Agnosticism is the only non-faith.

[Kamehameha34]

Theism - Active belief in a deity, or divine power.


Atheism - Active belief that no higher power exists.


Agnosticism - Admission of lack of knowledge either towards or against gods.




Theism is obviously a faith. I doubt anyone will argue that.

Atheism, however, is much more controversial in this context. There are many who claim to be atheists because of a lack of proof for theism. Without proof for a complete lack of divine presence, however, means that they hold a faith.


Each group holds a different analysis of the following statement:

"There is a divine power"

Theists say that there is.

Atheists say that there isn't.

Agnostics say that the claim is unknown. This is the only logically valid claim, because there is no proof supporting either end of the spectrum.

Thus, if you believe that there is a god, or is not a god with a complete lack of proof either way, you hold a faith.

[rez]

what is the problem?

[The Bacon Guy]

Pure atheism, that is believing with 100% certainty that there is no god, is a faith. However, I don’t like the term agnosticism, since it implies that the possibility of God is given equal credibility to the non-existence. Obviously, this is an absurd position to take, which is why I don’t describe myself as agnostic. I don’t believe in any gods, and I find the whole idea totally absurd, so I am an atheist in a practical sense. However, for the sake of scientific rigor, I don't entirely discount a god’s existence on a philosophical level.

Atheism is a more logical position than theism, because atheists have overwhelming probability on their side. In a universe of infinite possibilities, it is much more likely that a God does not exist than that he exists. However, agnosticism, leaning towards atheism is the logically valid position to take. I don't think there's actually a name for this philosophy, so if anyone asks me, I just tell them I’m a scientist.

[Jack]

Atheism - Active belief that no higher power exists.

A theist's definition; it's inaccurate. Atheism is the refusal to accept the theist's notion of gods. No belief or faith required.

[another day]

Besides that,

agnosticism is position SOLELY of knowledge. Everyone on this earth is an agnostic whether they want to admit it or not, because no one has real knowledge of whether or not a god(s) exists.

atheism does not address belief and therefore takes no faith. It is simply a lack of belief, a LACK OF FAITH, in the god concept. This does not take faith. One does not need to disprove an idea 100% to discount it without using faith. Faith is a strong conviction in an idea. You cannot have a strong conviction in a lack of an idea, that makes no sense. One can be an agnostic and atheist at the same time. Agnostic because they have no knowledge of gods, and atheist because this NATURALLY leads to a lack of belief in any gods. Why would you believe in something which you have no knowledge of, unless you had faith in it? This argument does NOT work for the reverse. It is very reasonable to disbelief something which you have no knowledge, and this takes no faith. The simple fact that such a concept has been thought of and invented by humans, does not mean it takes faith to disbelieve in it. It is still invalid until such knowledge is gained, and therefore does not require any degree of faith to discount it.

We must also distinguish between religious faith and common faith. Religious faith is the irrational conviction of an idea based on emotion and hope. Common faith is the rational conviction of an idea based on prior experience, logic etc. It is common faith that the sun will rise tommorow. I have faith that it will not remain dark all day. One can argue that atheism perhaps uses some common faith, but it does not at all employ the irrational, senseless form of religious faith that theists employ.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Isherwood A theist's definition; it's inaccurate. Atheism is the refusal to accept the theist's notion of gods. No belief or faith required.

You either do not believe that higher powers exist, believe that they exist, or acknowledge the fact that the proof either way is inconclusive.

Pick a horse and ride it.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: The Bacon Guy Pure atheism, that is believing with 100% certainty that there is no god, is a faith. However, I don’t like the term agnosticism, since it implies that the possibility of God is given equal credibility to the non-existence.

Not necessarily. The term simply means that you only cancel out the possibility of gods that are defines into impossibility.

Atheism is a more logical position than theism, because atheists have overwhelming probability on their side. In a universe of infinite possibilities, it is much more likely that a God does not exist than that he exists.

How do you figure? There's an equally infinite amount of possible gods.

[Jack]

You either do not believe that higher powers exist, believe that they exist, or acknowledge the fact that the proof either way is inconclusive.

You don't have to have absolute proof of something to determine its probability. The evidence presented by theists is sufficiently flawed as to be unacceptable. The improbability of gods is so high I have no obligation to consider them as possible. Theists contend that gods exist. They have failed to offer sufficient evidence to convince me. There's no reason for me to even consider gods possible.

There's an equally infinite amount of possible gods.

All possible gods are equally improbable. The whole concept of gods is flawed logically.

