# On Atheism and Agnosticism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703 "2002-08-13T15:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/121 "2002-08-19T04:11:46Z")
Here’s Hosper’s quote, reproduced for better clarity (sorry): > [@](#): > > One can believe in many gods (polytheism) or one (monotheism). One can believe in a God who created the world and then left it to run by itself in splendid isolation (Deism) or one who continues to exercise his influence over the course of the world at every stage of its history (theism). One can believe that there is no God at all (atheism), or that we are not entitled on the basis of evidence either to believe God exists or that he does not exist (agnosticism, literally “I-don’t-know-ism”) * * * On the wider point of common usage, I am also an empiricist. IMO, the proper way to hammer down the beliefs of atheists and agnostics is to ask them. If the great majority of atheists agree with the statement, “God probably doesn’t exist”, then I for one would be willing to call that a characteristic of atheism. If most agnostics say, “I withhold judgement regarding the existence of God.”, ditto. If, OTOH, lots of atheists declare, “I do not believe in God” AND “I withhold judgement regarding the existence of God”, I would be surprised, but I think I could handle that outcome as well. (There are other possibilities consistent with Apos’ framework as well of course). ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/122 "2002-08-19T04:36:05Z")
In this sense it would almost be desirable to have a sort of atheistic church so that there could be a sort of collaboration on the use of these terms to an extent, because all sorts of people say all sorts of silly things all the time. Why, I just read in a thread here that if we read the bible from Genesis to Revelation and still think God is evil, we just haven’t understood it. Well, actually, I am not sure that is silly yet. But, anyway. I normally identify with atheists when prompted, but I think that, even if God _did_ exist, it would still be unintelligible to us. God, as a infinitely powerful being, would be pretty much indistinguishable from a non-god-but-still-damn-powerful being (a finitely powerful being). I mean, I haven’t ruled God out as impossible, but if I suspected some being might be God, I could not think of a way to test that to my own satisfaction. So what the hell does _that_ say? Do I believe, believe not, not believe…? 😃 [sub]Hence: Eris[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/123 "2002-08-19T05:23:56Z")
Well, it depends. Did Eris set things up to run chaotically from the get-go? Or does His Randomness exercise its influence over the world more or less continuously? (Or can’t we really be sure?) ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/124 "2002-08-19T06:02:23Z")
Her. Of course, the master of chaos would have to be a woman, even if she was conceived of by the greeks. Even back then women had a powerfully confusing effect on _man_kind. 😉 Now, the question can be put: if our notion of truth forms a system, what about our notion of falsity? If our certainty forms a system, what about our doubts? And if we could be mistaken most of the time (given that the falsities and doubts are systems unto themselves) instead of being right most of the time (as we tend to suspect) then what sense, apart from our own little system, does right and wrong really have? Underneath these systems lies pure chaos, embodied in the defamed yin yang symbol as a single piece of undifferentiated chaos: The Chao (note the singular ;)). If I can believe that, I can believe anything. And if I can doubt that, can I doubt anything? … My own interpretations of the utterly amusing Principia, combined with some philosophy and a bit of coffee at this time of the morning/night (another arbitrary distinction). Yeah, I associate with atheism, but the notion of Eris has really served to comfort me in strange ways. I fear that one day I will become a full-fledged discordian and carry pope cards. … As a person immanently interested in matters of distinction (and I mean that quite literally: I am interested in distinctions), it is sort of neat to try and find that seemingly obvious line between atheism and agnosticism. It seems the further one tries to seperate from the agnostic the more one starts to assert a fundamental belief of one’s own, which of course then sort of demands we look at such an atheist in a religious light, since it becomes an assertion about god-beings. Forget agnostics. Let’s call them atheists, and then explicate the difference between atheists and Atheists. (by which, using the [infidels.org](http://infidels.org) terminology, I would probably be saying strong atheists) the rest seems like a very petty distinction indeed, if one at all as we seem to be making. For wouldn’t it be the case if you really had a no-belief that you wouldn’t be seeking so strenuously to avoid being lumped in with people who would, by definition, make no assertions about gods? If you don’t fall into this group, in which sense would it be a lack of belief? I feel betrayed by the law of the excluded middle in these conversations. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2002, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/125 "2002-08-20T01:14:24Z")
Any number of taxonomies are plausible. As an empiricist, I would be inclined to start ground my scheme on empirical reality, rather than attempt to impose a particular framework on the same. One could, for example, define deists as a sub-category of atheism. They aren’t theists, right? Personally though, I’d prefer a starting point that reflected the group’s stated stance towards the question. For weak atheists, it’s either “~(believe(x))” or “X probably doesn’t exist”, depending upon who is doing the defining. For empirical agnostics, it’s “Withhold judgement”, or if you insist, “~(believe(X)) and ~(believe(~X))”. For deists, it would be “believe( X’ )”, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2002, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/126 "2002-08-20T13:04:52Z")
