You can write on it anything you want. We’re just here to support you.
“It all started when I was 6…”
Gonna be a bit pedantic here… blank page would be more agnostic. I grew up religious and struggle with some famous atheists for being “religiously nonreligious.” As in so adamant and set on their anti church that it seems to create a new church and cult following.
I’m more agnostic myself. The religious equivalent of a shrug.
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:
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”.
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?
I’ve been checking out The Satanic Temple communities for a while. It’s pretty wild how atheists went full circle and developed a religious identity.
Some of the say they feel sad because others judge them when they say they are Satanists. Like, isn’ t that exactly part of the problem of religions, that they are hateful? Well, you’re inside the problem now. WHY? Imagine being an atheist but subjecting yourself to religious drama.
It would be OK if all of them where in there ironically or as a social protest, but nope, go and read their communities, being Satanists is really becoming their identity.
Which makes me think we should have another dimension in your image. religious vs nonreligious. All the cool kids are “nonreligious agnostic atheists”. As weird as it sounds, we have religious atheists now.
It would depend on the Satanists. The Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan are two very different things.
https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/church-of-satan-vs-satanic-temple
“The Church of Satan expresses vehement opposition to the campaigns and activities of The Satanic Temple, asserting themselves as the only “true” arbiters of Satanism, while The Satanic Temple dismisses the Church of Satan as irrelevant and inactive.”
Reminds me of the South Park episode about the scientific atheist religions.
It’s not really anything at all like that South Park episode.
Laveyan Satanists, aka The Church of Satan, are religious believers in and followers of Satan. They believe in an afterlife and all of the associated mysticism and mythology as literal true.
The Satanic Temple are non-theistic and believe that the biblical Satan represents self-empowerment, self-determination, and a rejection of belief in mysticism and mythology. They follow Satan as an allegory for questioning authority and defending human equality.
Very few Laveyan Satanists exist, but there qre enough Satanic Temple adherents to keep poking holes in the Christofascist movement. Either way, they don’t share any actual beliefs or customs.
Wow. I’m taking a shit and this is a bit much.
I gotta wipe before a dry buthole happens, so i’ll be quick. You might be reading into TST a bit too much. I’ve never seen it as a “religion” in any sense other than a political/culture point to be made.
I’m just one member, so take it with a grain of salt, please. Dry butthole is coming, gotta wipe, later.
This take always bothers me. The word “atheist” only means we don’t believe any theistic claims. That includes both people that just haven’t seen enough evidence and people who actively claim to know that God doesn’t exist. Labeling atheists as anti-church (anti-theist) is like labeling Christians as Catholics. It makes too many assumptions for what the word actually means.
So I think a blank page is a good representation of what “atheism” entails because the only requirement to be an atheist is to not hold any theistic beliefs. If they’re a more specific kind of atheist, like a gnostic atheist or a Satanist, they can put that on the page.
(Also, the term for the “religiously non-religious” people is “anti-theists”. The same way someone who rails against feminism is an anti-feminist.)
Well said actually. Let me rethink.
The correct answer has already been posted here… But… Pedantically, you are wrong. Gnosticism and atheism are orthogonal concepts.
I’m going more with nihilistic.
An atheist or agnostic should have an argument of reason on that paper.
“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and Savior?”
“Why, yes. Yes I have!”
“May we come in an talk about why this is a bad move on your part?”
“We believe in Nothing, Lebowski. Nothing!”
Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism but at least it’s an ethos
I know its a joke and all but…honestly this is the kind of shit I picture when I think about the annoying breed of atheists. Just going out of there way to, for no reason whatsoever, make sure everyone around them understands they don’t believe in god.
Atheism is a religion which has as it’s core belief that atheism isn’t a religion. They also believe their religion makes them better than everyone else because they don’t believe in things that are paradoxical like other religions do.
But don’t tell an atheist this, it’s blasphemy to them.
Atheism is the rejection of faith bases claims about gods or deities that do not sufficiently meet their burden of proof. It is not a belief system, it is not a worldview, and it certainly is not a religion. This is the kind of fallacious argumentation that people generally like to use when they know they believe things without reason and against all reason. It is a deflection that allows one to ignore the flaws in their own thinking by asserting that everyone must share their same intellectual dishonesty. No amount of you attempting to pass off these fallacious arguments in order to cope with this reality will ever change the fact that atheism is not a religion in any sense of the word.
