Reply to Agnostic vs. Atheist

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Agnostic vs. Atheist"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agnostic actually means that you don't believe it is possible to know if there is a god or not.  So it actually isn't a belief or nonbelief.  It's a position on whether it's possible for humans to know if there is a divine power.

But a lot of people don't seem to understand that.

Atheist is that you don't believe a god or gods exist.  Period.  Not that you don't think it's possible to know one way or another.

Agnostics don't think it's possible to know with any kind of certainty one way or another.  They also don't believe it's a provable/disprovable kind of thing.  And I agree.

That's why agnostics tend to remove themselves from the vicious debates between Christians and atheists.  It's a pointless exercise.[/quote]

Atheists also don't think existence of a god is provable -- just as they don't think the existence of other unseen things are provable -- like fairies and trolls -- but they don't ponder whether or not such things exist -- they don't believe in them.  They see no evidence for them.

Many people interpret agnosticism as being some middle ground about God belief -- not caring, or not being sure, or searching or trying to believe, but not being able to. I know several people for whom it was a stepping stone to being atheist, that involved getting used to the idea that they didn't believe in Gods.

Different people use the term differently , making it hard to know what people mean when they say they are agnostic.   I think given its mixed usage, it's going to be hard to define it in a way that is widely accepted.

It seems easier to straighten out the meaning of atheism, which is simple lack of belief of god and says nothing about "proving" or "knowing" there are not gods. -- that is a misconception that I think has arisen from some religious people who are trying to make the atheist position seem ridiculous.

Atheists don't believe in god; religious people do -- neither can prove it.  Religion based on faith.  Atheism is based on lack of evidence.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics