Living Dead Chipmunk

I'm worried.

I'm agnostic. I operate on the principle that there's absoltely no way in hell anyone on earth could know anything about god(s) or afterlife(s), so there's really no point in fretting about it.

But I've been whapped around with the nerf bat for insinuating that someone can't state "God does not exist" with the absolute certainty of a Newton explaining inertia.

Am I irrational? Unskeptical? Unworthy of the title "freethinker"? Am I just as bad as Them(tm)?

I want people to like me. I get the feeling that many of the strong atheists on this board don't because I'm just as ignorant and deluded as Gemma Therese and Doug Bender.

Am I overreacting, or should I be curled up in a corner with a "moron" sign hanging around my neck?

Albion

Guess I'll be joining you in that corner.

However much you want people to like you, the thing is that if you genuinely think that there's no way you could say "There is no God" and mean it, then that's the important thing - far more than being liked by people who think differently.

Daggah

Atheism does not require a strict statement that "there is no god." Atheism does not require absolute certainty either.

If you don't have a belief in a god, you're an atheist.

Starboy

What Daggah said.

If your not an in your face religious intolerant you are fine by me.

Leigh

There's a blurring line between atheist and agnostic, and it often comes down to more a matter of semantics, than anything else. I call myself an atheist, but according to some people I should call myself an agnostic because I will admit (when backed into a corner) that I don't know for sure that god doesn't exist. But I always point out that they can't know for sure that invisible pink unicorns don't exist either.........

Carlos

Many people don't agree on just what is meant by "atheism" and "agnosticism". I suggest that this is part of the problem.

The "official" definitions - not that there are such things, but the ones many books and websites (including the II library, I think) use - is that atheism (and theism) deal with (dis/lack of) belief in god, while agnosticism deals with knowledge of god. The terms are used independently of each other. Since no one has knowledge of god (to the extent that we have knowledge of an apple or gravity), this implies that everyone is an agnostic.

Belief can be rooted in knowledge (if I let go of this apple, gravity will attract it to the ground) but it need not be (I believe/don't believe in god). Some people, while conceding that you may not have the knowledge, will demand that you must have a belief, one way or the other.

If you're not familiar with the nuances, you might want to read about the difference between weak atheism (lacking belief in god) and strong atheism (believing that god does not exist). The II library contains many good articles; another good site is the one at <a href="http://atheism.about.com" target="_blank">about.com</a>. If you are interested in books, check out the II bookstore.

And by no means are you as bad as a theist; you are not irrational. Your beliefs are not that different from my own; I would call myself an agnostic as well as a weak atheist.

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: cau ]</p>

Mecha_Dude

I'm with cau. I don't care what you believe, as long as you don't think everyone else must also believe it.

Perchance

Hi Living Dead Chipmunk (interesting name),

I don't think that agnostics are just as bad as theists, if by "bad" you mean as "intolerant." I know that when I still mainly called myself agnostic I was too uncertain about everything most of the time to suggest that everyone should follow my ideas or else . I've run into a few agnostics who seemed to have a grudge against strong atheists, but the strong atheists were more than capable of hitting back.

I also don't think that agnostics are necessarily less intelligent or more wishy-washy. Those characteristics spill out along too many lines for something as simple as a religious grouping to contain them all.

And as others have suggested, as long as you don't go around preaching agnosticism, I don't really have a problem with what you believe.

-Perchance.

Living Dead Chipmunk

Hee hee. Preaching agnosticism.

"YOU MAY OR MAY NOT WANT TO REPENT! THE END COULD BE NEAR!"

Brian63

Just a side note:

The thread title is a bit offensive and silly. Perhaps it should have been rephrased as "Are theists just as good as agnostics?"

Obviously, it would be a bit confusing then, but better to be confusing than rude, I say.

Brian