M82A1

...between Atheist and Agnostic? I truly have no idea. :banghead:

DBT

Atheist;
One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

Agnostic;
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.

JGL53

According to these definitions, agnosticism is an utter absurdity.

Also, I am an atheist and I disbelieve a lot of things, but I deny nothing (except my creditors).

epepke

Agnosticism is a statement about knowledge.

Atheism is a statement about belief.

Plognark

Yep. Agnosticism generally takes the stance that it is impossible, because of our limited human capabilities, that we can know whether god exists or not.

Correct again. There are actually two forms of atheism; weak and strong, and the distinction appears fine but it's actually quite profound.

A weak atheist lacks a belief in God, or gods, the same way that a person lacks a belief in Leprechauns or Santa Clause. Can they prove it 100%? No. Is there enough compelling evidence to inspire belief? No, not even close. They would say "I do not believe in God." or "I lack belief in gods."

A strong atheist goes another step and says "I believe there are no gods." It looks almost the same, but it's quite different. It's an affirmative statement that there are no gods. Logically it requires a degree of proof, which is no easy thing with regards to supposedly omnipotent deities.


Some argumentative theists don't like this and try to make the burden of proof and the affirmative statement issue disappear to put the weak and strong atheists in the same category, but that's only because they're generally disingenuous.

The position of the strong atheists is almsot as hard to support, logically, as that of the theist. Both make claims about reality that demand some proof. There are certain flavors fo god, like certain specific sects of Christinity, that can be disproven, although not very well, from what i've seen.

Generally, the more specific the god definition, the easier it is to logically refute it.

Worldtraveller

And of course, it's not as 'simple' as Plog says even.

For example, I'm agnostic, and weak atheist with respect to the possibility of any gods existing, but a strong atheist with respect to all of the gods I've heard/read about so far. For instance the god of the xian bible can't exist as defined. 'He' is a logical absurdity, contradictory in almos every way.

Cheers,
Lane

Plognark

Oops, yeah, I forgot to mention that a person can be both an agnostic and a mixed weak/strong atheist.

DBT

They need not be mutually exclusive, one can possibly be a strong atheist concerning all the known gods but a weak atheist or agnostic regarding the possibility of some form of unknown deity or god like being/s .
The strong atheism in this case may be based on a lack of belief when considering the absurd and contradictory nature of the known pantheon of Gods.

trendkill

Agnosticism as an alternative to atheism doesn't make much sense, as has already been pointed out. It's more of an argument-dodging move than anything else. Much like so-called "weak atheism". They're both names people give themselves as preemptive moves when they are afraid of peoples' reactions to atheism, or are afraid that their reasons for not believing in gods can't stand up to scrutiny.

JGL53

The general public tends to view "agnostics" as being confused wussies who just need some proper counseling to see the light and "atheists" as being mean, evil bastards, who are beyond redemption until and unless they renounce Satan and quit denying the one true god.

Other than this, there isn't any important (non-trivial) or pragmatic difference.