Fundamental logic skills also imply that atheism is a belief “God doesn’t exist!”
As an upgrade, try agnosticism: “Do we have good evidence that God exists?” So far, the only argument in favor of atheism I know of is the Occam’s Razor (those manifestations of God could also be explained in other, possibly simpler ways).
Evidence based existence is what I believe in personally. Speculation and fantasy can be useful in some parts of life, but for me, imaginary friends are a mental health disorder in anyone claiming they are real.
In general, I support your stance. The devil is in the details, though, so to speak. You can only get so much evidece first-hand, and need to believe others about the rest. How do you distinguish fraudsters from honest bet mistaken people from people knowing the truth?
Right? Imagine telling someone claiming to be a Christian that “actually, Christian implies you believe (specific idea about Jesus my church goes for and yours doesn’t).”
That’d be a good way to get bloodied in a lot of places
Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist
Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist
I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.
Not really dumb and not really so different from how you describe yourself.
I identify as an agnostic atheist. I don’t think it is possible to prove a deity exists, but I’m fully open to the prospect of being wrong and as with anything else in science, should new evidence/data somehow come along and prove that there is some kind of deity/creator/what have you, I would look at it and potentially change my mind.
If there is a range of theories about the world say 1 billion different statements and 10 had a very good chance of being true, 100 a reasonable chance and 999,999,890 had a mathematically insignificant of being true say the same probability as my butt-hole being the living embodiment of the universe’s creator, Santa being real, or the Easter bunny being the representative of Satan on earth it would be awfully silly if we talked about a tiny segment of those 999,999,890 as if they might be real only because they are particularly popular.
I don’t describe myself as agnostic towards divine buttholism or Santa I say reasonably that they aren’t true because that is how we describe things without meaningful probability of being true. Similarly there is no reasonable probability in my understanding of the universe having a creator so I confidently describe myself as an atheist.
Gnostic atheism is only unsound if you insist we make absolute statements like 2 != 1 instead of speaking in absolutes as shorthand for probabilities that tend towards insignificance which is literally how people think and communicate outside of math. Attempts to approach philosophy like math are generally nonsense because our understand is far too underdeveloped for that to be anything but cargo cult antics.
I disagree with the person you are replying to using the word “upgrade”, but also with your characterization of agnosticism as “just sitting on the fence”. It’s a coherent belief in its own right, not simply a refusal to choose between other options.
Now that you mention it, I’m not entirely convinced it is a fully coherent belief in its own right, more of a lack of wanting to enter the debate or a subcategory of atheism.
Shall we try it with unicorns? Unicorn believer says they saw a unicorn.
Atheist viewpoint would say something along the lines of “To persuade me they exist I’d need to see one in the flesh or at the very least a full anatomical breakdown of how their magical properties work with corroboration from other unicorn enthusiasts.”
The agnostic standpoint is what exactly? “We can’t know whether unicorns exist or not so there’s no point discussing it.”?
I would say “there’s no point in arguing about it if neither of you can prove your position. If it is unprovable then I don’t care if unicorns exist or not. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t affect me. I won’t waste mental bandwidth thinking about it or discussing it further.”
Here’s another way to look at it, then. By popular definition, an agnostic person believes that there is no ontological proof for the existence or non-existence of God, or the divine. The agnostic person is thereby operating within the conceptual framework of religion. (A lot of agnostics in the Western world are agnostic specifically about the existence of the particular God of Abrahamic religions.)
On the other hand, atheists are simply not concerned with or do not recognize divinity, as a concept. In a way, it’s like how nobody holds an affirmative belief that Spiderman does not exist as a real human, because superheroes are categorically fictional, and it’s not even ontologically possible.
The statement that god doesn’t exist can be best described as dismissal of a class of theories asserted without evidence and thus dismissed without any. People don’t exhaustively examine the universe they examine enough of it to make theories and draw increasingly strong conclusions. Pretending there is no difference between asserting for no reason something is true AGAINST mountains of actual evidence like asserting your particular religions deity is real and drawing strong theories based on reasonable analysis is disingenuous. You didn’t examine every chimney to conclude santa isn’t real and I didn’t examine every iota of the natural world to conclude it doesn’t have a creator. .
Fundamental logic skills also imply that atheism is a belief “God doesn’t exist!”
As an upgrade, try agnosticism: “Do we have good evidence that God exists?” So far, the only argument in favor of atheism I know of is the Occam’s Razor (those manifestations of God could also be explained in other, possibly simpler ways).
“Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby”
I like “in the same way bald is a hair color”
Evidence based existence is what I believe in personally. Speculation and fantasy can be useful in some parts of life, but for me, imaginary friends are a mental health disorder in anyone claiming they are real.
In general, I support your stance. The devil is in the details, though, so to speak. You can only get so much evidece first-hand, and need to believe others about the rest. How do you distinguish fraudsters from honest bet mistaken people from people knowing the truth?
