Are you really an agnostic?

I don’t think that theists in general either understand or care about the delineation between agnostic and atheist.

What I consider to be atheist is what many people consider agnostic, that is, the belief that any random thing is as likely as god existing, but that there is still a chance.

It depends on your definition of ‘agnostic’, and I think this is a very broad definition. I do not deny the possibility of Santa Claus (in the sense that I cannot prove he doesn’t exist) but I consider the possibility of his existence extremely slim (in spite of the frequent sightings). Does that make me agnostic with respect to Santa?

The wikipedia definition speaks of “the truth value of a certain claim is unknown” or “inherently impossible to prove or disprove”. Most atheists, however, would argue that you can at least say something about the possibility of god’s existence.

On a related note, how many theists would be totally, 100% certain of god’s existence? Sure enough, they would want to be certain but even they must notice that it is mostly awfully silent and empty out there.

Agnosticism is about knowledge and atheism is about belief. One can be an atheist and an agnostic at the same time.

Do you KNOW there is a flying teapot orbiting around the sun? You don’t, so you are are a Teapot-agnostic.

Do you BELIEVE there is a flying teapot orbiting around the sun? You don’t, so you are a Teapot atheist.

A deep agnostic is one who doesn’t deny the possibility of a god but considers the possibility of such an existence extremely slim.

This definition is inept. A scientific person will be “deeply agnostic” about literally everything, from the law of gravity to the Holocaust. It’s possible that the phenomena that lead us to believe the law of gravity is nothing more than a giant coincidence… but of course the probability is very slim.

The characterization of atheists as “agnostics” is a rhetorical move, not a substantive move. It trades on the common meaning of agnosticism as undecided, ignorant or indifferent; the characterization of atheists as agnostics establishes “agnosticism” in the sense of a lack of absolute unassailable certainty, and then equivocates that lack of certainty to vacillation, wishy-washiness and indecisiveness.

If you really are undecided about the existence of God, it’s nothing but the truth to call yourself an agnostic. But don’t pretend you’re making some profound epistemic point: the Skeptics of ancient Greece beat you to it by more than twenty centuries. And don’t call *me* an agnostic: I may be mistaken, but I have most definitely made both a decision as well as taken a political position.

I also can’t really call myself an agnostic, since I’m a physicalist. I think that science has proven that what we call mind is so far only generated by complex systems of matter, such as brains.

If someone were to respond that they think that God is material, then I would have to say that a material God is just an extraterrestrial. I am agnostic about the existence of extraterrestrials.

I’m an atheist, and I actually do make the claim that god doesn’t exist (rather than just saying that I don’t believe in a god).

The universe does not, and never has, and technically never can, operate on certainty or uncertainty. Depending on how you phrase the question, you can never be 100% sure about anything.
Take something that is (as far as I understand) considered to be a universal constant: the speed of light in a total vacuum. That is the same everywhere, we can be pretty sure about that. But then if, say, you ask “what about an alternate dimension”, suddenly we can’t answer. If you say “what if this is a dream and when we wake up, it’s a different speed?” again, there’s no answer. We can never be 100% sure.

I hate thinking along those lines. It’s philosophical wishy washy nonsense designed as a thought exercise, but it highlights my point. We can never be 100% certain about anything, and yet there are many things that we know to be certain. If I drop my mouse, it’ll hit the floor. It’ll happen again tomorrow in roughly the same way, and every day until I die, and even then if someone else drops my mouse at my funeral, it’ll hit the floor. We’re certain of it. We have the evidence for it.

The same goes, for my mind, with god, just in the opposite way. For thousands of years, humanity has been searching for god, some desperately, some casually. And in those thousands of years, what evidence has ever been produced? Absolutely none, whatsoever, bar a few books that for all we know were the attempts of 200CE’s Stephen King to break into mass publishing.

The concept of “god” is one of the only, if not *the* only, concepts amongst humans that we consider still a viable hypothesis despite the mounds of evidence against it, and complete lack of evidence for. To quote the more famous examples, Russel’s Teapot and the invisible dragon in the garage; both are technically impossible to disprove, but neither have any evidence for them. This is the same state of affairs for all the world’s religions. And yet if people started actively claiming that Russel’s Teapot exists, or that there is an invisible dragon in their garage, and they’d be laughed at. The idea is laughable.

