Atheists and Agnostics

[Sand Dancer]

can an atheist be both atheist and agnostic?

especially if a theist can be both theist and gnostic?

Yes. Agnosticism just says that no one knows for sure if there are deities. You can go with your hunch, theism or atheism, but know that no one can know beyond a doubt.

 

[Tiberius]

can an atheist be both atheist and agnostic?

especially if a theist can be both theist and gnostic?

They are two different things.

The scale goes from Atheist to Theist, where atheist is having no belief in God and theist is having a belief in God.

The other scale goes from Agnostic where the person does not claim to know for certain to Gnostic where the person does claim to know for certain.

I am an agnostic atheist, though I lean towards the gnostic side. I don't have a belief in God, and while I can't claim that I know for certain that there is no God, I suspect very much that there is no God.

On the other hand, a Christian who says, "I know for a fact that God exists," is a gnostic theist. They have a belief in God, and they are certain that their belief is correct.

 

[Clara Tea]

No. An agnostic is a fence sitter entertaining theism and atheism.

There was a political party called Mugwump. They had their mug (face) on one side of the fence, and their rump on the other.

Governor Arnold Schwarzegger (Republican, California) was a fence straddler. He said that we should spend less money fixing highways. He said that we should spend more money fixing highways. Since he takes both sides (and a few other sides) of every debate, he is always right (partially). Whenever anyone asks why he was against something, he points out that he's for it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

can an atheist be both atheist and agnostic?
especially if a theist can be both theist and gnostic?

Yes. I'm an agnostic atheist.
I am aware of a few gnostic atheists online.
Every atheist I personally know is an agnostic atheist.

I don't know if gods exist and by the very nature of supernatural claims I currently deem it unknowable.
I also don't believe the claim that god(s) or the things that are referred to as being "supernatural" exist.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Proving that a thing DOES NOT EXIST is usually very tricky. So this seems like a hair-splitting exercise.

I would say that I'm 99.99999% sure that the following things do NOT exist:

- Any of the gods defined by any of the 10,000 religions we know of.
- living, breathing, roller skating, pink unicorns
- a perfectly formed teapot orbiting the earth geosynchronously

I guess that if for some reason one wanted to be pedantic about it, one could say that I'm agnostic about those things, but again, it seems like needless hair-splitting, no?

Yup, I agree. But hair-splitting or not, it technically is what it is.

Also, I'ld add that since the "main" gods (I mean of the most common mainstream religions, abrahamic in particular) are pretty much defined in unfalsifiable ways.... I'ld say that knowledge of those gods is by definition not possible. The "unfalsifiable" part makes sure of that.

So really, imo, when it comes to such gods, EVERYONE is an agnostic by necessity.

When a thing is defined in such a way that it literally is unknowable, you could never have a valid gnostic position on them.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Exactly.

The real probability of the Easter bunny hopping around somewhere hiding colored eggs or Santa on a sleigh somewhere going down chimneys delivering presents for good little boys and girls and coal for bad ones?

I'd leave it up to the discerning poster to decide weither that is even remotely probable or not..


Suffice to say, the same goes for a god or deity.

How could you ever even begin to calculate that probability?
Yes, we all agree it is ridiculously unlikely. So unlikely that we might as well call it a fact that they don't exist.

But unlikely and "proven false" are 2 different things.
And technically, gnosticism requires the latter.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Make up whatever you like and thunk others
are stupid for not going along, to your hearts' content.

Absolutist proclamations on your part
put your thinking squarely in the camp
with creationists and their running- dogs.
They are also big on making things up.

Im of the percent / probability / no absolutes
school, myself.

And I dont go for making simple things
complex. Atheist= dont believe in god.
Simple.

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

 

[Audie]

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

I think you are simply out to be tendentious
and ridiculous.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I think you are simply out to be tendentious
and ridiculous.

Now you know the difference between atheist and agnostic.

 

[icehorse]

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

I think there is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny chance that they could exist. The universe is a very, very, very, very, very big and old place.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I think there is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny chance that they could exist. The universe is a very, very, very, very, very big and old place.

It's an interesting philosophical question.

Some think with the multiverse theory physics and the laws of nature may change.