Logic and reasoning preferably with scientific evidence.
Sort of like how you can only get so much evidence for aliens or Bigfoot and you just have to trust the conspiracy theorists about the rest
How about you define your own belief system and let others choose their own words?
Right? Imagine telling someone claiming to be a Christian that “actually, Christian implies you believe (specific idea about Jesus my church goes for and yours doesn’t).”
That’d be a good way to get bloodied in a lot of places
Atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in a lack
What would you call a belief in a lack?
Gnostic atheism, as opposed to agnostic atheism. Atheism as a label doesn’t imply one or the other, it’s simply a lack of belief in a god.
No they don’t and agnosticism isn’t an upgrade, it’s just sitting on the fence.
Most athiests are agnostic to some degree and vice versa.
The burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim.
Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist
Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist
I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.
As an atheist who would fully accept the existence of a deity if any form of rigorous proof was provided, these boxes are dumb.
Not really dumb and not really so different from how you describe yourself.
I identify as an agnostic atheist. I don’t think it is possible to prove a deity exists, but I’m fully open to the prospect of being wrong and as with anything else in science, should new evidence/data somehow come along and prove that there is some kind of deity/creator/what have you, I would look at it and potentially change my mind.
Sounds like straight up atheism to me…
It’s agnostic atheism. I don’t believe one exists, but I also admit I don’t know for sure.
If there is a range of theories about the world say 1 billion different statements and 10 had a very good chance of being true, 100 a reasonable chance and 999,999,890 had a mathematically insignificant of being true say the same probability as my butt-hole being the living embodiment of the universe’s creator, Santa being real, or the Easter bunny being the representative of Satan on earth it would be awfully silly if we talked about a tiny segment of those 999,999,890 as if they might be real only because they are particularly popular.
I don’t describe myself as agnostic towards divine buttholism or Santa I say reasonably that they aren’t true because that is how we describe things without meaningful probability of being true. Similarly there is no reasonable probability in my understanding of the universe having a creator so I confidently describe myself as an atheist.
It’s just a bit of a pointless distinction. No atheist could claim they know for sure.
Eh disagree but whatevs.
Gnostic atheism is only unsound if you insist we make absolute statements like 2 != 1 instead of speaking in absolutes as shorthand for probabilities that tend towards insignificance which is literally how people think and communicate outside of math. Attempts to approach philosophy like math are generally nonsense because our understand is far too underdeveloped for that to be anything but cargo cult antics.
I disagree with the person you are replying to using the word “upgrade”, but also with your characterization of agnosticism as “just sitting on the fence”. It’s a coherent belief in its own right, not simply a refusal to choose between other options.
Now that you mention it, I’m not entirely convinced it is a fully coherent belief in its own right, more of a lack of wanting to enter the debate or a subcategory of atheism.
Shall we try it with unicorns? Unicorn believer says they saw a unicorn.
Atheist viewpoint would say something along the lines of “To persuade me they exist I’d need to see one in the flesh or at the very least a full anatomical breakdown of how their magical properties work with corroboration from other unicorn enthusiasts.”
The agnostic standpoint is what exactly? “We can’t know whether unicorns exist or not so there’s no point discussing it.”?
As someone who leans agnostic, I would say this is a strawman argument. Unicorns and religions/gods are not related.
How does one “lean” agnostic?
It’s not a strawman argument, I’ll let you pick any imaginary creature you please.
I would say “there’s no point in arguing about it if neither of you can prove your position. If it is unprovable then I don’t care if unicorns exist or not. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t affect me. I won’t waste mental bandwidth thinking about it or discussing it further.”
Mind if I take some of your income to fund my unicorn sanctuary instead of improving tangible public services?
The only people who think this are theists. Gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists are both atheists.
Here’s another way to look at it, then. By popular definition, an agnostic person believes that there is no ontological proof for the existence or non-existence of God, or the divine. The agnostic person is thereby operating within the conceptual framework of religion. (A lot of agnostics in the Western world are agnostic specifically about the existence of the particular God of Abrahamic religions.)
On the other hand, atheists are simply not concerned with or do not recognize divinity, as a concept. In a way, it’s like how nobody holds an affirmative belief that Spiderman does not exist as a real human, because superheroes are categorically fictional, and it’s not even ontologically possible.
Umm, I’m Spider-Man agnostic, actually. There’s still time for 2099 to prove canonical.
The statement that god doesn’t exist can be best described as dismissal of a class of theories asserted without evidence and thus dismissed without any. People don’t exhaustively examine the universe they examine enough of it to make theories and draw increasingly strong conclusions. Pretending there is no difference between asserting for no reason something is true AGAINST mountains of actual evidence like asserting your particular religions deity is real and drawing strong theories based on reasonable analysis is disingenuous. You didn’t examine every chimney to conclude santa isn’t real and I didn’t examine every iota of the natural world to conclude it doesn’t have a creator. .