The same goes for god, and that has always been my claim. Replace the idea of god with *anything* else that has the same level of evidence (i.e., none), and everyone will claim it doesn’t exist. Many people apparently think the idea of god has some special status in this, but I fail to see it.

“What do you think?”

I think there’s very clearly no such thing as an agnostic. To the extent that the nonexistence of anything is reasonable to presume, the nonexistence of god is reasonable to presume. Agnosticism, if it existed, would be nothing more than selective solipsism, the intellectual and philosophical equivalent of jumping off a balcony because no one can prove that you can’t fly. If you presume the existence of an objective reality that is reflected by observation, and if you understand that proof of a concept means only sufficient evidence for the nature of objective reality so that the failure to provisionally assume the concept as true is unreasonable–i.e. if you have a vague inkling of an understanding of the philosophy of science–then agnosticism is even more ridiculous than religion.

I believe most humans are just too egotistical in either believing 100% in god or not believing 100% in god. I know how small I am in the grand scheme of things, and how much is unknown, that I cannot know one way or another. On one side, I don’t think there is a god watching over Earth, and that the Earth is the center of the universe. On the other side I see a 13 billion year old universe on a macro level, and strange activities at the quantum level, and we cannot see much at these limits, and cannot see beyond these limits. We will probably come to a better understanding of these current boundaries, but we will just discover a new boundary beyond that. I just can’t say that we won’t ever reach the level where the ‘why’ is answered which is a way I can define the idea of ‘god’.

This is great. It really helped me clarify my thinking and position.

Do I think and/or believe that there is any diety, meaning a higher intelligence that takes interest in us? That, further, we have no way of detecting and doesn’t interact with us in any way we can percieve? I have no evidence for that, and no way to disprove it. I believe there isn’t, but don’t know for sure, so I’m agnostic on that. I’m also apathistic, because I don’t really care if there is or not, since it has no bearing on my life.

Do I believe and/or think that any named defined God as defined by texts and followers exists? No. I believe there is no God, Yaweh, Thor, Mohammed, Jesus, or FSM as described by anyone who wants to describe them to me. There is no evidence, and any evidence presented for them can be proven false or inadequate. If there is a Biblegod who is inperceptible and silent, it isn’t really Biblegod because his followers and book claim he does stuff that we can perceive.

I am completely atheistic to the Christian “God”

I believe strongly that he doesn’t exist, and even believe that it can be proved that the Christian God is a construct compiled from earlier religions (Mithra anyone?)

Is there some being out there in the universe controlling everything? I’ve seen no evidence of it, but I suppose I cannot disprove it.

So in short

Christian God -Strong Atheist

Some kind of God – Weak Atheist, Agnostic.

You are playing at semantics. Denying the existence of a god or gods while acknowledging that we don’t know everything there is to know about the universe could be called atheism, it could be called agnosticism, it could be called common sense. Atheisms don’t claim omniscient. They merely recognize that there is no reason to believe the claims of the religious.

I’m an agnostic atheist who equates God claims with claims of Mars-orbiting teapots, spaghetti monsters and so on, but I do not like statements claiming that the probability of God is very low. The reason being that we have no idea what the probability of a God is. How do you assess the objective likelihood of a claim such as “The Christian God created all, using such mechanisms as Big Bang and evolution”? On what grounds do you specify the grounds of this? How can you say that the odds are 1 in X that the appearance of undesigned complexity is all one big ruse?

Rather than saying that “1. I do not believe in a God, and 2. I don’t know for certain that this or that God does *not* exist, but the probability is very low”, I prefer to say that I do not believe in a God as I’ve been shown no good reason to believe; I have no idea what the probability of this or that or any God is, but I’ve been given absolutely no reason to treat this mere possibility as being on any higher epistemological grounds than that of flying spaghetti monsters, etc.; So just as I don’t take an infinite range of ludicrous but undisproven possibilities into account in contemplating my behaviour, I don’t consider the Bible, Qur’an, and so on.

I’ve done a lot of introspection about exactly that. A decade ago, when an atheist-believing, Jewish-heritage friend said he was an atheist, I said, “I’m not”, for the reason that I would have felt dishonest calling myself that if I believed in a human soul or spirit, some kind of mind or intelligence in the universe, and reincarnation. It is similar to Buddhism, but though I have gone to my Japanese friend’s temple, I do not think of myself as a Buddhist. I have always been a Jewish sympathizer, and love their culture. I do not think of myself as a new-ager, though the beliefs are similar, because I consider many new-agers to be weird: using a different belief system in the same way xians use christianity – to escape this life in hopes of a better afterlife (be it heaven or the great white brotherhood); to feed their ego that they are “spiritually superior” (I’m sick of people overusing the word “spiritual” – gag) and “on the righteous path”; to get lost in other-worldly, unprovable weirdness as a way of not taking responsibility for themselves in this life.