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Ish All possible gods are equally improbable.

That sounds subjective. If you think it's objective, I'm curious for you to elaborate.

Quote by: Ish The whole concept of gods is flawed logically.

Where is the logical flaw in the philosophical concept of gods?

[Zhavric]

All possible gods are equally improbable.

Quote by: Fonceai That sounds subjective. If you think it's objective, I'm curious for you to elaborate.

Really?

Would you also say "All instances of X equally share attribute Y" is subjective?

What you meant to say is "gods are equally improbable" is debatable. Not subjective.

If I were agnostic, you can bet I'd have a good argument supported with facts & logic as to why the Flying Sphagetti Monster is less probable than the detached creator god deists allude to.

A partially subjective statement would be "I like all gods equally" because "like" is not something that we can easily measure.

[JohnMK]

Hello kamehameha34,

As Isherwood has already pointed out, your definition of atheist suits your particular line of argument well.

Belief means many things to many people . . . I suspect a lot of people view belief in God (as Gods are commonly conceived, anyway) as a Gestalt, and these are seldom aptly analyzed in the binary. If we shy away from "atheist" as you suggest, where shall we draw the line? Should the color of an apple be described in RGB nomenclature?? This is not useful. I know pretty well what people mean when they self-describe as atheist; you probably do as well. Looking very strictly at the word, I see "a-," the greek prefix for not, and "theist." If you were to ask all my relatives to come up with 10,000 words to describe me, not one of those would be theist. Am I 100% not a theist? Am I 0% theist? Logic puzzles are fun but they are quite irrelevant to the inexact and cob-webbed workings of a human mind.

I am an atheist. Probably everybody knows what that means. Dictionaries get it right. An Athenian from 2400 years ago would be a shoo-in.

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Z What you meant to say is "gods are equally improbable" is debatable. Not subjective.

No, I meant to say it sounds subjective.

By subjective, I mean that it's based on his opinion.
By objective, I mean that it's based on fact.

If he says it's purely subjective, then I won't debate it, because it's based on his opinion and I'm not a fan of debating something that a person acknowledges is purely their own opinion.

[Zhavric]

Kame, I'm sorry to disagree with you here.

Let's consider carefully what is meant by "faith". Faith is positive belief without evidence. "I believe X is real even though I've never seen any evidence for X". That's faith.

A lack of evidence for a claim which contradicts existing proven claims is not belief without evidence. It is an acknowledgement of premises which have already been demonstrated to be true. Do you have "faith" energy cannot be created or do you instead acknowledge "energy cannot be created" is a proven law of science?

Also, we must remember our common sense. Consider the faith of the snake-handling, speaking-in-tongues pentecostal. Consider what faith in Christianity means for such an individual and their mindset towards it. Now consider your own stance that there are no fairies at the bottom of your local garden. Do you really think these two emotions are even comparable, let alone the same?

Just as "healthy" is not another type of illness, the lack of a religion is not a form of religion... and a lack of faith is not a type of faith.

As for agnosticism? Agnopsticism is a good start, but it's not intellectually honest because there does not exist a 50/50 split between god or not-god. We have to consider probability and what is actually being claimed when we say "god may be real". Consider the following:

You wake up tomorrow morning & cannot find your keys. You look through the inside of your entire house, but they're nowhere. I come over to your house and offer you the following explanations:

1) Your keys are in the front door where you left them last night. You've missed them because you've looked only INSIDE your house.

2) Your keys were taken by key gnomes which magically snuck in through the key hole your missing key fits into and left with your key through the same key hole.

Now, can you honestly say these two options have a 50/50 even split? Are they equally likely? The problem with the second one is that it offers more questions than it solves. Where did the key gnomes come from? How are they able to bend the laws of science / reality? Even though we don't have any evidence of the keys being in the front door, it's a superior option to key gnomes because it doesn't involve breaking laws of reality.

God is the ultimate key gnome. The claim god exists raises far more questions than it solves. So, agnosticism, while not a faith, is not intellectually honest.

[JohnMK]

I'll buy cop-out, but intellectually dishonest?

[Fonceai]

I'd think it were the most honest thing to be.

I haven't seen proof that God exists.

I haven't seen proof that God is non-existent.

Since I haven't seen either, the honest answer is "I don't know for sure".

Isn't "not knowing for sure" a good definition of agnosticism?