Yes, that’s your belief.
Top 5 worst takes on atheism:
Oh, what a profound take! Wow, you really pwned us atheists. Guess I was wrong cause you the smartiest of us all.
This is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen. Keep telling yourself this because it self-soothes.
Meanwhile, I hate all religions because they’re used to justify persecution worldwide. Get fucked. I don’t need to tell myself soothing “truths” to feel good about my take.
^^^^^^ common reaction for a religious person to have to what they believe to be blasphemy.
Oh and I forget to mention that another core belief of atheists is that bigotry towards other religions is acceptable so long as they believe that they aren’t in a religion. Which is why the belief that atheism is not a religion is core to the atheist belief system. If atheism is a religion then atheism is just another religion being bigoted towards other religions. Nobody wants to think of themselves as a bigot so therefore it’s blasphemy to call atheism a religion.
Whoopsie… seems you probably left one religion only to get sucked into another one that’s the same kind of shit just with no holidays. Which conflicts with another atheist belief that you’re an atheist because you’re smarter than everyone else. As if religions aren’t all about making people feel special for being a member.
If you truly had no beliefs you wouldn’t be a part of a discussion group centered around your “non-religion”. There would be no point to it if you had no shared beliefs.
I have no illusions about the fact that I am not smarter than everyone else. However, I can say with absolutely certainty that I am smarter than you. Unfortunately for both of us that isn’t saying much because you set the bar pretty damn low.
I also think it’s quite humorous that you are generalizing atheists as having an unjustifiable sense of moral superiority when that literally describes your entire public facing persona on Lemmy.
Seems like maybe there’s some things you don’t like about yourself, and you’re projecting those insecurities on people who will not share them for reasons that make no fucking sense.
Another property of the atheist religion is the tendency to generalize people of other religious beliefs .while getting upset other people generalizing them. Yet another reason that questioning the core tenet of atheism being “not a religion” is considered to be blasphemous to atheists.
It’s no fun being generalized, but lots of fun generalizing others. Since atheists need to separate their behavior from the exact same behavior of other religions (they’re better than those dumb religious people) means an atheist is incapable of appreciating the irony of the whole thing.
There you go with that projection again. You have made repeated assertions about atheism being a religion, and then followed that up by hyper-generalizing the behaviors of atheists that you view as being part of that religion. Yet you have the audacity to tell me that I’m the one with the unchecked bigotry when I never said a fucking thing about your religious beliefs. I never attempted to generalize you based on what they may or may not be, nor do I fucking care. If only you possesed the capability or willingness to understand irony…
Look tons of fun, even though I could sit here all day and poke holes in your piss poor arguments that lack any sort of self-awareness, I’m going to go do something more productive with my life. You can feel free to have the last word, so you can go mentally masterbate about winning this conversation, and continue feeding your pathetic delusions that you want to pass off as well reasoned positions. I promise, I won’t lose any sleep over it sweetheart 😘
And I can pick holes in your arguments if you actually made any. But it all comes down to what I’m saying conflicting with your beliefs. Just try harder to understand there are many things that can’t be proven (like whether atheism is a religion or not) and a lot of how you see the world comes down to arbitrary definitions of words. You define atheism to be not religion, therefore atheism is not a religion. You define God to be something that can’t exist therefore God doesn’t exist. But it’s tautological reasoning, it’s not some profound truth that you’ve discovered that religious people can’t understand.
We get it, you believe different things from other people and that makes you feel special. You want to be among other people that share your beliefs for fellowship. Religious people are the same, they just don’t define their beliefs as “not religion” and don’t define God as “something that can’t exist.”
You’re just human like everyone else, no need to be upset about it.
lol yep. 100% why I avoid atheism communities. Here on lemmy tho things are so small I just go by all instead of what im subbed too tho.
You are doing a terrible job at avoiding atheism communities
I mean, I made it pretty clear how I ended up here as opposed to back on reddit. And in the end I couldn’t resist commenting on this comic because its just…so euphoric.
Excuse me sir, but have you heard of nothing at all~ nothing at all~ nothing at all~
Stupid sexy atheism?
i like your they still wear the short sleeve button up
