Agnosticism vs. Atheism

I'm an agnostic... and i feel offended when people call agnostics "watered down atheists". Maybe some of my reasons are wrong, or my basic definitions are incorrect (agnostics don't make a claim as to the existence of god, while atheists say there is no god) but i figure being atheist takes just as much faith as someone who believes in god (a theist).i'm thinking at some point all atheists look at theists and say "well, there is no objective evidence for a god"... but then go on to say "therefore there is no god".like if i held out my hand and said "is there a coin in my hand"... a theist would say "yes, there is a coin in your hand" and an atheist would say "there is no evidence to support there being a coin in your hand, so there is no coin in your hand".is my reasoning flawed, or are all you atheists just as religious and dogmatic as those theists?

I'm open to the concept of there being a God. I just don't see one.Therefore, I am an athiest.How can I put this... you can tell me that there are purple baboons that smell like bakery fresh cinammon buns clawing at my face.I don't see them. I don't feel them slashing. I don't smell cinammon. If they are there, the baboons don't seem to be affecting my life in any way whatsoever.So sure, if you have further evidence (apart from your say-so) that nice-smelling purple baboons are clawing at my face, let me know. Until then, you'll excuse me if I don't lend a whole lot of credence to the idea, and work under the assumption that there are no monkeys on my face.If you want to call that being dogmatic, fair enough. Just sounds like being sensible to me, though.[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 09-19-2003]

Hi Dan, I am pretty sure this makes you agnostic! Brian

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like if i held out my hand and said "is there a coin in my hand"... a theist would say "yes, there is a coin in your hand" and an atheist would say "there is no evidence to support there being a coin in your hand, so there is no coin in your hand".

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Poor analogy. How would the theist know there was a coin in your hand if neither he nor the atheist (sorry, Smoky, 'athiest') could see it? On second thought, don't answer that.There either is or isn't a coin in your hand. But we can all agree on the definition of a coin. The problem is we can only pretend there's consensus on what the word 'God' means. Is it the big magic guy in the sky or is it a creative life force? Is it intelligible to humans or is it by definition beyond our comprehension?------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall

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I am pretty sure this makes you agnostic!

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No, images hosted by angelfire would make me agnostic!

Gods, I love your descriptions Dan.I have to agree with the original post, however.I think you can say, via definitions of knowledge, that you "know" THOSE baboons aren't there. But that's because the claim involves evidence which is not only absent, but there is some evidence against.If a person made a more ephemeral claim that there are such baboons somewhere, you wouldn't be able to say you know there are no such baboons anywhere.Thus when a person says God is X, and by necessity that X requires evidence which is in contradiction to actual evidence, one can say they know THAT GOD is not true... and remain an agnostic.But to say that one knows God does not exist, when there are no evidentiary requirements in conflict with the evidence at hand, is to make a statement of faith along the same lines as those who say they know he does exist despite the same lack of evidence.I think I'm very similar in temperament to you Dan, and I consider myself an agnostic that at this point has no reason to believe or even entertain hypotheses of Gods, and feel some certainty that no evidence will ever be presented.Thus while I believe there are no Gods, I don't know so.That is until something goes wrong and I know for damn sure some demon is haunting me!------------------
holmes

Agnosticism: view that God’s existence is unprovable - the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists.Atheism: unbelief in God or deities - disbelief in the existence of God or deities.I am an atheist. My senses and my rationale tell me that there is no reason to believe in god, therefore I do not. According to the above definition of agnosticism - there is the possibility of a god although it would still be based on faith. Of course if I saw actual material evidence supporting the existence of a being higher than man with omnipotence and omniscience, I would of course denounce my atheistic views and become a Jew/Christian/Muslim/etc. But, I do not ascribe to the opinion that nothing is knowable and that faith is a valid reason to believe. If God exists, he will not be the god of faith.

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Gods, I love your descriptions Dan.

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Thanks!

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I think you can say, via definitions of knowledge, that you "know" THOSE baboons aren't there. But that's because the claim involves evidence which is not only absent, but there is some evidence against.

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If a person made a more ephemeral claim that there are such baboons somewhere, you wouldn't be able to say you know there are no such baboons anywhere.

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I suppose so, yes. But then my response would go from, "no there aren't" to "so?"Baboons. Somewhere. Got it. So what's for lunch?Because at this point, what is the person even saying? There's something somewhere that I can't see? Well, yes. That's entirely accurate. It smells like cinammon buns? Okay. Why not? Have fun with that.I'm happy to indulge any story someone tells me. I especially like the one about four people who go up in a rocket ship and get hit by cosmic rays. But when the person starts saying "now here is how you must live your life in order to please the purple baboons," that's when the indulgence stops. No, I'm sorry, I'm going to continue to sleep with my girlfriend, even if the purple baboons don't like it. Because there's really no reason to believe the baboons are there, whether there is evidence against them or not.And if we step into specific definitions of God or gods, things become stickier. If I've got one guy on my left telling me that God's son died for my sins, another guy on my left saying no, he was just a prophet and so is Mohammed, and a third guy in front of me saying screw those two guys, it's all about Vishnu, then I have three contradictary accounts (amongst others) all proclaiming God. Given that they all contradict one another, and all have the same amount of evidence supporting them (i.e., none) it's impossible to give any of them the benefit of the doubt.

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But to say that one knows God does not exist, when there are no evidentiary requirements in conflict with the evidence at hand, is to make a statement of faith along the same lines as those who say they know he does exist despite the same lack of evidence.

