Agnosticism vs. Atheism

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.

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?

Perhaps you could let us atheists speak for ourselves? (We who actually take the position are in a better position to define the term, I think.)You've precisely hit on the reason why there's no difference between atheism as practiced by rational people and agosticism. Essentially tentativity of knowledge means that rational people are agnostic on every convieable topic, so why make a big deal about agnositicism in reference to god?There's theism, and atheism, and both positions are agnostic, because agnosticism is a fundamental limitation on what can be known. Why make a big deal about what you say you can't know? We all know what can't be known, at least on the subject of god, so stop making a big deal about it and take a position - either it doesn't matter that we can't know if god exists and you believe he does (theism), or else we can't know that god exists so there's no reason to believe he does (atheism).Identifying as "agonostic" is just being too afraid to make a choice, it seems to me.

Because, as a general rule of thumb, logical people don't go around being agnostic on all entities that they don't know can't exist.I mean, if you're going to be agnostic about God, then you have to be agnostic about every other imaginable, untestable entity.That's one hell of a headache, to me, so it's much more sane to disbelieve in everything for which there is no evidence - with the caveat that if new evidence comes to light, I'll change my mind. Well, clearly I'm an agnostic atheist, just like you. I'm just a little more accurate with the terms, is all. You're making an unreasonable demand, though. You're asking for evidence of non-existence, which can't exist. Basically you're putting an unreasonable demand on the atheist - a demand that I suspect you wouldn't make if we weren't talking about God. Yes. Hence, atheism: the position that, as far as can be known, there is no evidence that supports the existence of God.

But you can't have evidence of non-existence. Therefore you have to reject the existence of anything you're going to reject before you have evidence of non-existence.I have to know, Mark - are you equally agnostic about the existence of monkeys flying out of my nether regions? If not, why not? If so, doesn't that seem a little ridiculous? Good thing for me that I haven't assumed such a position. The position I've repeatedly taken and argued is that, within the limits of what is knowable, I know that there is no God. Then, honestly, how can non-existence be determined? If absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, what is? Indeed. Good thing nobody here appears to hold that position. That's why I'm saying that there's no difference between the position of agnostics and the position of atheists. We both disbelieve in gods to the same degree. It's just that agnostics appear too embarrassed to admit to being atheists, for whatever reason. Because you take exactly the same position as atheists, but don't call yourself an atheist.What would you think about somebody that voted Democratic, acted Democratic, agreed with Democrats on almost every single issue, but for whatever reason absolutely refused to allow people to characterize them as a Democrat? You would probably think that they were embarrased by the idea of people knowing they were a Democrat, because they felt being a Democrat was something that was not well-regarded in their community. I would accuse such a person of fence-sitting, just as I do agnostics.

Since no atheist takes that position, who exactly are you arguing with?

I think we are, and this is really the crux of my argument - if it turns out atheism and agnosticism believe the same thing, then what's the difference?At this point, it really looks like agnostics aren't sticklers for accuracy - they look like people who have bought the theist myth that "atheism takes as much faith as believing in god."Again, what would you think about somebody who was a Democrat in every way but name? In particular, what would you think he thought about Democrats? And as a Democrat yourself (hypothetically) what would you think about what he thought about Democrats?Maybe now you can see why I take a slightly dim view of agnostics who turn out to believe exactly the same thing I do.

I put definitions of God into two categories: Those definitions that are at least possible, which are uniformly a kind of god that never intervenes in human existence in any measurable way; and those kinds of god that are worth believing in - that is to say, take an interest and intervene in human affairs for the good of all.The first kind of god doesn't matter. I agree that I can't know if that god exists or not, but it doesn't matter either way, because the outcome is the same.The second kind of god is simple to disprove, as there's no reason to believe that god intervenes in human affairs.Ergo, atheism. I disbelieve in all gods worth believing in. And the rest aren't worth believing in.

