Eh, personally I don’t think it makes sense to present theism and gnosticism as a 2d spectrum.
I double-checked the definitions to make sure I wasn’t talking out of my ass: an atheist is someone who does not believe in a god. An agnostic is someone who claims neither belief or disbelief in a god. It’s a subtle difference, but I think that it’s contradictory. Belief is an active thing. Atheists aren’t actively believing in something (they’ll believe it when they see it), but agnostics…could be?
You know what, now that I’m actually typing this out even that definition doesn’t make any sense, and I think that’s just a result of “atheist” becoming a dirty word. Most people called themselves agnostic because it was softer than atheist. “Do you belief in God?” “Maybe”. But what kind of answer is that? That’s not the truth, that’s the reply of an atheist who doesn’t want to upset a theist.
I always assumed that an agnostic was someone spiritual who believed in a higher power, just not any one specifically (so not a church goer), an atheist was someone who did not have belief in a higher power (yet not strictly against the possibility), and an antitheist was someone who actively believes that their is no higher power. But it seems like the terms have shifted. Atheists go by agnostics now because everyone got atheism and antitheism confused
Yeah, you got it. Almost no atheist claims that they can prove something non-falsifiable. Atheists don’t believe in gods. That doesn’t mean they believe that there can’t be gods. It means that it doesn’t matter and they live their life without catering to what any god could want.
Wow you read that fast. The definitions in the first second paragraph I googled and went by the first result (but I was seeing a lot of contradictory and overlapping definitions), the latter ones I thought I made it clear were the ones I assumed before looking it up.
Mind sharing your definitions so I can see where you’re coming from?
Edit: I just want to add this though, at the end of the day, these definitions are so muddied and confused that when a person describes to me their beliefs just using one of these terms, I’m simply not confident that I actually understand their stance. I always feel like I need to ask follow up questions, like “So, do you not have faith in god, or do you have faith that there is no god?” If these definitions weren’t so confused, these questions would be redundant, but the fact that their are threads like this one and thousands more over the internet show that colloquially there are disagreements in the semantics.
There are several well written books on the topic. Generally though you can use the dictionary definitions:
a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably unknowable
broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2
: a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something
Knowing / not knowing does not imply the position of/on belief. Oft, casually, agnostic is used as a wiggle word to escape pressure to define a position (the second definition) or to explain that the position held is unimportant.
Theism/atheism is the position that is either knowable or unknowable. Conflating the two is common because an unknowable is often taken as not knowing a person’s position on a topic regardless of that individuals actual beliefs.
Commonly people, incorrectly, assert (like you have) that there are three positions: gnostic theism, agnosticism and gnostic atheism.
While most theists are gnostic theists (they know that their God they Believe in is real) most atheist are agnostic atheists (they lack the belief in a god and they don’t know or not if it is possible to know of a god if one did exist (or not)).
Edit: a reply to your edit.
The definitions are not muddled in the academic/theological world. They are absolutely muddled practically when speaking with people who are not well versed in the topics.
For example, depending on a persons depth of understanding of philosophy I will classify myself as an agnostic atheist or a gnostic atheist (or just an atheist if gnostic/agnostic split is difficult to disambiguate for them). I am a philosophical physicalist (a form of materialism) which by definition excludes a supernatural god… Which makes me a gnostic atheist. But without understanding that philosophical position I am practically an agnostic atheist because of the ways most people interpret the ability to know things.
I made an edit to my comment just around the time you posted your reply, just fyi I don’t want to be sneaky or anything.
Huh, I always took atheist to be the complement of theist, not to be confused with the opposition. So because I’m a math guy: atheist = NOT(theist). For example, theist: “I believe in a god”, atheist: “I’m not with this guy”, antitheist: “Your god is fake, there is no god, it’s impossible”.
It mentions both of our definitions of atheism - not having belief and having belief against god - and where they came from and arguments for or against them, but they do seem to lean toward yours, the “philosophical” definition as they call it
Eh, personally I don’t think it makes sense to present theism and gnosticism as a 2d spectrum.
