This endless discussion would have a solution: do not discuss names but ideas. There are basically two of them:
Is there proof of the existence of God?
Can I believe in something without proof?

Names are a secondary problem. Only of convenience.

Okay, then here are some ideas. Give them names. (I'll give you mine too).

Those who affirm the existence of god. (theists)
Those who don't affirm the existence of god. (soft atheists)
Those who deny the existence of god (hard atheists), a subset of the previous group.

And orthogonal to all of those (for 3x3=9 groups total):

Those who think they know whether god exists. (gnostics)
Those who don't think they know whether god exists. (soft agnostics)
Those who think it can't be known whether god exists. (hard agnostics), a subset of the previous group.

Your classification is confusing. Besides, I'm not interested because you include beliefs. Beliefs are subjective. I'm interested in propositions. What do you call a person who neither claims nor denies that God exists? I don't see it on your list. But it's a very relevant concept since it was coined by Th. Huxley.

My classification is simpler:
They claim that God exists = theists
Non-theists:
Deny that God exists =atheists
Neither deny nor affirm= agnostics

Your classification is confusing. Besides, I'm not interested because you include beliefs. Beliefs are subjective. I'm interested in propositions. What do you call a person who neither claims nor denies that God exists? I don't see it on your list. But it's a very relevant concept since it was coined by Th. Huxley.

My classification is simpler:
They claim that God exists = theists
Non-theists:
Deny that God exists =atheists
Neither deny nor affirm= agnostics — David Mo

Is "neither denying nor affirming" a proposition? It seems to me that it "proposes" nothing at all.

DingoJones
1.5k
↪Frank Apisa

Spelling and grammar are not measures of intelligence, they are measures of ones mastery of grammar and spelling. You are an endless bucket of stupid. And, since you have the memory of a goldfish to match the wit of a goldfish ill remind you: I dont kare if I misspel thinggs, it iss a litmmus test to detect pedantik moronz.
I could go back and correct my own posts to 100% correct grammar and spelling. The difference between us is that you are stuck stupid. Not because of your admittingly low levels of comprehension, but because of your grossly misplaced arrogance.
(Quick, point out that I should have typed “admittedly”. Lol, what a joke) — DingoJones

Poor little Dingo. Still in his tantrum.

You've got to learn how to control that. Same day you will be an adult...and people will be less forgiving of that sort of thing.

Thank you for your comments, Eric.

Obviously, this discussion between Dingo and I has gotten out of hand. I've been relatively respectful towards him, but he has informed me that I am not worthy of respect and he intends show me as much contempt as possible.

Fine.

As for the descriptors, I am more than willing to let my "take" speak for itself...and much prefer to use it rather than the descriptor "agnostic."

I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't.

Obviously it is an agnostic one, so I do use "agnostic" as a shortcut.

The English language is arguably the most comprehensive in the world. ONLY atheists seem to think that there is no room for the distance between opinions on "There is a God" to "There are no gods." Atheists want to insist on a zero-sum dichotomy...either theist or atheist. Frankly, I have never known a person who chooses to use "atheist" as a descriptor who does not "believe" there are no gods...or who does not "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

My contention all along has been that insisting that EVERYONE (including babies and toddlers) who does not have a "belief" that at least one god exists MUST be deemed an atheist...is much less logical than confining that word to people who fit those two descriptions...and allowing babies to be babies, toddlers to be toddlers, and agnostics to be agnostics.

The convention that everyone who is not a theist has to be an atheist (a convention only atheists seem to insist upon) should go the way of the dinosaurs.

As for Dingo's way over-the-top Internet temper tantrum...that should be over by now, but..........

You are a fucking moron. — DingoJones

I can hardly wait to get back to grade 4 class and write an essay "what I read in my Mid-Winter Break".


Modern Love (of Wisdom)

Here's a word. About beliefs.
Get it from roots, define it ad hoc.

Nobody bends. Nobody gives.
You want to win? Out of luck.

The word grows, the word lives
And all of us care, 'coz we do give a fuck.

Atheists want to insist on a zero-sum dichotomy...either theist or atheist. — Frank Apisa

I am an atheist, and you described my feelings perfectly, except it's not that I insist on a zero-sum thing, which is only coincidental, although very true.

I agree wholeheartedly with your definition and derivation of agnosticism.

But I further offer why I think someone is either a believer or not a believer in god.

Your description of agnosticism is right on. Everyone is an agnost. WE DON'T KNOW if god exists or not. This is true. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or is delusional.

As an atheist, I am also an agnost, as I don't know. It is only a foolish atheist who claims god is impossible to exist. And it is only a foolish theist who claims it is impossible to have the world without a god in it.

So I say we are all agnostic.