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: JohnMK Hello kamehameha34, As Isherwood has already pointed out, your definition of atheist suits your particular line of argument well. Belief means many things to many people . . . I suspect a lot of people view belief in God (as Gods are commonly conceived, anyway) as a Gestalt, and these are seldom aptly analyzed in the binary. If we shy away from "atheist" as you suggest, where shall we draw the line? Should the color of an apple be described in RGB nomenclature?? This is not useful. I know pretty well what people mean when they self-describe as atheist; you probably do as well. Looking very strictly at the word, I see "a-," the greek prefix for not, and "theist." If you were to ask all my relatives to come up with 10,000 words to describe me, not one of those would be theist. Am I 100% not a theist? Am I 0% theist? Logic puzzles are fun but they are quite irrelevant to the inexact and cob-webbed workings of a human mind. I am an atheist. Probably everybody knows what that means. Dictionaries get it right. An Athenian from 2400 years ago would be a shoo-in.

I fail to see how the existence of a god is comparable to the color of an apple. An apple is red according to sight. God, however, can not be proven or disproven.

Atheism shouldn't be established as a non-faith just because some believe that it's "correct enough", before it has been remotely proven.

And sorry, but atheism is the rejection of the possibility of gods. If you don't reject the possibility of gods, but you don't accept anything that goes without evidence, you are an agnostic.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Zhavric Kame, I'm sorry to disagree with you here. Let's consider carefully what is meant by "faith". Faith is positive belief without evidence. "I believe X is real even though I've never seen any evidence for X". That's faith.

Look at the second definition. There's no grounds to assert that it has to be a "positive claim".

A lack of evidence for a claim which contradicts existing proven claims is not belief without evidence. It is an acknowledgement of premises which have already been demonstrated to be true. Do you have "faith" energy cannot be created or do you instead acknowledge "energy cannot be created" is a proven law of science?

Deities do not contradict existing, proven claims. There are an infinite amount of possible gods. If you can prove that one doesn't exist, it doesn't completely disprove the possibility of the others.

Also, we must remember our common sense. Consider the faith of the snake-handling, speaking-in-tongues pentecostal. Consider what faith in Christianity means for such an individual and their mindset towards it. Now consider your own stance that there are no fairies at the bottom of your local garden. Do you really think these two emotions are even comparable, let alone the same?

My subjective opinion really isn't relevant. What if I were to say that they are comparable? You'd likely respond with a bandwagon fallacy, getting us nowhere.

Just as "healthy" is not another type of illness, the lack of a religion is not a form of religion... and a lack of faith is not a type of faith.

A lack of faith is agnosticism. A faith that no gods exist, without proof that none exist, is faith.

As for agnosticism? Agnopsticism is a good start, but it's not intellectually honest because there does not exist a 50/50 split between god or not-god. We have to consider probability and what is actually being claimed when we say "god may be real". Consider the following:

Agnosticism doesn't dictate that there's a 50/50 chance of either. We have no proof whatsoever regarding the possible existence of a being that can be deemed godly. There are, and I repeat, an infinite amount of possibilities.

You wake up tomorrow morning & cannot find your keys. You look through the inside of your entire house, but they're nowhere. I come over to your house and offer you the following explanations: 1) Your keys are in the front door where you left them last night. You've missed them because you've looked only INSIDE your house. 2) Your keys were taken by key gnomes which magically snuck in through the key hole your missing key fits into and left with your key through the same key hole. Now, can you honestly say these two options have a 50/50 even split? Are they equally likely? The problem with the second one is that it offers more questions than it solves. Where did the key gnomes come from? How are they able to bend the laws of science / reality? Even though we don't have any evidence of the keys being in the front door, it's a superior option to key gnomes because it doesn't involve breaking laws of reality.

Nor does the assertion of gods. Once again, there's no proof either way. There are an infinite amount of possible gods that do not contradict any laws of science.

God is the ultimate key gnome. The claim god exists raises far more questions than it solves. So, agnosticism, while not a faith, is not intellectually honest.

Sure, if you go out of your way to define god as an impossible being. All the term "god" implies is a being powerful enough to create the universe we reside in. Notice I said "create the universe", and not "create the matter in the universe." Like a carpenter "creates" a chair.

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Kame Notice I said "create the universe", and not "create the matter in the universe."

Please describe the difference between the two.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Fonceai Please describe the difference between the two.

I believe I have.

Read the example I related in my last post.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: JohnMK I'll buy cop-out, but intellectually dishonest?

What else would you call giving 50/50 odds to key gnomes vs. key in the door?

Agnosticism's intellectual dishonesty comes from assuming god / not god are two even sides of the same coin... which ignores a lot of knowledge & understanding that we've already established.