I double-checked the definitions to make sure I wasn’t talking out of my ass: an atheist is someone who does not believe in a god. An agnostic is someone who claims neither belief or disbelief in a god. It’s a subtle difference, but I think that it’s contradictory. Belief is an active thing. Atheists aren’t actively believing in something (they’ll believe it when they see it), but agnostics…could be?
You know what, now that I’m actually typing this out even that definition doesn’t make any sense, and I think that’s just a result of “atheist” becoming a dirty word. Most people called themselves agnostic because it was softer than atheist. “Do you belief in God?” “Maybe”. But what kind of answer is that? That’s not the truth, that’s the reply of an atheist who doesn’t want to upset a theist.
I always assumed that an agnostic was someone spiritual who believed in a higher power, just not any one specifically (so not a church goer), an atheist was someone who did not have belief in a higher power (yet not strictly against the possibility), and an antitheist was someone who actively believes that their is no higher power. But it seems like the terms have shifted. Atheists go by agnostics now because everyone got atheism and antitheism confused
Yeah, you got it. Almost no atheist claims that they can prove something non-falsifiable. Atheists don’t believe in gods. That doesn’t mean they believe that there can’t be gods. It means that it doesn’t matter and they live their life without catering to what any god could want.
Where are you getting your definitions? They are clearly orthogonal concepts.
Wow you read that fast. The definitions in the
firstsecond paragraph I googled and went by the first result (but I was seeing a lot of contradictory and overlapping definitions), the latter ones I thought I made it clear were the ones I assumed before looking it up.Mind sharing your definitions so I can see where you’re coming from?
Edit: I just want to add this though, at the end of the day, these definitions are so muddied and confused that when a person describes to me their beliefs just using one of these terms, I’m simply not confident that I actually understand their stance. I always feel like I need to ask follow up questions, like “So, do you not have faith in god, or do you have faith that there is no god?” If these definitions weren’t so confused, these questions would be redundant, but the fact that their are threads like this one and thousands more over the internet show that colloquially there are disagreements in the semantics.
There are several well written books on the topic. Generally though you can use the dictionary definitions:
Knowing / not knowing does not imply the position of/on belief. Oft, casually, agnostic is used as a wiggle word to escape pressure to define a position (the second definition) or to explain that the position held is unimportant.
Theism/atheism is the position that is either knowable or unknowable. Conflating the two is common because an unknowable is often taken as not knowing a person’s position on a topic regardless of that individuals actual beliefs.
Commonly people, incorrectly, assert (like you have) that there are three positions: gnostic theism, agnosticism and gnostic atheism.
While most theists are gnostic theists (they know that their God they Believe in is real) most atheist are agnostic atheists (they lack the belief in a god and they don’t know or not if it is possible to know of a god if one did exist (or not)).
Edit: a reply to your edit.
The definitions are not muddled in the academic/theological world. They are absolutely muddled practically when speaking with people who are not well versed in the topics.
For example, depending on a persons depth of understanding of philosophy I will classify myself as an agnostic atheist or a gnostic atheist (or just an atheist if gnostic/agnostic split is difficult to disambiguate for them). I am a philosophical physicalist (a form of materialism) which by definition excludes a supernatural god… Which makes me a gnostic atheist. But without understanding that philosophical position I am practically an agnostic atheist because of the ways most people interpret the ability to know things.
I made an edit to my comment just around the time you posted your reply, just fyi I don’t want to be sneaky or anything.
Huh, I always took atheist to be the complement of theist, not to be confused with the opposition. So because I’m a math guy: atheist = NOT(theist). For example, theist: “I believe in a god”, atheist: “I’m not with this guy”, antitheist: “Your god is fake, there is no god, it’s impossible”.
I’ll be real with you I did not and have no intentions of reading this whole thing, but sections 1 and 2 is relevant to this discussion: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
It mentions both of our definitions of atheism - not having belief and having belief against god - and where they came from and arguments for or against them, but they do seem to lean toward yours, the “philosophical” definition as they call it
You are correct, and I should have worded my example differently.
They lack the belief (as opposed to active disbelief).
I’m also an A-astrologist. It could be true, though? Maybe? Not likely?