But we are not both atheists and theists. Therefore we are each not (not theist) and (not atheist).

Therefore we must be either one, or the other.

I use the law of the excluded middle, not the theory of zero-sum game.

Those who claim they are ambivalent about their beliefs in god, I don't believe. It is fine to know you can see that you can't justify your belief, but you can't both beleive and not believe in a god at the same time and at the same respect.

Therefore I reject that anyone is agnostic in the common speech sense of the word. Everyone is an agnostic if you consiter a gnost a person who knows; but nobody is an agnostic who claims to be undecided in his belief about god.

. ONLY atheists seem to think that there is no room for the distance between opinions on "There is a God" to "There are no gods." — Frank Apisa

Granted, I am an atheist. But if we consider possible states of reality, it seems to me there are only ever two options. X is the case, or X isn't the case. I can say "I don't know", but that's a statement about myself, not about X.

It is perhaps important to note that while we commonly admit to not knowing this or that, we don't usually describe ourselves as agnostic. We just admit that whatever position we hold is not based on a lot of information.

It's amazing how others can express what I say with using 1/4 the amount of words that I use. Congratulations.

Atheists want to insist on a zero-sum dichotomy...either theist or atheist. — Frank Apisa

This may be irksome to you, but to atheists (at least for me) the most irksome opinion is a theist's who says that atheism is just another, different religion.

NO. Religions involve gods, and atheism does not. That's the most basic difference, and that separates the two enough so as to make atheism not a religion.

Both religions and atheism are FAITHS; they are both belief systems. Perhaps this is what gives a rise to the fallacy of equivocation for the religious, when they declare atheism is just another relgion, as to a religious person faith or belief is inseparable from a faith in, or a belief in, the existence of god.

It doesnt force me to respond, and I do not respond in reaction to him being wrong. I CHOOSE to respond because he is an obnoxious asshat.
Here, Ill demonstrate by choosing not to respond to him. Something he isnt capable of. As I pointed out to him, thats the difference. He’s stuck with his childishness.

god must be atheist
1.7k
↪Echarmion It's amazing how others can express what I say with using 1/4 the amount of words that I use. Congratulations. — god must be atheist

That IS wonderful gift he has, GMBA. I wish I had it, but I don't. I was composing a response to both your earlier posts, but found the damn thing was running too long.

Gotta go tend to my aunt right now, but I'll be back this afternoon to give as short a response as I can fashion. My thanks to both of you for putting so much thought and effort into this discussion.

Sorry, but you're just not reading carefully:

"No doubt both senses of “agnosticism”, the psychological and the epistemological, will continue to be used both inside and outside of philosophy. Hopefully, context will help to disambiguate. In the remainder of this entry, however, the term “agnosticism” will be used in its epistemological sense. This makes a huge difference to the issue of justification. Consider, for example, this passage written by the agnostic, Anthony Kenny (1983: 84–85):

I do not myself know of any argument for the existence of God which I find convincing; in all of them I think I can find flaws. Equally, I do not know of any argument against the existence of God which is totally convincing; in the arguments I know against the existence of God I can equally find flaws. So that my own position on the existence of God is agnostic.

It is one thing to ask whether Kenny’s inability to find arguments that convince him of God’s existence or non-existence justifies him personally in suspending judgment about the existence of God. It is quite another to ask whether this inability (or anything else) would justify his believing that no one (or at least no one who is sufficiently intelligent and well-informed) has a justified belief about God’s existence.

If agnosticism (in one sense of the word) is the position that neither theism nor atheism is known, then it might be useful to use the term “gnosticism” to refer to the contradictory of that position, that is, to the position that either theism or atheism is known. That view would, of course, come in two flavors: theistic gnosticism—the view that theism is known (and hence atheism is not)—and atheistic gnosticism—the view that atheism is known (and hence theism is not)."

And since you were the one to claim that in academia atheist/agnostic/theist are used merely in what the SEP calls the "psychological" sense, you are wrong.

I disagree, the confusion is about the terms. Atheism is about belief, ones position on a specific belief, agnosticism is about knowledge, what one thinks about what can be known. That whats taught by the experts, if by experts you mean philosophical academia.
A person can be an atheist for a number of reasons, there are different kinds/forms of atheism. What they all have in common, what therefore is most definitive of atheism, is a lack of belief in god/gods.

