Agreed. Many others have said that I am not an atheist if I am agnostic. They treat these as mutually exclusive categories, which is strange given how many people claim to be without a god belief or an opinion about whether gods exist. These are the definition of atheist and agnostic that most atheists use these days, and most would call themselves agnostic atheists by this reckoning.
Its not incorrect either as I see it, as I wrote to someone else, all atheists are agnostics, but for different reasons, will explain later. Strong atheists might not admit it, don't know, but in that case that would be incorrect in my opinion.
The reason is to put it very simple.
I don't believe God(s) exist, and if that is the case, it should also be impossible for me to believe that any knowledge about them could be obtained. So im an agnostic atheist by default. But to me, the agnostic doesn't add anything except confusion.
Agnostic seem to simply replace the words "I don't know" for a lot of people with something more fancy. But again as I understand how agnostic is defined, it means to be unable to obtain knowledge about God.
If one isn't certain about whether God exist then I would call them an atheist. If one think that God is beyond our understanding, they are theists. And you can have people that doubt in both camps as I see it. One might just as well believe that God(s) or some supernatural being exist, but might not be a 100% sure and its also fine.
Again people define agnostic differently, but I would say that those people are mistaken and you are per default agnostic as an atheist, it just doesn't add anything in my opinion. Also just to avoid confusion, being an agnostic atheist doesn't mean that you can't be wrong. meaning that even if you believe that no knowledge can be obtained doesn't mean that it can't.
I don't think agnosticism is admitting that gods exist. I'm agnostic about everything that is possible, but not yet demonstrated to be the case or not, usually because these things don't exist, but it cannot be proved to be nonexistent.
I think its more about default position more than anything else, to be honest.
I don't think what you write here makes sense, if something have been demonstrated to be possible or not, then you ought not to be agnostic about it. So you can't be agnostic about what you know is possible, if that makes sense. Because if it hasn't been demonstrated, then you don't know if its possible. Unless im misunderstanding you? But I understand it as you saying that you are agnostic about time travel or travelling faster than the speed of light for instance? But I don't think we are agnostic about that, because at least, with our current knowledge this is not possible, doesn't mean that it couldn't change in the future, but in that case we can surely obtain more knowledge about it than we currently have, so it would sort of be a contradictory statement.
But you should never prove a negative, no one goes out and say
"I want to prove that camels doesn't exist on Jupiter, just in case they are planning something bad up there.", you do something, if you have or believe there is a reason for it. But as long as we have no reason to believe that camels live on Jupiter, our default position is that they don't, until we have a reason to believe otherwise.
Anyway, since it is neither helpful nor logically sound to just say that things that can't be ruled out don't exist when one can say that there is no reason to believe that they exist. That's how I view vampires and leprechauns. I have no psychological doubt about whether they exist, but because I understand that I have no experiment, argument, observation, or algorithm that can soundly arrive at the conclusion that such things don't exist, I don't say that. I say that I am agnostic, but also don't believe. I am also an avampirist and an aleprechaunist, but the agnostic version of each for reasons given. And that doesn't mean that I believe that they exist or even lean that way a little.
I see what you mean, but again its the confusion, because you know where vampires and leprechauns came from and that we made them up. So you are not agnostic about that. You are obviously as you say an Avampirist etc. for the very reason that you know we made them up.
I don't know, I think the word agnostic is just broken or simply apply to the question about God and even here it makes little sense. I think, I will try to look into what exactly the person that came up with it meant by it or what philosophy people think about it.
I hope my words explain to you that using the definitions for atheism and agnosticism that I use, that I am both. What makes you think that somebody like me has anything to do with theism? Do you also think I lean toward vampirism and leprechaunism? I'm also agnostic there for the same reasons.
Following on from above. You have knowledge about vampires etc. and I don't think anyone are serious about claiming that they are real, as those we see in movies or read about in comics or whatever.
Hopefully I explained it above, but just to repeat to why agnosticism in my opinion leans towards theism, is because atheism is negative position. Its not a claim whether something is possible or not. So when you attach agnosticism as you do, like we can't obtain knowledge about God(s), that to me is not the same as to refuse the claim that God(s) even exist to begin with. So to me, its sort of like this:
Atheist:
I don't think knowledge about God(s) can be obtained, because I don't believe they exist.
Agnostic
God(s) might exist, but I don't think we can obtain any knowledge about them if they do.
Difference being, that as an agnostic it only makes sense to assume that no knowledge can be obtained, if God(s) is equally as possible as not, otherwise the logic seems to fail in my opinion, because you draw the conclusion that God(s) don't exist, while admitting that no such knowledge for reaching set conclusion is available, and that to me doesn't work.
Where the atheists position is the other way round, the reason we are agnostic about God(s) is because we have no good reason to believe they exist, and if they don't, obviously there will be no knowledge to be obtained.
Does that make sense?