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I've always thought of agnosticism as being "I don't believe in Gods," and atheism as being "Gods don't exist." It's like the difference between saying "I don't think that plan will work" vs "That plan won't work." One leaves room for you to be wrong, while the other doesn't.
Agnostics are "I don't know, probably not. It's impossible to know.".
Atheists are "I don't think there's a god, there's no proof".
Anti-theists are "there is definitely no god", and they have just as much evidence as believers.
Because I just discovered it on wikipedia I think is worth adding ‘Ignostic’ - the belief that frankly it’s pointless even discussing any of this unless you can first define a deity. Seems bloody sensible to me.
...who can't define a deity?
Ignosticism sometimes want you to also define what "to believe" means.
Why? You can see in the comment you replied to.
When you are ignostic it is interesting that you can also be, agnostic and Christian by some definitions and antitheist by other definitions... A schrodinger christian.
My hot take: If most atheists would use the same definition for God as most Christians do, they would consider themselves as Christians.
And most christians would be considered atheists if they used common atheist definition.
What is the definition for God most Christians use?
There are also some subtle variations in agnosticism.
There's the soft variety that says "there is no proof that convinces me either way but I won't rule out that someone could come up with one".
There's the hard variety that says "I don't think it's possible to prove either way".
There's even a variety that says "it doesn't matter whether (a) god exists or not, hence there's no need for a proof".
But yeah, the core of agnosticism is that you don't believe the existence of (a) god has been conclusively proven or disproven and are unwilling to commit either way without that proof.
Seems like it’s gathered quite a wide definition but this is certainly how I’ve always understood it. If I was to ever start a cult I think it’d be based on militant agnostic fundamentalism.
Ah, interesting. Never heard the term "Anti-theist," but that does fit the bill a bit better.
My understanding was that atheism is the belief that there is no god(s), whereas to be agnostic is the absence of belief one way or another, i.e unable to prove or disprove existence of god(s). With this interpretation it's more scientifically rational (for whatever that's worth) to be agnostic than atheist.
The importance of such a distinction doesn't merit much fuss beyond freshman philosophy though since you get some atheists who are absolutely evil cunts and plenty of genuinely good people of almost all religions.
Atheism doesn't make any positive claims. It doesn't claim to know there is no god. That's anti-theist.
Atheism makes the negative claim of: none of your god claims has sufficient evidence, therefore I don't believe them.
Now, individual atheists themselves can say and do whatever. That's on them.
Mhmmm... not quite. To claim there is no god is gnostic (or strong) atheism.
Anti-Theism is the conviction that belief in a deity or religion is foolish and overall something bad for society.
Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that "there is no god"? I've never seen that, and it seems wrong.
Here's my counter reference:
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
It's not about atheism in this, it's about the gnosticism in combination.
Gnostic Theism = I am convinced by the claim there is a god. And I know my conviction is correct.
Agnostic theism = I'm convinced by the claim there is a god, but I don't know if I'm right about that.
Agnostic atheism = I'm not convinced by the claim there is a god, and I don't know if I'm right about that.
Gnostic atheism = I'm not convinced there is a god. And I know my (negative) conviction is correct.
Gnostic atheism is often also called positive, strong or hard atheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
I'm a strong atheist myself, following this reasoning:
The "no arguments argument" for atheism:
It follows from (1) and (2) that