Since, in casual speech, we do that all the time - imply absolute certainty when what we mean is maximum certainty allowable by fundamental limitations on what can be known, as in when we say "the sun will rise tomorrow" - I don't see that it's an inappropriate or misleading turn of phrase. You may disagree, but then I'd insist that you add "within the limits of what we can know" any time you talk about things that you know, from now on. And I'll be checking! Not so. The atheist recognizes that this is true of all human knowledge. S/he just doesn't find it remarkable enough to mention in specific regards to god.All knowledge is assumed to be agnostic in nature. So what's so special about knowledge of god? If everybody's agnostic (whether they know it or not), then saying you're "agnostic" is redundant. A noble view, but ultimately unworkable. Plenty of people believe in god, and expect you to, too. If they ask you "does god exist or not?" there's no way to un-ask the question. It's a yes or no question. When people ask me if I think a certain thing exists or not, guess what? I don't sit them down and explain to them the fundamental error in their question, because that would take too long. I just say "yes" or "no."If there were in English, a way to un-ask questions, or a third alternative to yes or no that meant "your question is based on incorrect assumptions", then I could answer more accurately. But until then, atheism and theism are best defined by their answer to the question "do you think god exists or not?" Agnosticism is just fence-sitting in regards to that question. Again, my point exactly. There's no difference between people who - within the limits of what can be known - are atheists and are agnostics. So what is it about identifying as atheists that agnostics fear or are embarassed by? Well, yes. In fact I would have to say that all people that believe in God do so irrationally, because they either believe in a god that isn't consistent with the evidence, or else they believe in a god that isn't worth believing in. But then, that's why I'm an atheist. Because when you tell people that you're an agnostic, they're going to think "oh, then he kind of believes in God." If that's not accurate, why not choose a more accurate term to represent yourself? I disagree. My definitions cover those positions as they are held by those who hold those positions, who are presumably the authority. In that sense - referring to the people who would pay attention to logical arguments anyway - my definitions are more useful than Mark's, who are held only by those who are unreasonable. Who cares about the unreasonable people?In practice, there's no difference between atheism and agnosticism as practiced by reasonable people.

It's that last bit - "until proven otherwise" - that makes their position as tentative as yours.I have a serious question, though. If absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, what is? If something didn't exist, wouldn't we expect an absence of evidence for its existence? And therefore isn't an absence of evidence actually confirmation of our hypothesis, that X doesn't exist?How would you prove something exists? Better to just assume the non-existence of those things for which there is no evidence of existence. It's an assumption, to be sure - but one that all reasonable people make, in my opinion.

Seriously, folks - is there any time in science that absence of evidence isn't taken as evidence of absence? I'm becoming convinced that whoever came up with that phrase was trying to justify an irrational belief in god.

Then we're just supposed to assume that everything exists? Isn't there anything that we know doesn't exist? No offense, and pardon my ignorance (which I'm honestly trying not to argue from ), but aren't you trying to deduce non-existence from a lack of evidence, not infer from it?Wouldn't an inference look more like this:1) Things that don't exist leave no evidence of existing.
2) There's no evidence that X exists.
3) Therefore X is like those things that don't exist; i.e. it probably doesn't exist.I mean, I could be wrong. I realize that you can't deduce non-existence from a lack of evidence - because you don't deduce from evidence. You infer from it. And I think that you can safely infer non-existence from a lack of evidence for existence and be accurate enough for it to be valid. Yeah, I took the position I'm taking now - that you can't have evidence of non-existence. I don't recall ever taking the position that you can't be sure - within blah blah blah - that something probably doesn't exist.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-21-2003]

I guess I see "I don't know" to be neither definite nor conclusive, but maybe that's just me. No, we'll generally say "there's no evidence that leads us to believe that there is a god." Now, if you don't believe something exists, it means you believe it doesn't exist, because things either exist or they don't. We're not neccisarily saying that our belief is right, just that, in the light of all the data we have right now, a model without god is most likely to be accurate. Not neccisarily. It's a matter of expected evidence vs. actual evidence. We would expect an interventionist god to leave a lot of evidence. We would not expect an extremely squishy proto-living cell to leave much evidence at all - if any.Since the actual evidence for god is way, way less than what we would expect if god existed, it's reasonable - to me, at least - to conclude that god probably doesn't exist. (Again, gods that don't ever intervene could exist without evidence, but who cares about them?) No the issue for atheists is more like "there's the agnostic over there, telling me that something I'm pretty sure I know is actually unknowable. One or the other of us must be wrong, because we can't both be right. How can I know something that he says is unknowable?"Maybe you can't know absolutely whether or not any gods exist. But as far as I'm concerned you can be as sure that god doesn't exist as the sun will rise tomorrow, or that monkeys aren't flying out from between my buttcheeks. Again, that's not 100% sure, but that's far more sure than the "unknowable" cop-out. And again, there's no reason that logic can't also apply to any other thing that doesn't exist. You might as well say it's meaningless to say "there's no elves", or "there's no moogles", or any other mythical thing.Who has the time or inclination to consider so much stuff unknowable, when it's just so much easier to realize that, in all probability, they just don't exist?

I agree that this is an illogical position. I would, as well. That's why I think we believe the same thing - and why I believe that agnosticism, on it's own, is not really a position to take on the existence of god but rather a fundamental condition of what can be known. We're all agnostics, basically.

But what evidence would be sufficient?Since it is possible for something to fail to exist, it must be possible to determine non-existence. How is this to be done if not by reaching the conclusion that there's way less evidence - none, in fact - than we would expect if the thing existed?