> [@](#): > > For **wouldn’t** it be the case if you really had a **no-belief** that you **wouldn’t** be seeking so strenuously to **avoid** being lumped in with people who would, by definition, make **no** assertions about gods? If you **don’t** fall into this group, in which sense would it be a **lack** of belief? (bolding emphasis of negatives by Algernon) I feel betrayed by my own inability to deconstruct this sentence. Ummmm, forgive me **erislover** , but could you restate this thought for me? I kind of lost track. I think all the negatives are throwing me off. ---
**Author:** ![WarrenC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WarrenC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarrenC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2002, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/127 "2002-08-20T13:44:58Z")
Meatros- For some reason, whenever this topic is discussed there is always one person who, rather than argue his position logically, turns to your arguement: Faith. That is the biggest cop out it the world. You use it as a means to avoid admitting that there is any evidence to support your position. Faith alone does not make your arguement correct. Bascially, what your are saying is that the is no logical reason to believe that there is a god, but you elect to believe it, and that makes it right. The truth is that you are incabable of accepting the fact that when you die, your existance will end. Psycologically, you must create this fantasy that there is some great force, that you have never seen, nor heard, nor spoken to that “loves you”. Hopefully, you are content in your naivety. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/128 "2002-08-21T01:53:14Z")
\*The truth is that you are incapable of accepting the fact that when you die, your existence will end. \* Hello, WarrenC: Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board! I could make the counter-claim that you, Mr. C, are unwilling to deal with the uncertainty inherent in metaphysical matters. Here’s my agnostic’s take: You die. Maybe there’s an afterlife. Maybe there’s not. I could make a probabilistic guess about which scenario is more likely, given the facts as I understand them. But, at bottom, there is a substantial amount of remaining uncertainty, given that humanity currently lacks a good model for consciousness (or any scientific model at all, for that matter). Absent that model, it is difficult to specify for certain the conditions by which consciousness ceases. It would be like discussing the origin of the universe before Kepler or even Copernicus: we simply don’t have the background to discuss the subject intelligibly. Now isn’t that an even more distressing scenario? The few: the proud: the intellectually courageous: The Agnostics[sup]TM[/sup]. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/129 "2002-08-21T01:57:07Z")
Hey gang, I have another possible definition of agnosticism. Agnosticism is the no-man’s land between atheism and theism, exposed to attack from both sides. [sub]With apologies to Bertrand Russell.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/130 "2002-08-21T05:59:34Z")
**Algernon** , lol, sorry 'bout that. If atheism were as simple as saying “It isn’t that I believe in no-god, but I have no belief about it” then there would be no cause to avoid being lumped in with agnostics who, as it were, can’t really say anything about gods anyway. Imagine: yelling “I DON’T CARE” _very_ loudly to someone who doesn’t speak English. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/131 "2002-08-21T06:48:04Z")
I lack a belief in God. That does not imply that I lack a concern for accuracy in how I am labeled. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/132 "2002-08-21T06:52:10Z")
An example: I do not believe political parties are ever a long-term benefit to a democracy. That does not mean I would accept being labeled an anarchist. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/133 "2002-08-21T07:21:52Z")
That’s true. I mistake my own lack of concern about it for a general principle. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/134 "2002-08-21T07:45:55Z")
Still: what is being labeled here? It isn’t so much you don’t want to be labeled incorrectly, but more that you don’t want a belief attributed to you. And here is where I stop personally caring. It isn’t very far that I care to present someone nothing and direct their attention to it in hopes they’ll see. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/135 "2002-08-21T07:51:13Z")
Though that brings to ming a very good analogy. A theist writes the word “GOD[s]” on a piece of paper and cuts around it as if to hold those letters alone, then hands the atheist the rest of the paper which once surrounded it. When they present this to each other, the rest of the paper is gone, though the theist of course presents what they cut out. What’d the agnostic do? Crumple it? Cut it in all sorts of places? Color it? It is the talk of rigid logical distinctions that gets to me here. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/136 "2002-08-21T16:58:45Z")
Well, the whole question of self-identification vs. external identification gets tangled in social expectation, historical precedent, etc. I think that there can be some very valid resasons for insisting upon an accurate description of my beliefs (or lack thereof) in many contexts. In others, I couldn’t care less. What I have often found in practice, however, is that people wish to redefine my position in order to fit me more comfortably into the box of their preconceptions. “Comfortable”, of course, refers to their comfort not mine. I find that accepting such an assignment for the philosophical/theological/social comfort of another is not often within my nature. Whether I can color that a concern for intellectualm honesty or a reflection of contentiousness depends upon my mood at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/137 "2002-08-21T17:29:25Z")