Since I was a christian, and absolutely, positively, don’t believe in the christian god, and because so many christians are so self-righteous and repugnant, I now think of myself as an atheist in terms of the christian (or any other religion’s) gods. I wear my “scarlet letter”.

And my beliefs are just that, the same thing I tell christians about theirs: a belief is something accepted as real, subject to change with further information. They are how I live my life and determine my ethics and values. There is no bible, no scripture, no hell, no escape from this life into some afterlife, no using one’s belief to escape resonsibility for oneself, belief in human rights and freedom, full responsibility for self, no absolute certainty, nothing to convert anyone to.

If christians were like that, I think we wouldn’t be fighting off obnoxious, controlling, intolerant christians trying to force their beliefs onto others’ lives. I have only come to think of myself as an atheist in contrast to their irrational rants, their irrational scripture, their abortion of the capacity to reason, and their insane god.

just came across a great video on this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkEJtQJ5tz4&feature=channel

What would define god? Simply a more advanced form of life we could not understand? Or could it be that the universe itself could be said to have god-like properties?

Are you a “deep agnostic” about Santa Claus? Technically, I suppose: if evidence for the existence of Santa were presented, that would probably affect your belief. In the mean time, it is accurate to say that you believe there is no Santa Claus.

It’s not just that there is no evidence *for*, there is also a lot of evidence *against*.

‘I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden’.
-Richard Dawkins

I would classify myself inbetween a “De facto” atheist and a “strong” atheist.

The thing is, I DON’T even ACKNOWLEDGE “god” outside of this website and religious debates. I never think about it.

Basically, I’m nonreligious. I’m atheist.

Imo: you don’t do anything religious, you don’t acknowledge god on a daily basis, you’re atheist.

I think people who say they are agnostic mostly only are when they’re talking about it. Most of the time, they are living their lives as if there is no god.

Permanent agnosticism is intellectually lazy; in what other sphere of knowledge do we declare something unknowable and assign equal probability to the alternatives?

I take a very literal interpretation of the word atheist. I am “a-theistic”, i.e. “without a god”. All that means is that I personally don’t believe in a god, and therefore, by definition, a-theistic. That stance says nothing about the possibility or probability of a god. To me, it doesn’t matter. It would be foolish to assertively state “there is no god.” All I can do is state “I don’t believe there is a god” or “i see no evidence of a god, and therefore I don’t believe in one.” I see no reason for this point-of-view to be “demoted” from Atheism to Agnosticism, which usually has connotations of doubt or wonderment. I have no doubt that I don’t believe in a god, but that has nothing to do with my stance on if a god could or couldn’t exist.

Atheist about what? Agnostic about what?

Without actually defining the term “god”, we can not have an intelligent discussion about whether it exists.

Regarding the Abrahmic god — it certainly does not exist. Simply read the Old Testament, New Testament and Koran. They’re filled with nonsense. The world was not created in 6 days. The thing that supposedly performed this act does not exist, because the act never occurred. The thing that supposedly split the Red Sea doesn’t exist, because the Red Sea was never split in the way described in the bible.

The problem with having a discussion about the existence of “god” with most any religious person is that they refuse to truly define the entity they are pretending to discuss. Without actually defining the term, the idea of “god” is too amorphous to be worth discussing. The religious person’s idea of “god” isn’t actually formed and so they don’t really have an idea of anything that might actually exist.

And whenever I have a discussion with someone who actually gives real-live characteristics of god, the thing can’t logically exist.

I have had conversations with religious people who keep redefining god through the conversation. “Oh no, my God wouldn’t tell a father to kill his son just to show loyalty.” “Oh no, the world wasn’t created in 6 days.”

“Oh, yes, Jesus did rise from the dead.” Beeep! Thank you for playing. That’s impossible. It didn’t happen. Grow up.

Go ahead and actually describe the entity that’s supposedly God. Stick with the definition and we’ll discuss it. My money’s on anyone applying critical thinking determining that the thing described won’t be able to logically exist.

