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I prefer to think of my brand of agnosticism as something more akin to having this attitude towards the vocal religous groups and atheists:



It's not that I don't believe in a god or some sort of higher power, I just don't think anyone has gotten it right yet, and I really just want everyone to quit trying to shove their beliefs/politics/morales down my throat.

Maelstrom808 wrote:It's not that I don't believe in a god or some sort of higher power, I just don't think anyone has gotten it right yet, and I really just want everyone to quit trying to shove their beliefs/politics/morales down my throat.

If you believe in a "higher power," you're not agnostic.

Agnosticism is not the same thing as being grumpy.

Scrabb wrote:I believe Sebster meant "athiest girl" as "girl who goes to athiest rallies with a loadspeaker."

A load speaker just sounds insanely suggestive

I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.

I'd say a theist is a person for whom faith overcomes uncertainty. I am a theist and I am completely uncertain about God's existence at some level.

Maelstrom808 wrote:I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.

Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are at best an agnostic atheist - one of the many strands of so-called "weak" atheism.

Some atheists are certain that there is no higher power. "Strong" atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. "Weak" atheism includes all other forms of non-theism, including simply saying, "I don't know what I believe."

Seaward wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.

Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are at best an agnostic atheist - one of the many strands of so-called "weak" atheism.

Some atheists are certain that there is no higher power. "Strong" atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. "Weak" atheism includes all other forms of non-theism, including simply saying, "I don't know what I believe."

...and I disagree.

Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.

Maelstrom808 wrote:...and I disagree.

Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.

You can, actually. It's truly very simple: either you believe in supernatural deities or you do not. If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Unfortunately some people seem to think freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to say whatever the hell they like without any repercussions.

The absence-of-God bless America.

And agnostics are just the bi people of the religious spectrum.

Seaward wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:...and I disagree.

Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.

If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.

Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Unfortunately some people seem to think freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to say whatever the hell they like without any repercussions.

The absence-of-God bless America.

And agnostics are just the bi people of the religious spectrum.

I admit it...I lol'd.

Maelstrom808 wrote:
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.

So you do believe in supernatural deities? Either you do or your do not.

Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.

Manchu wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.

You're somewhat on the right track, except that's not "new atheism's" position. That's I guess what we could call "old atheism's." "New atheism" is rather more specifically anti-theist or, more correctly, anti-religious.

The friendship example is the baseline for many arguments against atheism's insistence on empirical evidence. I most often hear it in the form of, "Well, you can't prove love exists, either!" You can in fact prove that love, trust, friendship, and numerous other such concepts exist, empirically.

What's the reason for the rally?

Even if it is possible to empirically prove the existence of love, trust, and friendship as an empirical fact, which I find dubious, that is beside the point. The point is not proving that someone else's is really my friend. The point is that I consider someone else to be my friend. But this who friendship thing is just an analogy anyway, something that I think is much closer to the theist experience of faith in God than the acknowledgement of the material existence of a refrigerator.


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Relapse wrote:What's the reason for the rally?

To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.

Manchu wrote:Even if it is possible to empirically prove the existence of love, trust, and friendship as an empirical fact, which I find dubious, that is beside the point. The point is not proving that someone else's is really my friend. The point is that I consider someone else to be my friend. But this who friendship thing is just an analogy anyway, something that I think is much closer to the theist experience of faith in God than the acknowledgement of the material existence of a refrigerator.

What do you find dubious about it? We can prove that emotional bonds do form. We can prove that selfless acts of altruism occur. We can prove that individuals make sacrifices for the betterment of others. None of this is particularly hard to do. We can label the motivation for such with whatever we want - if we called love "gruflab" instead, it wouldn't change the underlying psychological and biological mechanics behind it, all of which are observable.

How can you prove something is truly selfless? Last I checked that was impossible.

Manchu wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:What's the reason for the rally?

To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.

I think it is just being tired of government officials disparaging atheists, either for political points or out of genuine dislike of them. The most common example is this exchange:

George H.W. Bush, 1987 Chicago wrote:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

I am suspicious that any definition of love could capture the way we experience it. But this suspicion is not relevant to the subject at hand because even if such a definition was satisfactory it still would not objectively prove the existence of God. My love of God does not "force" Him into existence.

@Ahtman: Better late than never, I suppose. Or does that not apply in this case?

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:How can you prove something is truly selfless? Last I checked that was impossible.

