Atheist or Agnostic?

Atheism

Agnosticism

Two similar belief systems with small differences. Do you label yourself as atheist or agnostic? Why do you label yourself as "X" as opposed to "Y"?

edited 12th Mar '11 11:19:54 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Atheist, I don't believe in any deities.

edited 12th Mar '11 9:57:25 PM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

This isn't a poll, it's a discussion. Care to expand on you're post?

edited 12th Mar '11 9:58:11 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Agnostic I don'ty think Atheism or Theism have any perticular merit to them because we really can't know for sure. mainly I preferr Theistic Agnosticism which goes under the premise that there probobly is something but aknowledging that we know nothing about it.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

We don't know anything for sure really. If we were a hundred percent sure about something that would mean ignoring any new evidence that may present itself.

I don't believe that Sasquatch exists because I don't think there is enough evidence to say that. That doesn't mean I'm saying he one hundred percent does not exist and never will. I'm just saying give me some more evidence and we can talk.

The notion that atheists think that there is no god for sure is just stupid too me.

edited 12th Mar '11 10:06:29 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Atheist. You know why

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Strongly agnostic. As for theism/atheism - tentatively leaning towards theism, but not more than that.

To be more specific - this one considers some philosophical explanations as to why there must be a supreme being to be beautiful enough to believe, but does not considers herself qualified enough in logic/philosophy to think that if some proof is enough for her, it makes the proof valid. So, tentative theism.

But this one is strongly agnostic, for this one is sure that regardless of whether god exists or not, it is currently impossible to recognise him/her/it or say anything at all about it's attributes, and so it's existence/non existence is irrelevant.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

I can say with 100% certainty that I do not believe in any Gods or variations there upon. Why is that stupid?

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

It is not stupid. Besides, another distinction to consider is that "not believing in gods" and "believing that there cannot, ever, possibly, under no circumstances, be any gods" are different things, and both qualify as atheism. Yet for some reason religious people arguing with atheists tend to assume the second.

Heh, to think of it, the whole therm "atheism" is rather strange. No other belief is signified by it's absence, or, rather, no other absence of belief is considered significant enough to be specifically named and mentioned. This one does not believe in gnomes, fairies, spaghetti monster and so on, yet this does not get this one labelled agnomist, afairist or aspaghettymonstrist.

So what's so special about not believing in god/s, this one wonders?

edited 12th Mar '11 10:26:30 PM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

I'm not saying that believing with 100% certainty that you believe there is no god is stupid (an odd sentence). I'm saying believing with 100% that there is no god is stupid. That's why everything is a "theory". No matter how sure you are about something, you have to update your theory if new evidence presents itself. There for, you can't be 100% about anything. Science has to maintain its flexibility meng.

I was just thinking that too. The reason its important enough that you have to have a term such as "atheist" is because of the very large number of people who believe in a deity/deities. The reason you don't have to have a term like "antignomist" is because gnomists aren't common enough to make antignomists relevant. It's a culture thing.

edited 12th Mar '11 10:32:58 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Of course anything is possible, but I'd rather say 100% then 99.9 to account for the very, very small chance that there is a God.

hey, I'm antignomists as well!

edited 12th Mar '11 10:34:32 PM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Not strictly beliefs, but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apolitical

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hey, I'm antignomists as well!

You're more then one person? That's....something.

edited 12th Mar '11 10:39:09 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Again, there is a difference between 100% believing there is none and 100% not believing there is any.

You are right that absolutely everything is possible. Until I know for sure, I have a full right to believe that there is a spinning silver spoon at the center of the universe. Honestly, do I have any proof that it is not so? No, not at all. but there is no reason for me to to think specifically of silver spoon instead of wooden axe, needle pin or smiling Asatoth. So, I am not saying that I am 100% sure that there is no spoon. But at the same time, I have 100% no reason to think that there is a spoon. So, I am 100% not believe there is a spoon. I do not 100% believe there is no spoon.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

My head hurts. I see your point. Maybe.

edited 12th Mar '11 10:47:02 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

I think a big part of the complications come from people misusing the terms and forgetting that weak atheism and strong atheism are different beliefs that share a lack of belief.

That and the fact that agnosticism is not a position about one's belief in something, but their knowledge of the existance of something. So when agnsotic is used as an exclusive term to atheist, it implies that atheism=strong atheism.

I think you're right about that.

edited 12th Mar '11 10:49:11 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

For the better distinction between these two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

Also, notice that the strongest form ("I know there is no god") is very rare, even among hard atheists. So it can almost be considered strawman.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

I'm not agnostic. I'm not agnostic toward the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any other unprovable supernatural thing. If you tell me there's an immaterial man in the sky, I'm not going to respond: it's ultimately unprovable either way so we can never know.

I'm going to respond: That's ridiculous.

I won't refrain from opposing an unreasonable statement just because it's framed in a way that makes normal logical argument impossible. The impossibility to find evidence should make it a less respectable statement. I think that agnostics give leeway to the irrationality of theism because of Russel's teapot.

edited 12th Mar '11 11:28:45 PM by Grain

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

Apatheist. I don't give a shit about whether or not there's any kind of deity or deities. It's irrelevant to the real world.

Antireligion, too, but I try not to shove it in people's faces.

OP has been updated to encourage more discussion.

Edit: OP edited again.

edited 12th Mar '11 11:20:14 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

My pattern followed as this: Christian —> Strong Agnostic —> Weak/Super Squishy Atheist.

My beliefs as far as that goes are mostly along the grounds that: "If there's anything out there that has a considerately high amount of concentrated energy and mass far beyond any other known form of concentrated energy and mass within space/time, then it MIGHT be a God. But before I make that assumption, I'd rather gather more data on the entity first before I come to that conclusion as making such a fast conclusion is ridiculous."

For example, Black Holes are extremely dense forms of mass that can bend light. No other form of mass has been discovered that can do something like this except recordings of certain Gods. But because I know that black holes aren't capable of sentience, then I come to the conclusion that a black hole isn't proof of God(s) existence.

edited 12th Mar '11 11:40:51 PM by SubtlyinyourMind

Kanaya, it's hard. Being a kid growing up. It's hard and no one understands.

That seems...like a bit too much detail.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

I have a tendency to over-analyze my own thinking patterns.

Believe me, changing one's religion isn't something to be taken lightly. It took me over 10 years before I changed and I put a TON of thought into it.

Kanaya, it's hard. Being a kid growing up. It's hard and no one understands.

I don't like how atheism and agnosticism are presented as a choice and you have to pick.

There are multiple ways of interpreting these terms, but agnosticism is about your stance on whether it is possible to know about the ultimate reality, while a/theism is about whether you believe in the existence of a Creator and/or Divine Judge.

Some people think they know that God exists (theist/non-agnostic  ^*

), some think they know God doesn't (atheist/non-agnostic/strong atheism), some think they don't know, but inclined to believe (agnostic/theist), some think they don't know but it's not likely (agnostic/atheist). When people say "agnostic" they usually mean a particular agnostic which is more or less impartial or doesn't care, which is rather misleading, but there's no other adequate term for it.

I think something like the Dawkins scale is a lot less ambiguous (said article, by sheer chance, also discusses the atheism v. agnosticsm term war!). IIRC the man also rejected the strong/weak distinction, although I can't remember why.

Like many other, though, I prefer to identify with agnosticism, but nor for any technical reason—purely because it sounds milder and more polite.

edited 12th Mar '11 11:57:31 PM by Catalogue

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