For instance, deists talk about an intelligence that caused the big bang. What do they mean by “an intelligence”? What other characteristics does this thing have? They don’t know? Guess what — they’re not actually describing anything. So it doesn’t exist.

And, by the way, Santa doesn’t exist. At least not the entity I’ve heard described — old guy, beard, lives at the North Pole with a bunch of little people making toys, flys with reindeer all over the world. Doesn’t freakin’ happen. There’s no potential that he exists in the way he’s generally described in American culture.

No agnosticism for Santa or any of these other mythical entities. They don’t exist.

Richard Dawkins seems to agree that technically he’s an agnostic rather than an atheist. I commented about the relevant section in God Delusion here: http://trevorcoultart.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/the-theist-athiest-spectrum/

Why does mankind feel such a strong urge to label people and their beliefs? The denotations and connotations of such labels can be extremely misleading. I mean, take this scenario: I walk into a ——– church (don’t want to pick on a denomination) in my home town on a Sunday Morning and shake hands with the preacher (each number is a different entrance):
1) I tell him I’m a Christian: “Oh, God bless ya sister! To God be the glory! Welcome!”
2) I tell him I’m a theist: “Hmm… Eh, that means you believe in God, right?… You must have been to college.”
3) I tell him I’m a fundamentalist: “Well, glad to see you this morning. Take a seat on the first row, will ya? I think you’ll really enjoy my message (with a skeptical smile).”
4) I tell him I’m Muslim: “Wow, I didn’t know we had any of those around here! Nice seeing you(with a genuine smile)! But what you doin’ in church? Shouldn’t you be wearin one of them dresses?”
5) I tell him I’m agnostic: “Have you ever seen the work of God? It’s amazing! If you like this service, you should come back next week. If you want, you could eat lunch with me and the famly.”
6) I tell him I’m an atheist: “How ya doin’? You don’t look so good… You should turn from your evil ways and admit that you’re a sinner.”

See what I mean? Some labels just have a nasty spin on them if you don’t know what they really mean. And most people don’t. They automatically make judgments without even knowing you in the least just because of a label. Maybe I should make my own label so people will ask me to explain before they jump to conclusions… Lol.

not pascals theory. just stating that in the end you could be very wrong and then what? i have a firm belief that there is a holy holy God that is very much around us is simply asking us to follow him. not asking us to do this 77 times or do this twenty times but to follow him. how many other religions do that? we simply cannot be good and so in that case we are screwed in the utmost meaning. so how do you fix this human condition we find ourselves in? i think we submit ourselves to Christ and humble ourselves before this huge God that counts our days and numbers the stars. ive thought about all these points countless nights (the ones you assume i havent thought about i promise i have) and this is the conclusion ive come to: believing in and living for God is the only thing that makes sense. simply i cannot do anything alone. there is something bigger, there has to be and this is it. God is very real and very alive. its fine if you dont agree but i feel like that takes a far greater amount of faith to believe there is nothing than to submit yourself to the almighty and be enthralled in his holiness.

@Lorena, you wrote:
“But even if there were a god, I know for sure that life is best lived when one goes about life without bothering thinking of extraterrestrial creatures.”

Good point.
The funny thing is that I do know a lot of Atheists who believe (!) that extraterrestrial creatures have visited our planet. Seems they just switched their religion.

Thanks for getting that in early.

I don’t think knowledge and belief are so easily separated. Some things that we think we know are really beliefs that we just have a higher degree of certainty.

For example I could say that I “know” we landed on the moon, but if some conspiracy theorist asked for definitive proof could I provide first hand “proof”? Anything that I produced would be secondary sources and could be explained away.

Another example would be that many of our intuitive beliefs are practically useful but scientifically are not true. I’m thinking specifically of our notion of time here.

In some sense we have to be somewhat agnostic about almost all our knowledge.

That totally made me think of this.

Lorena – I just realized my post almost exactly matches the ideas in yours. I could have just replied and said, “Right!”

“Any being wielding sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a god.”

