Jinto

With all the bickering about "is atheism a belief," I think it would be useful to form a concise reference to just what atheism entails. The solution I propose is as follows:

Let "+" be the statement "I believe this statement."
Let "-" be the statement "I do not believe this statement."
Let "0" be the statement "I have no opinion regarding this statement."

Is his an accurate representation of the beliefs of the atheists/agnostics on this board?

Tenek

Hmm. Theist and Strong Atheist are fine. Weak Atheist might be negative to both. Not sure about Agnostic. But you seem to be adding a middle ground where none can exist - "believe" + "do not believe" = 1. Agnostics would, given no belief in something, or belief in the lack of something, be automatically negative to both.

SteveD

I don't think that you can even put these things on the same scale.

Theism or Atheism is a statement about belief.

Agnosticism is a statement about knowledge.

I consider myself an agnostic atheist. I don't know if god exists but I don't believe so.

Steve

Edited to correct my line about agnosticism. Thanks Philosoft

Philosoft

From the rest of your post, it appears what you mean is, "Agnosticism is a statement about knowledge."

JGL53

Not really.

I'm an atheist, which is the opposite of a theist. I'm an agnostic, which is the opposite of gnostic. The former debate is about belief, the latter debate is about knowledge and knowability.

I am a convinced philosophical materialist or metaphysical naturalist. I prefer using broad terms to identify my ontological and/or epistemological positions. I will admit to being an atheist and an agnostic if asked, but these are rather narrow and confusing in terms of their meanings and puts one somewhat on the defensive at the getgo, as one is expressing opposition to the alleged 'norm'. Materialism is the philosophical default position and that should be the starting point of the debate. Religionists should be the ones defending their 'far out' ideas.

Conchobar

Atheism literally means lacking a belief.... in gods. Strong Atheism is not true Atheism it should be called Nontheovitaism (No god exists). Weak Atheism is more honest and noble in that it simple says "I don't believe your claim of the existence of a god."

Agnosticism is perhaps the most honest. It means no knowledge or no evidence. It implies there is no evidence for or against gods and not necessary to even consider the unbased hypothesis.

Conchobar

Bumble Bee Tuna

Can a strong atheist also be an agnostic? I hope so, because otherwise I might have to tsop being a strong atheist. Strong atheist toward any religion's particular gods, of course, but not towards a general god concept- a general god concept, agnosticism is the only viable idea.

Agnostic vs. Gnostic: God is unknowable vs. God is knowable
Theist vs. Atheist: God exists vs. God does not exist
Strong Atheist vs. Weak Atheist: I believe God does not exist vs. I don't believe God exists

-B

Lobstrosity

Your weak atheist is completely illogical. You have that he doesn't believe the statement "there is a God" but that he has no opinion on the statement "there isn't a God." I think you're going about this the wrong way. Rather than a +, -, and 0 you need to have degrees of certainty.

Let's say 10 is absolutely certain and 0 is completely uncertain (i.e. no opinion at all):

- A strong theist would be a 10 on his certainty that there is a God.

- A strong atheist would probably be an 8 or 9 when asked how certain he was that no God exists (no rational atheist would be a 10 on a universal negative as you can never be completely sure something doesn't exist anywhere).

- A weak atheist probably isn't completely sure that no Gods exist (say a 4 or 5) but would perhaps be very confident (a 9, maybe) that we know almost nothing about this God (i.e. that religions are man-made bullshit).

- I guess an agnostic would be a zero on his certainty about everything pertaining to God. I view agnostic as someone who's simply too afraid to actually use their critical thinking skills--how can you have no opinion on something as significant as God?

asgardhaven

Lobstrosity-

everybody's got an opinion (the old saying that opinions are like ###holes everybody's got one.)

agnostics just have to acknowledge that there's no way to test that opinion

Defiant Heretic

I agree with Lobstrosity on everything except his agnostic definition. (I'm a strong atheist.)