I personally don't see how, but imagine a place where dragons fly shooting out flames as merlin the magician casts a water spell like some old school rpg!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, absolutely. All four combinations are possible:

Agnostic atheist: someone who does not believe in any deities, but doesn't think that knowledge is possible or that they are not certain.

Gnostic atheist: someone who does not believe in deities, and thinks it is possible to have knowledge on the matter.

Agnostic theist: someone who believes in a deity but does not think it is possible to have knowledge about such.

Gnostic theist: Someone who believes in a deity and believe knowledge is possible about such.

Yo.

View attachment 62837

They are two different things.

The scale goes from Atheist to Theist, where atheist is having no belief in God and theist is having a belief in God.

The other scale goes from Agnostic where the person does not claim to know for certain to Gnostic where the person does claim to know for certain.

I am an agnostic atheist, though I lean towards the gnostic side. I don't have a belief in God, and while I can't claim that I know for certain that there is no God, I suspect very much that there is no God.

On the other hand, a Christian who says, "I know for a fact that God exists," is a gnostic theist. They have a belief in God, and they are certain that their belief is correct.

View attachment 62848

I try not to be a prescriptivist when it comes to language, but the more times I see this awful attempt to retconn a new, shoehorned definition for "gnostic," the more I despise it.

 

[Tiberius]

I try not to be a prescriptivist when it comes to language, but the more times I see this awful attempt to retconn a new, shoehorned definition for "gnostic," the more I despise it.

How is it a shoehorn? It seems to be fairly well accepted. Definition of gnostic | Dictionary.com

 

[Heyo]

I try not to be a prescriptivist when it comes to language, but the more times I see this awful attempt to retconn a new, shoehorned definition for "gnostic," the more I despise it.

Are you perhaps mistaking "gnostic" for the "Gnostics"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

No, I don't think that
But the point is that you can't show that that is definitely the case.
Or that there is a plausible way, even only in principle, that you could show such being definitely the case.

Which would technically be required for a valid gnostic position.

The best we can honestly say is that it is ridiculously, hilariously unlikely. To such an extent that we might as well call someone who believes it "crazy".

But as I said previously: "unlikely" (regardless to which degree) and "proven false" are two different things.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

Well, in one sense, it depends how you respond to this principle:
The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.

As a strong skeptic my personal answer is that I don't know and as I understand knowledge I can't know, because there is currently no way of testing the cosmological principle.

 

[Heyo]

So you think the Easter bunny and Santa actually 'could' exist somewhere out in the universe?

That has never been stated or questioned. The thing about Santa and the Easter bunny is that they are said to exist on earth and that they bring presents to every child.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Are you perhaps mistaking "gnostic" for the "Gnostics"?

No mistake. That's the implication.

"Agnostic" is fairly unique among words in common use: not only was it coined by one specific person fairly recently (T.H. Huxley), he went to the trouble of writing out a detailed explanation of what he meant by the word and how he arrived at it.

Huxley explained that "agnostic" was inspired by a rejection of the attitude of the Gnostics... i.e. that they held certain knowledge of sacred beliefs.

As a negation of "agnostic," your use of "gnostic" still relates back to that original sense of "gnostic" built into the term "agnostic."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

How is it a shoehorn? It seems to be fairly well accepted. Definition of gnostic | Dictionary.com

Which of those definitions did you have in mind?

• The first one wouldn't make sense in the context you used the term.
• The second refers to the Gnostics in a figurative sense.
• The third refers to the Gnostics in a literal sense.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No mistake. That's the implication.

"Agnostic" is fairly unique among words in common use: not only was it coined by one specific person fairly recently (T.H. Huxley), he went to the trouble of writing out a detailed explanation of what he meant by the word and how he arrived at it.

Huxley explained that "agnostic" was inspired by a rejection of the attitude of the Gnostics... i.e. that they held certain knowledge of sacred beliefs.

As a negation of "agnostic," your use of "gnostic" still relates back to that original sense of "gnostic" built into the term "agnostic."

And so properly also with the word "thing" if you look closer.
Definition of THING
thing | Etymology, origin and meaning of thing by etymonline

That is the same with these words. Language evolves and as long as we make sure we note how we understand a word, I see no problem in that.

So a thing went from being a social process to a material thing, so only use thing in the original form.