Very cool. I certainly can imagine us, “us” being human beings, someday discovering an earth like planet inhabited by primitive beings very similar to the bronze age humans that wrote the bible. If we made a direct and calculated effort to appear as gods to them, it would be as simple as sending someone down with magnets to levitate a large metallic object on their planet. Hell just flying around in their sky would do the trick. We could even send a robot down that they would worship. They would write books about it all, establish churches and places of worship etc. Of course we would watch all this with amusement and may even smirk from time to time ;)

I would have to agree here. While the distinction seems relevant to those of the agnostic or atheist camps, as a “practicing agnostic” I’m routinely frustrated by the dismissive lumping that takes place from theists – most notably from fundamentalist Christian groups. If not completely lumped together, the groups are viewed on some overly simplistic sliding scale. I remember the reaction I received once after correcting a friend who’d introduced me as an atheist. “Oh you’re agnostic,” said the man I’d just met. “Well that’s even worse…”

That’s Erich von Däniken the other way round.

By the way, so far the proof for the existence of extraterrestial life is on a par with the proof for god. Are you an agnostic with respect to aliens, or an atheist?

I see no reason to hold that the existence of God could never be proven.

I disagree. At least as long as you define one of god’s properties as ‘has created the universe’. Because then, we would have to prove the existence of arguably the most complex entity in the universe (or maybe even outside of it, if this god really is ubiquitous). Any evidence towards such a being gets beaten by Occam’s Razor, because there will always be an equally probable but less complicated explanation for any observation that would qualify as proof of god(s).

@Topic: Technically, I’m an agnostic (see above), but for all practical means, I’m an atheist. Besides, I don’t see being agnostic/atheist as mutually exclusive. In other words, I’m about as sure that god(s) do not exist, as I am that I exist.

Actually, the traditional definition of knowledge incorporates three notions:

-is it justified
-is it true (different from the notion of Truth)
-is it believed

Therefore, a-gnosis is a position on knowledge (as gnosis means knowledge) while a-theism is a position on one of the components of knowledge: belief.

Jim666: “One hundred years ago plate tectonics were not known continental drift a preposterous idea. Geologists studying the earth did not fall into agnostic or atheistic camps.”

Your may be off subject.

Plate tectonics is a theoretical description of how continental drift occurs. You can be ignorant of the concept, but cannot be agnositic to it.

However, one may be agnostic (without knoweldge) of contintental drift. In this context the term “ignorant” is more typically applied.

Agnosticism applies to meta-physical, supernatural, transcendental, or other such claims, which cannot be objectively (or perhaps directly) observed and studied.

Regarding the “belief” perspective, I don’t think anything sensible can come from debating “belief” of observed pheneomena.

Devysciple: “brains that can invent the internet (almost exactly one)”

Pretty broad statement there considering there are 70 sextillion stars in just the “visible” universe and it is estimated we can only “see” 2% of said universe.

Hello LRA;
This is the same JR your used to talking to, I just changed my name and have a new gravatar. I just spent the last two hours looking for the message I sent you last night. There has got to be a better way to communicate privately. I have lots of questions.

Well, do you know how to email Daniel? If so then tell him your email and he’ll send it to me!

:)

Done and done. Check your email.

Well I guess it depends on the definition of God being used, then. Classical Theists would reject the idea that God is more complicated than the universe because he is supposed to be divinely simple (in fact, a number of the divine attributes follow from this, so it’s a linchpin for their whole philosophy). Therefore Occam’s Razor wouldn’t apply, at least based on the classic monotheistic tradition of thought (in the case of an anthropomorphic God, it might).

@Amanda: You are right, but my very next question to our hypothetical classical theist would be “Could you please define ‘divinely simple’?”
Besides, who wants to argue with a classical theist at all?! ;)

@VidLord: I most like definition 1, number 3 isn’t bad either, but number 2?!?! *puzzled*

That was funny. And using the term “balls” figuratively makes it almost meaningless. Does it mean courage, as if courage were a masculine-only trait? Does it mean the agnostic isn’t masculine? That it’s wimpy – which again probably means cowardly – to say you don’t know and are holding the belief in abeyance rather than being dead certain? The saying gave me a laugh, but then sometimes things do, which are meaningless upon further examination.

So, you say you wear your scarlet letter? How “out” are you (all)? This is something that has become a bit of an issue for me in my recent de-conversion. I live in a rural, isolated mountain town of 1,700 people, which somehow manages to support 42 churches, one of which I used to be heavily involved with. I am also a small business owner who relies heavily upon word-of-mouth referrals. I frequently run into members of my former congregation around town who mention that they haven’t seen me at church lately, invite me to Bible study or ask which small groups I’m involved in. This isn’t an outright assumption on their parts, as I was once involved in all those things. I usually squirm a little bit and try to find a way to vaguely and politely decline.

