Agnosticism, Atheism, and Theism!

I made this video to talk about the interaction, misunderstandings, and clarifications about what we term ourselves.

The Traditional Labels:
Atheist
Theist
Agnostic

The Accurate Labels:
Gnostic Atheist
Agnostic Atheist
Gnostic Theist
Agnostic Theist

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Solthiel
• Agnostic
• Atheist
• Theist
• Debate
• creationism

[JEL625]

I agree with you on the 4 terms. I think of them as different qualities to measure similar to a mathematics graph

x= Gnostic-agnostic

y=theist-atheist

they measure different things, one is knowledge the other belief

[Solthiel]

@JEL625 Agreed. I think it's a more reasonable way of quantifying these philosophical perspectives. It might be interesting to construct a test which actually plots you on a graph with those factors.

[DeaconVerter]

Don't overthink it. Atheists don't believe in gods or do believe that there are no gods. You seem to think that the latter group claim "absolute knowledge that there is no god." But the belief that there are no gods (strong atheism) needn't rest on absolute certainty of any kind. Just reason. Some ppl don't believe in Bigfoot. Some ppl deny Bigfoot. You say the denyers must prove a negative. But they only need to give a good reason like "nobody's ever seen one." Negative proved.

[Solthiel]

@DeaconVerter

Atheists "don't believe in gods" or "do believe there are no gods." That's a pretty significant difference. One is the lack of belief, the other is a statement about a distinct belief. This may seem inconsequential when you don't really think that out, but isn't when you're evaluating something on epistemological terms. The attempt to find a better set of descriptors by the community is an attempt to achieve philosophical consistency.

[L00NGB00W]

@JEL625 On the knowledge scale, zero would be the utter ignorance of a babe.



On the belief scale, Zero would be undefined. One cannot believe and disbelieve simultaneously.

[JEL625]

@Solthiel the only difficulty i see with that is what to set as 0 for the grid. sounds like a fun project tho

[owheydusoapsk]

@DeaconVerter

Yeah, I don't get the "absolute certainty" atheists claim to be charged with. I don't believe big foot exists and I'm not agnostic about it.

[Solthiel]

@owheydusoapsk

I live in the Bible belt and I've observed that to be the dominant usage of the term by agnostics and theists alike. I'm sure it differs, but people I speak to on the internet typically use it to this effect as well. I think YOU are making up your own perception of its popular usage like anyone else. I suppose this is just another flaw in using terminology just because it's popular.

[owheydusoapsk]

@Solthiel

Oh, I'm amenable to using your nomenclature if it ever becomes daily coinage and not "church-talk" only heard amongst atheists on U-Tube or the monthly meeting of Atheists of America.

"one who claims they know there is no god,". Well there's your problem. I don't know anyone (w/the exception of dicks like Lane Craig raising a straw-man in debate) who define atheists like that.

[Solthiel]

@owheydusoapsk We appear to disagree on the colloquial definition of atheist. As I understand it, most people seem to think it is "one who claims they know there is no god," which basically describes no one I have ever met. But yes, I suspect we will disagree. You seem very dug in to your usage of these terms and seem to define yourself by them much more rigidly than myself. I am transient to the terminology which best describes the variety of people I meet, not popular usage really.