Well, I would posit that sacrificing oneself for the protection of another would meet the definition, but regardless, it's irrelevant. Whether or not something can ever truly be selfless has no bearing on the point I was making, namely, that we can scientifically observe and prove the existence of emotional attachment, trust, etc.


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Manchu wrote:To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.

I believe there are still seven states that specify a religious test for officeholders.

There have been polls as recent as 2006 showing that 50% of the country would not vote for a qualified atheist for any level of office; that around the same level would not want their child to marry an atheist; that 40% of the country believes atheists to be un-American. Some folks in North Carolina tried to prevent a democratically-elected councilman from taking his seat in 2009 because he admitted to being an atheist. Etc.

The issues are rarely visible at the national level. On the local level, they crop up a fair amount.

Manchu wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.

To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.

Which is kind of exactly what I'm saying. Agnosticism is not about what you believe or don't believe. It's about what you know or more what you feel you can know. If someone really wants to try and simplify it down into camps:

- Pure atheists or strong atheism: Those who do not believe in a higher power and claim to know that there cannot be a higher power, or that knowledge of one is inconsequential.

- Agnostic atheists or weak atheism: Those who do not believe in a higher power, but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is impossible to know.

- Pure theists: Those who do believe in a higher power and claim to know that there is one, or claim that knowledge of one is inconsequntial.

- Agnostic theists: Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know.

It really is a gross oversimplification, but for our purposes here, it'll do. Even agnosticism can be broken down into classifiable variations.

Seaward wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.

So you do believe in supernatural deities? Either you do or your do not.

Part of my belief is it's nobody's business what I believe, but I will say it falls closer to Ietsism than anything else. We exist in a world of greys, quit trying to put everything into your two boxes. It doesn't work.

I guess I don't find any value in the term "pure theism" as you define it. There is simply no room for faith given certainty and, as I mentioned, certainty does not precede or proceed from faith. So having certainty regarding God is reductive of Him, making him out to be a thing among things, which is in turn contrary to what we believe about Him (at least in Christianity).

Yet there are those that fall into that description, so it is there. An important side note that you touched a little with a clarification you made. We must think outside the terms of Christianty or really any of the major accepted religions for that matter.

Also, I would not be an "agnostic theist" by your definition. My main point was that the way that atheists claim we should be able to know that God exists if He does exist is not how theists, or a least Christians, know God. The distinction is "know that God exists" on the one hand and "knowing God" on the other. Knowing God presumes His existence in the same way that being friends with someone presumes their existence. If I want to talk about friendship, I have no reason to talk about whether persons exist. New atheists point out that it's all well and good to assume the existence of persons because we can prove their existence but that the same cannot be said of God. For the Christian, the existence of God as we believe Him to be, necessitates that He is not the sort of thing among things that can be materially proven to exist. The new atheist then usually says something like "that's awfully convenient."


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Maelstrom808 wrote:We must think outside the terms of Christianty or really any of the major accepted religions for that matter.

No, that's not helpful. That results in theists defining atheism and athiests defining theism -- i.e., each group is actually only talking about what they think the other believes rather than what they really believe and why.


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Maelstrom808 wrote:Yet there are those that fall into that description, so it is there.

That a person can fit in a category does not render the category meaningful.

Manchu wrote:For the Christian, the existence of God as we believe Him to be, necessitates that He is not the sort of thing among things that can be materially proven to exist.

Which is kind of the very definition of agnostic theist

No. According to you, the definition of an agnostic theist is "Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know." I am not saying that I feel the existence of God is unknown or impossible to know. I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.

Relapse wrote:What's the reason for the rally?

There is a free bar, so if any limeys are going I can answer for them and say "to get fething smashed"

Manchu wrote:No, that's not helpful. That results in theists defining atheism and athiests defining theists -- i.e., each group is actually only talking about what they think the other believes rather than what they really believe and why.

But to not do so results in "you are an atheist because you don't believe in either my god, or my list of marginally acceptable gods".

That a person can fit in a category does not render the category meaningful.

It might not be meaningful to you, but it could be very meaningful to that person.

Basically, gnostic and agnostic.

Gnostic means you know, agnostic means you don't.

An agnostic atheist would not believe in any deities, but would also say that there is a possibility of God's existence, even if it is extremely farfetched and unlikely. You'll find that most atheists fall under this category.

A gnostic atheist would "know" there is no God.

Similarly, the principles also apply to theists.