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I wouldn't say that's true, mainly because of simple logical rules. The onus to provide evidence one way or the other is on the person trying to say that things are different from what's in front of us. If the evidence isn't there, you go to the default reality. (i.e., what's in front of you.)This why, to me, saying "God exists" requires a leap of faith outside of evidence. Saying "God doesn't exist" requires looking around for God, not seeing him, and saying, "Yup. No God." The person asserting God can say "well, he's somewhere," but in the absence of evidence the default reality stays the same.

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I think I'm very similar in temperament to you Dan, and I consider myself an agnostic that at this point has no reason to believe or even entertain hypotheses of Gods, and feel some certainty that no evidence will ever be presented.

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I think you're right, and it's probably just a matter of personal definition. You say tomagnostic, I say tomathiest.

I think this comes down to "what you can know".Remember how the conclusions of science are tentative? This is a fundamental limitation on our knowledge. If being atheist within that restriction - that you're only tentative about atheism, and open to changing your mind in the face of contradictory data - means that you're really agnostic, then there's no difference between atheism and agnosticism.Atheists aren't people who take a ridiculously dogmatic stance that there is, hasn't been, and never will be any gods. They're just people who are as sure that there's no god as they're sure that winged monkeys won't pop out of their ass in the next five minutes. If you call that "agnosticism" than there's no difference and agnosticism is meaningless.

Yes! That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, only... you know, way less convoluted. Thank you.[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 09-19-2003]

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Poor analogy. How would the theist know there was a coin in your hand if neither he nor the atheist (sorry, Smoky, 'athiest') could see it? On second thought, don't answer that.

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There either is or isn't a coin in your hand. But we can all agree on the definition of a coin. The problem is we can only pretend there's consensus on what the word 'God' means. Is it the big magic guy in the sky or is it a creative life force? Is it intelligible to humans or is it by definition beyond our comprehension?

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crap... can i please answer the first part? i'm still going to hold it's a valid analogy. how do theists know there is a god? aside from subjective "evidence", well he doesn't know. however (i'm positive i don't actually have to say this next part to relay new information) the theists absence of proof is not proof of it's absence.as far as the definition of god... i see the atheist's claim "there is no god" as pretty absolute. like, there are no gods. if this is just an abbreviation of "a god that holds the properties of a christian definition does not exist" than fair enough... but is the statement of an absence of god only limited in that respect?i think the most basic definition of a god is something like "a higher being". There is no evidence that suggest a higher being does not exist (bla for double negatives).That's fine if you want to just not give any serious attention to the purple, cinnamon smelling, face scratching baboons (i first read that as balloons... so you can imagine my disappointment when they turned out to be just baboons). But to actively assert they do not exist anywhere... that takes faith. it is one thing to say "the existence of PCSB doesn't matter to the real world" and something completely different to say "PCSBs don't exist".

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Atheists aren't people who take a ridiculously dogmatic stance that there is, hasn't been, and never will be any gods. They're just people who are as sure that there's no god as they're sure that winged monkeys won't pop out of their ass in the next five minutes. If you call that "agnosticism" than there's no difference and agnosticism is meaningless.

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so what do you see as a difference between agnostic and atheist? or is there even one? i can accept this less severe definition of atheism, but why even have the word agnostic then? maybe we should combine the two and make a super word! AGNOTHISM!... er... what is agnostic broken down into it's prefix/suffix/root words anyway?p.s. how do you get those quote boxes that are all blue and cool looking?[This message has been edited by TheoMorphic, 09-19-2003][This message has been edited by TheoMorphic, 09-19-2003]

Indeed. Hence what people mean when they say that agnostics are watered-down atheists. From the Greek, "without knowledge". Or, if you prefer, "not knowing". As in, not knowing if there's a God or not (for instance).I think that he fact that we have two words for the same belief is indicative of the fact that both of these positions predate our understanding of the philosophy of science, specifically tentativity of knowledge.In a world where it's assumed you can have absolute knowledge about something, it makes sense to have three positions about the existence of any particular thing: 1) There is, 2) there isn't, and 3) we don't know.But in a world where all knowledge is essentially "agnostic" - "we have no absolute knowledge about anything" - then agnosticism is redundant. There's only "we tentativly believe there is" and "we tentativly believe there isn't." To me, everybody is agnostic on every concievable topic, so why mention it in specific regards to god?

Hi, In brackets '[ ]' put 'qs' at the beginning of the quote, then, at the end of the quote put /qs in brackets [ ].There is a help page if you click on the UBB Code is ON link at the left hand side of the reply text page.Brian.

No, an atheist would not say that there was not a coin in your hand. We know that coins exist and that they can be held in the hand. SO the statement that you have a coin in your hand is too plausible to be dismissed just because I do not know whether there is or not.Now we don't know that any Gods exist, and in fact we can be pretty sure that many Gods that people beleive or used to believe in don't exist (even if we can't be sure which ones). And come to that Gods are pretty unlikely sorts of beings - highly ordered as well as radically different from anything that has been shown to exist.So the lack of evidence as well as the admittedly weak negative evidence is sufficient to at least justify taking the view that Gods don't exist even if we can't say that it is more than a tentative opinion.Speaking personally I am an atheist in that I hold the opinion that there are no Gods (unless or until evidence arrives to make me reassess that view) and an agnostic in the sense that I do not claim to know that there are no Gods (and that is at least closer to the original sense of the word than the way it is often used).I don't propose to get into the difference between agnosticism and atheism beyond that other to say that there are different definitions of agnosticism and atheism and some include agnosticism as a subset of atheism while others don't. The definition I use above can include atheists and theists rather than being a distinct position somehow inbetween.