So you’re saying that agnosticism is a spectrum of atheism? That belief must be active - if you don’t specifically believe in a god(s) then you’re atheist, and agnosticism describes the level to which you hold that conviction? Seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. What about those who explicitly believe we can’t know if there’s a god (s)?
I’m interested in the source of your latter assertion as well, I’m taking it to be anecdotal?
No. I’m saying it’s orthogonal, but that most self described agnostics are atheists. You can be agnostic and Christian, which, to a point, is even endorsed by the Catholic Church, but agnostic Christians usually just self label as Christian.
Of course, many people would admit they aren’t certain for yes/no, and so might qualify as an agnostic theist/atheist depending on how strict you are with confidence. Some agnostics will be more rigid and say the answer is inherently unknowable. Regardless, it still seems a lot simpler than having to explain a satirical religion you are pretending to believe in to someone.
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.
It’s more like active opposition to a theistic religions. For example many people think that “there’s no gods, and theistic religions are harmful to our society”
and they have just as much evidence as believers
This is very stupid way to put it. If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim. The claim is that there is a god or several, yet no proof to support that claim, which means that claim is plain made up shit and the logical conclusion “there’s no gods”
You could disprove specific religions making specific claims, sure. But to say there is no god anywhere in the universe of any sort? That is not a claim you can prove.
Now if you want to reframe antitheists as anti-specific theology on Earth, then what you say makes sense. But you can’t both propose a new definition mid-conversation, and then argue that my statement that was based on the first definition is stupid because you’re using the second.
The claim is that there is a god, or multiples of them
There’s no need to claim that there is no god? It doesn’t make any sense to try to prove something like that. A claim requires evidence, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.
If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim.
If your claim is that “there’s no gods,” then you’re making a claim. The assertion that there are affirmatively no gods at all is in fact just as empirically unfalsifiable as the assertion that there is definitely at least one god. In my opinion, the only reasonable position is to not make any claims about the presence or nonpresence of deities in the first place.
Russel’s Teapot is fun, but I prefer Starman’s copy of Treasure Planet on DVD. Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don’t have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim.
There are no proof of god, there’s nothing that suggests that there is a god or gods. There’s only claims from some people that they’ve spoken with one. It’s rather like sasquatch and loch Ness monster. It’s the only logical conclusion that there’s no gods
Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don’t have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim
This funny exercise makes the assumption that I’m too lazy to come visit your house to see if you have that DVD. As soon as I come grab a cup of coffee and a nice piece of sweet pastry with you and check your film collection, I’ll see if you were lying or not.
However, maybe this is the time you tell me that you borrowed the film to your cousin who lives abroad rather than admitting the lie. That’d be what Christians have been doing the past 2 millennias as we have made new scientific discoveries that contradicted priests talks about their DVD collections.
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.
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.
In my experience grown up Catholics usually internalize more abstract definitions of God. Something between Love, Wisdom, Conscience and Inner voice, Goodnes,…
From the catholics I have close enough relationships I figured they internalized this kind of definiton. And as a kid by often overhearing my parents “marriage group” I figured this is quite common.
There was also a research (not sure how valid) that asked christians to draw God. Kids drew Jesus or old man with a grey beard watching from the sky. However grownups drew something abstract, like symbols, hearts or colors…
But if you will ask christians for a definition of God they will probably give you a textbook definition while not really believing in it.
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.
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.
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.
"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. "
Yeah but you’d be surprised how people would hate you more for believing in nothing than believing in a bowl of pasta… even if it’s a fake believe in pasta that symbolizes nothing.
There is a shade of meaning between “I don’t believe” and “I don’t know how a person/I could determine that they/I affirmatively believe.”
I personally would interpret the former as non religious and the latter as agnostic, but it probably differs from person to person. Especially because non religious is often used to describe people who do not practice a religion, but may well still believe in it (though that would be non practicing for me).
Some religious people still have a problem with that, but this explanation seems to work for me.
Me: “Do you believe in Ra, the sun god?”
Them: “No”
Me: “Do you believe in Zeus?”
Them: “No”
Me: “What about Odin, or Quetzacotl, or Shiva?”
