’s faith in a lack of something.
Agnostisism is the only position that doesn’t require you to accept something with no proof.
Only if you assume that such absence of knowledge necessarily proves the existence of God. Why should it? How do you get from 'I don’t know how everything works" to ‘There must be a God?’