I have “come out” to my husband and a few close friends, but I am a little concerned that if I start being a little more public about my atheism / agnosticism, that I will lose business (the only other competing business in town is owned by a devoted Christian & youth group leader who ostentatiously donates a percentage of her income to a Christian charity – it’s plastered all over her business website). Since I no longer have church and church-related activities to network in, I’m losing business opportunities on that end, as well. I know that many Christians, who happen to dominate this town, view atheists as immoral / amoral / untrustworthy, especially when compared to their Christian brothers and sisters. I don’t want to lose an impression of trust with my clients, but at the same time, my de-conversion has changed my life in many positive ways.

This was probably better-suited for another post. Sorry – I’d love to hear all your feedback.

Hi, Molly,

I agree with Devysciple. I’m not in your position; only mildly uncomfortable instead of threatened livelihood. Because of social and family events I still go to the necessary services, and it was uncomfortable at first, I think mainly because I was still a little defensive because it was all new. Now I just pretend I’m at an interesting ethnic cultural event, like if I went to a service at a temple or mosque. I wouldn’t be upset or offended; I might be bored, but nothing else because it doesn’t mean anything to me. So I go to what I must to have other areas of my life work, ditch the rest, and think what I want. I find it very interesting how little I actually have to attend to fulfill the obligations.

You definitely don’t want to argue with a classical theist. It’s not fun because everything they say always goes back to “we can only understand the nature of God analogically, because he is too vastly different from creatures”. It all ends in undefinable mysteries :P This is why I get fed up with my philosophy of religion teacher. Although he is forever asking me to explain more about evolution to him, which I find admirable in somebody so devout. At least he hasn’t totally closed his mind.

VidLord, definition #1 is my personal favourite, but it doesn’t get you very far in a debate with a religious person.

The Abrahamic God is claimed to the creater of all, and trancendent.

I think that disqualifies all life froms.

We have knowledge of Santa stories, but no knowedge of an actual Santa. We are all agnostics.

Regarding evidence against, I agree there is a lot of evidence against the many claims associated with Abrahimic theology.

However, with regards to claims of a creater God with no specific characteristics; it is like arguing over nothing … and nothing is exaclty what I think it is ;-)

Russell also wrote more directly on this topic:

Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?
A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas
by Bertrand Russell (1947)

…
Proof of God

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.
…

As for myself, without getting too tied up in formal definitions, I could point out that the term “agnostic” was only coined in the 19th century, whereas “atheist” dates back as far as Classical Greece.

IMHO, “agnostic” was coined to avoid the stigma attached to the term atheist. I would rather take the bold approach and try to reclaim “atheist” rather than attempt to outrun the stigma.

As a comparison, I will point out that in my lifetime, “Negros” became “Blacks” became “African-Americans,” (even though only a small minority have actually been to the continent of Africa) and they might eventually figure out that it not the label attached to them that is the subject of bigotry, it is their skin color, which is not changed with a new label.

Another comparison, as a more successful model, is the gay rights movement. They eventually settled on one term of identification, “gay,” and then they were in-your-face to demand that they be recognised with the rights due to any other citizens. Some even wear the label “queer” as a badge of honour.

In practical terms, it seems to me that most agnostics I have met (not counting philosophers who get hung up on the formal definitions, as discussed above) have a desire to believe, but are unwilling to go against the evidence and rational arguments.

Wow! Cool! Thanks! I honestly was not expecting anyone to have a positive reply to my post (but it’s only been a few minutes, hahaha). I always thought I was the only one (at least that I’ve seen) with this viewpoint. So many people follow Carl Sagan (and for good reason), but just because he was able to very nicely define his agnosticism, does not mean it applies to everyone else that just accepts his views and then decides to label themselves agnostic and reject their inherent atheism.

Although, I must say, I did write that as nice as I could. This issue still bothers the fuck out of me.

It seems so simple in my feeble mind… do I KNOW for an absolute fact that no god(s) exist? Of course not!

Do I BELIEVE any god(s) exist? NOT HARDLY!

Does that mean I’m an atheist? Duh! … it’s not rocket science folks.

I do not believe YOU.

And that is the crux of the matter isn’t it? Without objective evidence there is only YOUR story and subjective world. So far, you have done nothing to convince me that you are right.

Therefore, I am still an atheist. You have failed.