I disagree, the confusion is about the terms. Atheism is about belief, ones position on a specific belief, agnosticism is about knowledge, what one thinks about what can be known. That whats taught by the experts, if by experts you mean philosophical academia.
A person can be an atheist for a number of reasons, there are different kinds/forms of atheism. What they all have in common, what therefore is most definitive of atheism, is a lack of belief in god/gods. — DingoJones

Bingo, Dingo!

god must be atheist
1.7k
I disagree, the confusion is about the terms. Atheism is about belief, ones position on a specific belief, agnosticism is about knowledge, what one thinks about what can be known. That whats taught by the experts, if by experts you mean philosophical academia.
A person can be an atheist for a number of reasons, there are different kinds/forms of atheism. What they all have in common, what therefore is most definitive of atheism, is a lack of belief in god/gods.
— DingoJones

Bingo, Dingo! — god must be atheist

You certainly are entitled to agree with Dingo on this...but the thrust is wrong, no matter any technicalities of today's usage of the word "atheist."

In any case, the word should ONLY be applied to those who wish to use it as a descriptor...not to people who object. (The word "liberal" has that same quality.)

Further, in a language like English, that has such an enormous vocabulary that it has a word for almost everything...the notion that perspectives on the question "Do any gods exist or are there no gods" should be so confining that everyone's position on it MUST be classified either as "atheistic" or "theistic"...is an absurdity. We easily can devise words to differentiate between, for instance, "I 'believe' there are no gods"; "I 'believe' it is more likely that there are no gods than..."; "I don't 'believe' there are no gods and I don't 'believe' there are any gods and I don't 'believe' that one is more likely than the other."

They are discrete positions...and each deserves the respect of a descriptor for those who want descriptors.

There is no way I will be defined as an atheist simply because atheists are determined to demand that anyone who lacks a "belief" in any gods must accept that designation.

By the way, the notion that non-theist is the same as "atheist" is so self-serving and gratuitous to the atheistic perspective...I cringe at having to dispute it. I am, most assuredly, a non-theist. BUT I AM NOT AN ATHEIST.

Positioning on the question is broad...running from "There is a God" to "There are no gods." There are nuances and subtleties that come into play. The earlier argument here was that simply ignoring those nuances and subtleties MAKES MORE SENSE than recognizing that they exist and are important to the people espousing them...is beyond reason.

Thank you for considering my position on this.

Please consider this a response to your post also, Echarmion.

Echarmion — Echarmion

It is not.

Beliefs are subjective. I'm interested in propositions. — David Mo

If you want to exclude all talk about beliefs, knowledge, etc, and just talk about the possible facts of the matter, then there are only two options:

God exists.
God does not exist.

If you want to talk about someone who's not sure which of those is true, then you're talking about beliefs and knowledge toward those propositions. Let's call those propositions G and ~G, and the belief function B(). We can then have:

B(G)
~B(G)
B(~G)
~B(~G)

The first of those is theism, belief in the existence of God.

The second is soft atheism, non-belief in the existence of God, what you're calling "non-theism".

The third is hard atheism, belief in the non-existence of God, what you're insisting is the only atheism, which is a subset of the second.

So far as I'm aware nobody cares to talk about or name the last one, non-belief in the non-existence of God.

Agnosticism is something else entirely: it's claims about knowledge. Which then requires another dimension, as I described before.

What do you call a person who neither claims nor denies that God exists? I don't see it on your list — David Mo

That would be a kind of soft atheist. Probably also at least a soft agnostic, maybe even a hard agnostic too.

What do you call a person who neither claims nor denies that God exists? I don't see it on your list
— David Mo

That would be a kind of soft atheist. Probably also at least a soft agnostic, maybe even a hard agnostic — Pfhorrest

How about NOT CALLING THEM ANYTHING. Why not let each individual decide what, if any, descriptor they want to use?

If a person describes him/herself thusly, "I do not claim that any gods exist; I do not claim that no gods exist; I have no beliefs in either direction; and I make no guesses in either direction"...

...why not let that stand on its own?

And if the person wants to use a descriptor of agnostic, why not let that be okay?

Or if the person wants to use a descriptor of atheist, why not let that be okay?

Why the hell are so many atheists insisting that because one element in that description indicates a lack of "belief" in any gods...THAT PERSON MUST BE DESIGNATED AN ATHEIST?

How can anyone say that makes more sense than simply letting everyone make a designation choice for him/herself?

Sorry, I'm not using a psychological concept of agnosticism, but an epistemological one.
I don't think Anthony Kenny is a philosopher very representative of today's academic world. Anyway, his concept of agnosticism seems similar to the one I use: neither theism nor atheism, abstention.

Okay Humpty Dumpty, you use words to mean whatever you want them to mean and the rest of us will come to some kind of mutual agreement about that so we can actually communicate meaningfully with each other.

"That whats taught by the experts, if by experts you mean philosophical academia".


Says you. The Stanford encyclopedia article we saw says otherwise. So does The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article. These two are academic online references.

"Agnosticism is the philosophical view that neither affirms that God exists nor affirms that God does not exist. On the other hand, atheism is the view that God does not exist". (http://www.iep.utm.edu/skept-th/).