Eris: what you are describing is called non-cognitivism. It’s essentially the position that the claim “God exists” is unintelligible as “square-circles exist”: if we can’t even concieve of what we’re talking about, on can’t very well state much of anything about it, and one certainly cannot believe in it, because they wouldn’t have any idea what they were believing in. —If atheism were as simple as saying “It isn’t that I believe in no-god, but I have no belief about it” then there would be no cause to avoid being lumped in with agnostics who, as it were, can’t really say anything about gods anyway.— Sigh… was there any point to writing anything I said? Atheists are neither to be lumped in with agnostics nor divided from them. Some atheists are agnostics. Some are not. Some theists are agnostics. Some are not. —For wouldn’t it be the case if you really had a no-belief that you wouldn’t be seeking so strenuously to avoid being lumped in with people who would, by definition, make no assertions about gods? If you don’t fall into this group, in which sense would it be a lack of belief?— One can fall into BOTH groups. I am an atheist. I make no claims about gods. At this point, I feel fairly justified in saying: get over it. ----Agnosticism is the no-man’s land between atheism and theism, exposed to attack from both sides.— Agnosticism is just not sensibly a viable middle ground between atheism/theism, no matter what else is said. Whether you don’t know something or not simply does not resolve the question of whether you believe. —One could, for example, define deists as a sub-category of atheism. They aren’t theists, right?— For goodness sake, of course they are theists! They believe that god exists! —If the great majority of atheists agree with the statement, “God probably doesn’t exist”, then I for one would be willing to call that a characteristic of atheism.— Definitions are not empirical matters, because that would lead to circular nonsense. You use definitions to _describe_ empirical matters. But if most Southerners are racist, that doesn’t make racism a characteristic of being Southern. That’s just begging out of the discussion entirely, not resolving it. What you need to do is to ask what atheists think “atheists” means and includes, not what they themselves believe in addition to being atheists. ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/138 "2002-08-21T18:31:34Z")
agnosticism is exposed to attack from both sides? if agnosticism is merely the admission of ignorance then it can only be attacked with provable knowledge. the theists and atheists merely have delusions and overinflated egos to work with. and lots of rarely used words like taxonomy. pseudointellectual crap. i did a search on HELL. noone tried to prove it was logical that an all intelligent GOD couldn’t come up with a better method. if a GOD created the universe then he/she has to know physics, chemistry, biology, neurophysiology, etc. if a religious leader is worth paying attention to shouldn’t he/she at least have a masters degree in physics in this scientific age? prove they have the brains to at least have an inkling about GOD. Dal Timgar ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/139 "2002-08-21T18:44:52Z")
Apos, I think you are going to great lengths to explain why belief should be considered a binary function no matter what the context, but I am unconvinced. Consider the question of whether the universe exists. Person A believes that the universe definitely does not exist. Person B just watched The Matrix and is having some doubts as to whether the universe exists. Is it really a good idea to use the same term to describe the beliefs of these people? Doubtful: of uncertain outcome; undecided. I think this is how most agnostics would define the term agnostic, and I think it is indeed a description of belief. Do you believe there is an invisible dragon behind you right now? Presumably you lack this belief. This is equivalent to the athiest position. Now, if you roll a die do you believe that you will get a 6? You probably lack this belief as well. But I think there is something fundamentally different about this lack of belief that makes it more equivalent to the agnostic position. Maybe it has to do with a belief about the nature of the question itself. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703/140 "2002-08-21T19:09:19Z")
—Person A believes that the universe definitely does not exist. Person B just watched The Matrix and is having some doubts as to whether the universe exists. Is it really a good idea to use the same term to describe the beliefs of these people?— Don’t forget what you are describing. Are you describing whether or not they believe the universe exists? That’s a binary question, no doubt about it (as is “whether they believe that the universe does not exist”). Or are you describing what they think about the possibility of or nature of the universe? That’s a very different question. I think the world can accomodate both sorts of descriptions. But it’s worth knowing which sort of description you are using. —Do you believe there is an invisible dragon behind you right now? Presumably you lack this belief. This is equivalent to the athiest position. Now, if you roll a die do you believe that you will get a 6? You probably lack this belief as well. But I think there is something fundamentally different about this lack of belief that makes it more equivalent to the agnostic position.— There is nothing fundamentally different about the lack of belief: there IS something different about my thinking about the possibility of the die rolling 6. It’s important not to confuse the two. Perhaps you don’t think confusing the two is really a big deal, and sometimes it isn’t. But I assert that, if you look carefully at all manner of debate, you’ll find that confusing the two is a delightful boon to those trying to shill for an otherwise difficult to support position. ----if agnosticism is merely the admission of ignorance then it can only be attacked with provable knowledge.— An important point. A simple admission of ignorance is not itself open to ANY sort of attack, because it is for all intents and purposes an unquestionable statement of someone about themselves. Likewise it is with the profession of belief, or the admission of non-belief. The admissions THEMSELVES are unquestionable: because they are simply (hopefully honest) descriptions of oneself. There is no reason to doubt that someone who claims to have a belief indeed does have it: they could be lying, of course, but how would anyone but them REALLY know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-atheism-and-agnosticism/123703.md?page=8)