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I’m relatively new to this (2 years or so) and I’m always curious to see how others are handling the lifestyle changes that accompany the de-conversion process. To clarify, Devysciple and MaryLynne, are you saying that you regularly go to church services? I’m not offended by the services themselves, or even the church “experience”. I can definitely view it as a cultural event, much as I would view attending Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist services.

But to pretend to be a Christian again, only for the sake of my business? To exchange fake greetings and smarmy smiles and drink god-awful coffee and relentlessly gossip under the pretense of prayer? I don’t know if I want to go back to that. I left it for a reason, and oddly (or not) I am so much happier now than I ever was as a Christian. I am so much more “myself” and brimming with life and excitement, and that’s entirely due to me leaving the church. I almost want to celebrate that publicly.

Before I answer your second question, I need to clarify something: I live in Europe, in Germany, to be more precise, and over here it seldom is a problem if you don’t regularly go to church (used to be different some 50 years ago). So the “drawbacks” from being an atheist are small compared to what you are facing.

On your question whether I still attend church, the answer is, not anymore. I lost my faith around the time of my confirmation, but for the sake of family peace, and because I was quite entangeled in the church community, I thought I still had to attend services. Only later did I find out that while my family was not exactly happy or comfortable with my godlessness, they were at least not bothered when one christmas they asked me if I joined them for the nativity play (something I had done myself a few times while I was pretty young), and I flatly refused. Since that day, I haven’t set foot in a church anymore.

And for pretending to be a christian, my advice would be: take the actual liturgy as lip service, be nice and kind to your “fellow” christians, like you would be to any customer, regardless of what you think of them, hold shallow conversations with them, just like you would do small talk to obnoxious people at a social event, and for all the rest, excuse yourself, don’t get drawn into it that much anymore. I know it’s much easier said than done, but I think you can do it. If you have children, take them as an excuse, be creative. You know these people, you’ll have (hopefully) an easy guess as to which bait they will fall for. I think it should be easier to pull off that stunt than to come up with a new excuse why you didn’t attend service every other day.

And if all else fails, you can always come to this blog and ask people what to tell your christian friends this time, some here are really good at making up woo-woo… ;-)

Perhaps belief in God may be propped up with justification, but it is still missing the verification component. Add to that that the justifications themselves may be missing the verification component.

Tevor,

As agnositicism indicates a lack of knowledge, and atheism a lack of belief, they are not exclusive of eachother.

In the sense there is no objective knowledge of God, we are all agnostics.

A lack of knowledge does not prohibit theists from their belief.

Regarding atheists, the lack of belief does not require an assertion be made. The statements below all qualify as atheism.

(1) I have no belief in a God.
(2) I do not believe in the existence of God.
(3) I believe that God does not exist.
(4) I reject all claims regarding the existence of transcendental beings.

@Peter
Well, in the case of God, the so called slim chance should be considered seriously, because it might not be a product of human fantasy like unicorns or the spaghetti monster. The question is how God could be described. Maybe the word is too old fashioned to get through.

Well, in the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the so called slim chance should be considered seriously, because it might not be a product of human fantasy like the christians’ mythological god. The question is how the Flying Spaghetti Monster could be described. Maybe the word is too innovative and untried to get through.

FSM: Praise Him; rAmen!

Are you incapable of perceiving your unsupported nonsense?

The argument seems to be logical, but – I do insist – we are talking about two different things.

Well said, Kevin.

‘“This is how religions work.” This is one of the worst stereotypical generalizations atheists make. Most believers genuinely believe. Most religious leaders genuinely believe.’

What is the stereotype here?

Nothing in the description of how religions work implies that believers don’t genuinely believe.

All he is saying is that magigical answers are invoked by religion to answer requests for evidence. If such claims are believed, the claims of the religion are untestable and inistiguishable from false claims.

The fact that believers really believe is actually one of the scarier things about religion.

How is this not a twist on Pascal’s wager?

Regarding your question — that in the end you could be very wrong and then what? — this is the reality that every human faces. The question has no more meaning or validity when asked of an atheist than when asked of a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or anyone else.

If there is a god (the Christian version or otherwise) it is doubtful that he could be fooled by someone saying they believe when they do not. And if there is a god who desires only a certain level of goodness from mankind then all are on a level playing field, so to speak.

My point is that “belief” cannot be manufactured out of nothingness. I can no more decide to believe in your god than you might be able to decide to believe in the flying spaghetti monster. For many people, a certain amount/level of evidence is required in order to believe that which is…. well, unbelievable!