Every single one of those definitions is about the uncertainty of knowledge, or the uncertainty of the demonstratability of the existence of a deity. Heck, there's even one that says an agnostic is "a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)"
Clearly demonstrating the difference between a position about knowledge, and a postion about belief.
footprints said:
One of the options given: One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
This definition is problematic. I mean, what exactly is "true atheism"? It seems to be a definition built upon the popular misunderstanding of the word "agnostic", which you espouse, rather than the classical definition of the word.
footprints said:
Ah. Wiki. Did you even bother to read the first paragraph?
Wiki said:
Agnosticism is the view that the
truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any
deity, but also other religious and
metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.
[1] Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a
skeptical approach to questions. In some senses,
agnosticism is a stance about the differences between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief.
It also might help you to read about the various types of agnosticism-- all of which are a claim about knowledge, regardless of belief.
footprints said:
I am extremely skeptical of an article that would say "By definition, an agnostic is not committed to believing in or disbelieving in the existence of God" because, by definition, agnosticism says no such thing.
But, it does appear to be a reputable source, so as promised, I will seriously consider the matter. Do any other posters have anything to add?
footprints said:
If you were Lord and Ruler, your acceptance may mean something to me. As you are not, I am agnostic to your acceptance.
Did you truly mean to say "I do not believe that knowledge is obtainable about your acceptance"? Perhaps, you were searching for something more like "ambivalent".
Regardless, your position is known as "weak agnosticism". See Wiki.
footprints said:
And here is the problem in your belief, there doesn't need to be anything in the definition of either of how their belief is formed, just the beliefs that are formed and the definitions thereof. Definitions of how the beliefs are formed is gained by an understanding of aquired knowledge from psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience.
And science clearly shows, that a new born child cannot possibly be an atheist, for to reach the atheist position, a person requires knowledge before their belief pattern can be formed. Atheism is a meme, a simple product of the environment. Atheism is born of theism, and just another of many divisions, in the many divisions of life. Nothing spectacular, we have seen it before as history stands testimony to.
I wonder how 5 year old me came to hold the belief that the monsters under the bed wouldn't eat my toes as long as I wore socks. I'm pretty sure that no one ever told me such things, and it's not like I had evidence that there were toe-eating monsters under my bed, or that socks were a powerful ward.
Maybe it all truly comes down to semantics. Atheism, to me, is simply an absence of belief in the existence of gods. If a person were entirely ignorant of the concept of gods, and therefore necessarily had no belief in their existence, then I would call that atheism. No knowledge needed.