Them: “No, I only believe in the one true god who–”
Me: “So, you’re basically almost as much of an Athiest as me. Throughout history there have been many cultures who have believed in their gods. You don’t believe in any of those gods, and neither do I. The only difference is that there’s one god that you believe in that I don’t. You’re 99.9% towards being fully Athiest, you just have one remaining god that you still believe in.”
This also helps when they start giving reasons for why what they believe is real because it’s in their bible. You can ask if they’ve read all the holy books of the Aztecs or the Hindus. Why would their holy book be true and not those other holy books? If we’re going to say something is true because it’s in a holy book, then you also have to believe the books that talk about Thor and Odin. If they start saying that everything around was created by god, again, which god? The Hindus have a story for how their various gods created everything, so do the Egyptians. Basically every religion has that story. It’s also useful to ask them what they’d believe if they’d grown up in India, or in ancient Egypt or in Denmark 1000 years ago since almost everybody gets their religion from their upbringing.
Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It’s just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn’t incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one’s religious views can be brought into question, it doesn’t really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They’re saying “There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in”, despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn’t there, but that they’re perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it’s absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it’s perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don’t even believe that this “Lord Vishnu” exists. It’s not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it’s only their god that exists.
If there’s a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it’s a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that’s a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don’t have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn’t come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don’t exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don’t believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it’s different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn’t mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn’t been my experience with religious people at least :)
This was my reasoning for a while, I believed in all gods equally and that amount was zero. I still believe in them all equally, that amount just isn’t zero anymore.
It’s not at all difficult to explain. “I don’t believe in gods.” Simple as that.
That’s atheism?
You either believe in god(s) or you don’t. Orthogonally you might be sure of your beliefs or not.
Most self-described agnostics are agnostic atheists.
There’s also Ignosticism. They believe the question is underspecified because “God” isn’t well-defined.
Jesus thank god, only one accurate comment in this thread on the difference between atheists and agnostics.
They are the answers to two different questions
Exactly.
So you’re saying that agnosticism is a spectrum of atheism? That belief must be active - if you don’t specifically believe in a god(s) then you’re atheist, and agnosticism describes the level to which you hold that conviction? Seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. What about those who explicitly believe we can’t know if there’s a god (s)?
I’m interested in the source of your latter assertion as well, I’m taking it to be anecdotal?
That’s strong agnosticism.
No. I’m saying it’s orthogonal, but that most self described agnostics are atheists. You can be agnostic and Christian, which, to a point, is even endorsed by the Catholic Church, but agnostic Christians usually just self label as Christian.
Yeah, I think it boils down to this.
“Do you believe in a god or gods?”
“Yes” - Theist
“No” - Atheist
“I don’t know.” - Agnostic
Of course, many people would admit they aren’t certain for yes/no, and so might qualify as an agnostic theist/atheist depending on how strict you are with confidence. Some agnostics will be more rigid and say the answer is inherently unknowable. Regardless, it still seems a lot simpler than having to explain a satirical religion you are pretending to believe in to someone.
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.
It’s more like active opposition to a theistic religions. For example many people think that “there’s no gods, and theistic religions are harmful to our society”
This is very stupid way to put it. If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim. The claim is that there is a god or several, yet no proof to support that claim, which means that claim is plain made up shit and the logical conclusion “there’s no gods”
See also Russell’s teapot
You have no evidence of no god.
You could disprove specific religions making specific claims, sure. But to say there is no god anywhere in the universe of any sort? That is not a claim you can prove.
Now if you want to reframe antitheists as anti-specific theology on Earth, then what you say makes sense. But you can’t both propose a new definition mid-conversation, and then argue that my statement that was based on the first definition is stupid because you’re using the second.
The claim is not “there is no god”.
The claim is that there is a god, or multiples of them
There’s no need to claim that there is no god? It doesn’t make any sense to try to prove something like that. A claim requires evidence, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.
I don’t know that to tell you. This seems internally inconsistent.
Yes, “there’s no god” is not a claim, it’s just the logical conclusion from all of this.
It’s like concluding that daddy long legs didn’t evolve from a Chinese dragon
If your claim is that “there’s no gods,” then you’re making a claim. The assertion that there are affirmatively no gods at all is in fact just as empirically unfalsifiable as the assertion that there is definitely at least one god. In my opinion, the only reasonable position is to not make any claims about the presence or nonpresence of deities in the first place.
