Agnosticism vs. Atheism

[ST88]

Atheism is traditionally divided into two groups: strong and weak.

The strong-atheist actively disbelieves in a God. s/he has considered the question of whether or not there is a God or gods, and has answered the question "no".

The weak-atheist passively disbelieves in a God. s/he has heard the question of whether or not there is a God and refuses to answer because no available evidence exists in either direction. The question itself is meaningless.

In practice, agnosticism and weak-atheism are identical and strong-atheism is often translated as just atheism when the two are mentioned together. The agnostic does not trust conclusions that are not based on empirical evidence and/or logic. Thomas Huxley, who coined the modern-day term "agnostic" in 1869, has this to say.

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in vigorous application of a single principle. Positively the principle may be expressed as: in matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it can carry you without other considerations. And negatively, in matters of the intellect, do not pretend the conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable. It is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. That is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. ... The application of the principle results in the denial of, or the suspension of judgment concerning, a number of propositions respecting which our contemporary ecclesiastical "gnostics" profess entire certainty.

In terms of everyday life, both agnostics and atheists behave as if there were not a God or gods. But the agnostic tends to consider the various questions posed by religion and judge them on their merits, while the atheist tends to reject religious doctrine outright as it applies to invisible deities.

There are also shades of in-betweenness, but this seems like a good place to start. Where do your values fall? And what are your views concerning "proofs" of God, Heaven, etc.?

[Cephus]

Anyway he has shown that no matter how well read he is in Philosophy, when it comes to Physics, he doesn't have a clue and is wrong more than he is right.

That's why I gave up debating science with theists years ago, I got tired of trying to explain basic high school science to people who are so utterly blinded by their religion that they aren't going to listen anyhow. I've even stopped going into the Philosophy forums so I could avoid Harvey and his constant misrepresentations. It's just pointless to try to correct him, as you've found. He doesn't care about reality, just in propping up his version of religion. As far as I'm concerned, he can do that somewhere away from me, I've got better things to do than constantly correct his misconceptions.

[Grumpy]

Cephus

That's why I gave up debating science with theists years ago, I got tired of trying to explain basic high school science to people who are so utterly blinded by their religion that they aren't going to listen anyhow. I've even stopped going into the Philosophy forums so I could avoid Harvey and his constant misrepresentations. It's just pointless to try to correct him, as you've found. He doesn't care about reality, just in propping up his version of religion. As far as I'm concerned, he can do that somewhere away from me, I've got better things to do than constantly correct his misconceptions.

I should just take your wise advice next time!!!

I did fight him to a standstill in the tachyon thread, at least. Of course he never admitted his errors, but we went toe to toe til the bell rang.

Grumpy

[Grumpy]

Cephus

Help, I'm being assaulted by two Philosophers!!!

Actually they do seem to hate me. Is it my personality, is my logic faulty, do they see me as the Antichrist or something?

Or is it simply that I see through their ivory tower rhetoric and cut straight to the point, deflating their inflated egos and destroying their faulty logic(a little roughly at times)?

Whatever, I will soldier on.

Grumpy

[Cephus]

Help, I'm being assaulted by two Philosophers!!!

Call the cops! Press charges!

Actually they do seem to hate me. Is it my personality, is my logic faulty, do they see me as the Antichrist or something?

Nope, it's ego.

Or is it simply that I see through their ivory tower rhetoric and cut straight to the point, deflating their inflated egos and destroying their faulty logic(a little roughly at times)?

Some of that is likely, but you find with a lot of scholastics that they figure they went to school, therefore they're always right. This is unfortunately common across all forms of philosophy especially, but even through the various sciences. Heck, I was reading about Bhodan Paczynski, an astronomer whose calculations showed that the gamma ray bursts from a couple of years ago could not have originated in our galaxy. The scientific community thought he was insane because they were running on pure ego, not on the evidence. They were convinced they knew better because they insisted their conclusions had to be true. It turned out they were all wrong and Bhodan was completely vindicated.

It is unfortunate, but we are talking about people here and people have egos and people can be irrational. Just stick to the facts, keep emotion out of the picture and no matter if they ever come to their senses, at least you're doing science, something they're certainly not.

[Saros]

I disagree with the definitions of atheism in the OP.
As far as I know strong-atheism is defined as "there cannot be a god" and weak-atheism is defined as "there is no god" Otherwise as already stated weak-atheists are no different than agnostics.

[AClockWorkOrange]

an agnostic places God outside of human comprehnsion.

Thus, they remove God from the Natural world. Then, to define God in anyway is to attach God to the natural world, so God must remain undefined and without a quality to remain supernatural.

So if God has no qualities, is undefined, and is completely outside of the natural world or natural definition, then God really doesnt matter...

Thus, Agnostisism really doesnt matter, or all agnostics are rationally atheists if they care about relivency.


(i took this from another post i made)

[Righteous Indignation]

Words are for communication. We don’t need labels like atheist and agnostic to tell us what we think. We need them to communicate to others what we think. If our audience does not understand the words we us then we are not communicating. Even here among atheist and agnostics I see some confusion about the meanings. I imagine the words are even more confusing to the average theist. The meaning of the word "atheist", for example, has been distorted by the church for 100’s of years. It has become so emotionally charged that it would be counterproductive to use the term among theists. You would be trying to saying, "I don’t believe in God"; they would be hearing, "I hate God and deny his existence." It might be best to only use the word among fellow atheist. If a theist asks you, "Are you an atheist?", I would suggest asking them to define it first. And don’t answer the question until you can both agree on a definition. Agnostic might be a better way to label yourself to theists. I think they have a better grasp of this definition, but here again you might want to test the water and ask them what they think about agnostics.

There is also another problem with labels. You are drawing a line in the sand so to speak. You are saying this is us and the rest are you. This is fine if you are in the majority, but unfortunately, my fellow atheist and agnostics we are a despised minority. It would be better to find a label that is inclusive to the greatest number of people and then draw a line in the sand. Freethinker might be just such a label.

Freethought in Wikipedia is defined as: "A philosophical doctrine that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logical principles and not be comprised by authority, tradition, or any other dogmatic belief system that restricts logical reasoning." Who can argue with this? With a label like "freethinker" you might now have a majority in your circle. I imagine many who consider themselves religious would also consider themselves freethinkers. With a majority on your side you can argue from a position of strength and in time agnostics and atheists might increase to a point where the lines can be redrawn.

[AClockWorkOrange]

*nods head in agreement*

I was only showing what i believe to be a valide but flawed philosophy (agnosticism).

[Righteous Indignation]

*nods head in agreement*

I was only showing what i believe to be a valide but flawed philosophy (agnosticism).

Clockwork, thanks for the nod! I'm basically in agreement with your statements above. My post was not actually a response to your post but more of a general response to this thread. Sorry, if I caused any confusion.