I want to talk about knowledge (of God). The only way to do so is through the propositions that enunciate it: I affirm or I deny. Or I abstain. Do you know an alternative to these three? I do not.

Your vocabulary has a serious problem: you don't know how to call a long list of philosophers who call themselves agnostics and defend abstention from judgment. Starting with the one who invented the term: Thomas Huxley. It's a serious flaw..

Abstention from judgement would be 2 but not 3. They're soft atheists. If they abstain from judgement from lack of knowledge, they're also agnostics. You can be both.

Well...if you got 1000 people at random and asked them what word would they use to describe my take on the issue...


I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't.


...my guess is 999 would say "that is a purely agnostic position."

Almost nobody but debating Internet atheists think that position is that of an atheist.


So I am not sure why you think your way of thinking would be more amenable to effective communications.

(Hint: It wouldn't!)

Pfhorrest
1.1k
Abstention from judgement would be 2 but not 3. They're soft atheists. If they abstain from judgement from lack of knowledge, they're also agnostics. You can be both. — Pfhorrest

EVERYONE is an agnostic.

Some of us acknowledge it.

I don't think Anthony Kenny is a philosopher very representative of today's academic world. Anyway, his concept of agnosticism seems similar to the one I use: neither theism nor atheism, abstention. — David Mo

1. He's the person quoted in a peer-reviewed article by an actual academic published in a well-respected philosophical encyclopedia through a verified academic institution... so... not sure on which basis you dismiss him so easily.
2. I directly quoted to you the part that explained the epistemological difference. If you can't understand that, plus my explanation, plus Dingo's, plus Pfhorrest's.... I guess maybe you just don't want to understand it.

To be clear, I don't really care which definitions you personally want to use. I think it's fine to use terms in any idiosyncratic way one pleases as long as sufficient clarification is present as to what one means. However, you're the one who claimed:

"In the academic world it is understood that an atheist is one who denies that god exists and an agnostic is one who neither denies nor affirms. The theist asserts that god exists.
It seems simple enough and clear enough."

A simplistic and one-sided representation of a very nuanced field with many differentiated uses of the same or similar words for very precise purposes.....

Anywho, I've proven that it's not so "simple" and that the "academic world" is not, in fact, of one, homogeneous mind about the matter. There's really no room left to debate, so I'm going to rest my case from here on out.

David Mo
156
↪Pfhorrest
I want to talk about knowledge (of God). The only way to do so is through the propositions that enunciate it: I affirm or I deny. Or I abstain. Do you know an alternative to these three? I do not.

Your vocabulary has a serious problem: you don't know how to call a long list of philosophers who call themselves agnostics and defend abstention from judgment. Starting with the one who invented the term: Thomas Huxley. It's a serious flaw.. — David Mo

Absolutely correct, David.

Here are two quotes from Albert Einstein:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.”
Albert Einstein in a letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59-215; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 216.

Here is some information from Stephen Hawking:

In his book on Stephen Hawking, “Stephen Hawking, the Big Bang, and God, Henry F. Schaefer III, writes:
Now, lest anyone be confused, let me state that Hawking strenuously denies charges that he is an atheist. When he is accused of that he really gets angry and says that such assertions are not true at all. He is an agnostic or deist or something more along those lines. He's certainly not an atheist and not even very sympathetic to atheism.



Here's some information on Carl Sagan:

In a March 1996 profile by Jim Dawson in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sagan talked about his then-new book The Demon Haunted World and was asked about his personal spiritual views: "My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it," he said. "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic."

You were given explanations over and over again. Everything you're asking has been answered and in depth. Calling them rationalizations doesn't take away from this. There's no reason to ask others to rehash the explanations for you all over again. — x-ray vision

If you want to consider rationalizations "explanations"...do so. Allow me the freedom to consider rationalizations "rationalizations."


I e-mailed the person who would know Sagan’s views better than anyone: Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow. I specifically asked her about the quote in my 1996 story (“An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no God”). Druyan responded:
“Carl meant exactly what he said. He used words with great care. He did not know if there was a god. It is my understanding that to be an atheist is to take the position that it is known that there is no god or equivalent. Carl was comfortable with the label ‘agnostic’ but not ‘atheist.'”
Said another way: Just because it looks like an elephant and is dancing…does not mean it is an elephant dancing.

EVERYONE is an agnostic. — Frank Apisa

Now who's telling people what they really are?

Someone who thinks they know that God does or doesn't exist is not an agnostic. Hard agnostics (who think knowledge about God is impossible) may think all such claims to knowledge are wrong, but nevertheless it's the claim to knowledge or lack thereof that makes someone agnostic or not.