Russel’s Teapot is fun, but I prefer Starman’s copy of Treasure Planet on DVD. Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don’t have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim.
There are no proof of god, there’s nothing that suggests that there is a god or gods. There’s only claims from some people that they’ve spoken with one. It’s rather like sasquatch and loch Ness monster. It’s the only logical conclusion that there’s no gods
This funny exercise makes the assumption that I’m too lazy to come visit your house to see if you have that DVD. As soon as I come grab a cup of coffee and a nice piece of sweet pastry with you and check your film collection, I’ll see if you were lying or not.
However, maybe this is the time you tell me that you borrowed the film to your cousin who lives abroad rather than admitting the lie. That’d be what Christians have been doing the past 2 millennias as we have made new scientific discoveries that contradicted priests talks about their DVD collections.
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.
I’d like to hear this definition of god
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/25143640
What is the definition for God most Christians use?
In my experience grown up Catholics usually internalize more abstract definitions of God. Something between Love, Wisdom, Conscience and Inner voice, Goodnes,…
From the catholics I have close enough relationships I figured they internalized this kind of definiton. And as a kid by often overhearing my parents “marriage group” I figured this is quite common.
There was also a research (not sure how valid) that asked christians to draw God. Kids drew Jesus or old man with a grey beard watching from the sky. However grownups drew something abstract, like symbols, hearts or colors…
But if you will ask christians for a definition of God they will probably give you a textbook definition while not really believing in it.
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 just 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
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Even easier to explain than Pastafarianism though.
Yeah but you’d be surprised how people would hate you more for believing in nothing than believing in a bowl of pasta… even if it’s a fake believe in pasta that symbolizes nothing.
Hate is hater’s problem, not mine
They have a way of making it your problem.
Or simply assume you didn’t suffer enough yet. Because everyone who strongly suffers will start praying, right?
Just because i don’t believe in gods, doesn’t mean i believe in nothing. That’s a common misconception that the religious like to promote.
There is a shade of meaning between “I don’t believe” and “I don’t know how a person/I could determine that they/I affirmatively believe.”
I personally would interpret the former as non religious and the latter as agnostic, but it probably differs from person to person. Especially because non religious is often used to describe people who do not practice a religion, but may well still believe in it (though that would be non practicing for me).
Some religious people still have a problem with that, but this explanation seems to work for me.
Me: “Do you believe in Ra, the sun god?”
Them: “No”
Me: “Do you believe in Zeus?”
Them: “No”
Me: “What about Odin, or Quetzacotl, or Shiva?”
Them: “No, I only believe in the one true god who–”
Me: “So, you’re basically almost as much of an Athiest as me. Throughout history there have been many cultures who have believed in their gods. You don’t believe in any of those gods, and neither do I. The only difference is that there’s one god that you believe in that I don’t. You’re 99.9% towards being fully Athiest, you just have one remaining god that you still believe in.”
This also helps when they start giving reasons for why what they believe is real because it’s in their bible. You can ask if they’ve read all the holy books of the Aztecs or the Hindus. Why would their holy book be true and not those other holy books? If we’re going to say something is true because it’s in a holy book, then you also have to believe the books that talk about Thor and Odin. If they start saying that everything around was created by god, again, which god? The Hindus have a story for how their various gods created everything, so do the Egyptians. Basically every religion has that story. It’s also useful to ask them what they’d believe if they’d grown up in India, or in ancient Egypt or in Denmark 1000 years ago since almost everybody gets their religion from their upbringing.
I think that’s completely missing the point of people’s faith lmao.
What point is that, laughing your ass off?
Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It’s just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn’t incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one’s religious views can be brought into question, it doesn’t really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They’re saying “There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in”, despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn’t there, but that they’re perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it’s absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it’s perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don’t even believe that this “Lord Vishnu” exists. It’s not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it’s only their god that exists.
If there’s a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it’s a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that’s a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don’t have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn’t come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don’t exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don’t believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it’s different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn’t mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn’t been my experience with religious people at least :)
This was my reasoning for a while, I believed in all gods equally and that amount was zero. I still believe in them all equally, that amount just isn’t zero anymore.
That’s the common Ricky Gervais answer. I find it easier to just say “No.” If they want to take it further, I walk away.
But if we acknowledge that, how is OP gonna get away with posting this 2009-ass r/atheism meme?