UPSB v3
Serious Discussion / Is it really?
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Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 05:15:03
After the first time UPSB went down I decided to try out some forums and youtube videos with a little bit more depth than pen spinning, and I wondered into a bit of a "soul" search on atheism. Now i'm not gonna debate religion here at all, I would just like to clear up a little misconception. Don't be sad if you previously took this misconception for truth, because it is very common, and previously the word actually DID mean this.
Atheism: can be either the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 12 2009, 10:32 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>btw theres a different between atheism, which is the opinion that God does not exist, and agnosticism, where you have no opinion on religion or you don't care or you say you don't know.
a slightly stronger opinion is to say, it is impossible to know if God exists. the weaker one says we don't know yet if God exists.
this is very different from atheism.
why why why why why WHY!
I swear I'd be a billionaire if I had a buck for every time I've seen this misconception.
Agnosticism is a position on knowledge.
Atheism is a position specifically towards the subject of theism.
They are not exclusive in any way and it is incorrect to think they are.
Agnostic Atheism
Generally speaking an agnostic atheist is someone who does not have a belief that there is such thing as a god or gods or that there is an afterlife. There are of course many more things pertaining to theism/deism/etc. than that, but those are probably the two largest that people will commonly point out. The only reasons agnostic atheists do not accept these positions, is because of the lack of evidence that has currently been found for them and acknowledge the possibility of these positions being accurate. The majority of people who call themselves atheists (as well as virtually all people who call themselves agnostics), are agnostic atheists. Nearly every famous atheist author today is an agnostic atheist; from Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris to Christopher Hitchens, all are agnostic atheists.
Gnostic Atheism
A gnostic atheist is someone who holds the position that theism/deism/etc. is simply wrong, and that there is no possibility of gods or an afterlife. Even though some gnostic atheists will often have reasonable epistemological reasoning for this position, most gnostic atheists take this position out of anger towards a particular religion or ignorance of atheism.
There is even agnostic theism, but I'm too lazy to get into that right now.
If there are any atheists on the forum, feel free to ask me (via PM or email or something) anything you like and I will either answer your questions directly or redirect you to a video/text reference.
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Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 05:35:27
wow i always thought that atheism was the belief in no god
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Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 05:55:19QUOTE (spinneraddiction @ Dec 24 2009, 01:35 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>wow i always thought that atheism was the belief in no god
Which gnostic atheists claim doesn't require "belief" by arguing over the methodology for taking things for fact, but I myself still think it requires some sort of logical leap to claim that there is an inability to prove anything one way or another. At least outside of math that is.
EDIT:QUOTE (Josh_man @ Dec 12 2009, 10:10 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>That is an Atheists belief, therefore it is their Religion.
This one is also a nope. Atheism is not a religion and neither is IPUD'ism. -
Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 19:15:17
seems like semantics to me
in common language atheism mostly means the belief that god doesn't exist and agnostic usually refers to the context of religion. in a thread about religion, it should be quite obvious that agnostic refers to religion and atheism refers to what you call Gnostic Atheism
thx for the clarification though, but it is details that you don't use in common languages. -
Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 19:44:29
semantics maybe, but it's good to have the distinction. one of the major claims against atheists is their hypocrisy in claiming certainty against god, yet as an agnostic atheist i don't make that assertion.
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Date: Thu, Dec 24 2009 20:42:50QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 24 2009, 02:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>seems like semantics to me
in common language atheism mostly means the belief that god doesn't exist and agnostic usually refers to the context of religion. in a thread about religion, it should be quite obvious that agnostic refers to religion and atheism refers to what you call Gnostic Atheism
thx for the clarification though, but it is details that you don't use in common languages.
Whether or not people use it in common language does not justify its misuse. When people think of an atheist organization, they will often think of the idea of hypocrisy that Shadow just mentioned, which does work to hurt the image of the organization. People who consider themselves agnostics will even dislike atheist organization because of this, which greatly hurts the organizations.
Similarly I could say, ad populum, that Muslims are people who hate America. Regardless of this being "semantics", it is often a very harmful and incorrect image placed upon Islamic organizations. -
Date: Fri, Dec 25 2009 09:42:58
good clarification. I'm gnostic Atheist.
yes Atheism has a bit of a problem because there are several types of atheism. That goes the same for theism though.
Maybe there are Agnostic Theists. -
Date: Fri, Dec 25 2009 16:57:57QUOTE (Sadistic @ Dec 24 2009, 03:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Whether or not people use it in common language does not justify its misuse. When people think of an atheist organization, they will often think of the idea of hypocrisy that Shadow just mentioned, which does work to hurt the image of the organization. People who consider themselves agnostics will even dislike atheist organization because of this, which greatly hurts the organizations.
Similarly I could say, ad populum, that Muslims are people who hate America. Regardless of this being "semantics", it is often a very harmful and incorrect image placed upon Islamic organizations.
well I can kinda approach it the other way: when someone discusses atheism, I always mention the distinction between agnostic and gnostic so that I'm really sure of what they're talking about. it seems that if you really separate agnostic from atheism, ppl have less misconceptions, even though it might not be linguistically correct.
imo if the term atheism is tainted, then they should redefine the terms and make it so that agnostics don't have to consider themselves atheists. then they'll be free of the stereotype. in common language, dont even mention you're atheist, just say agnostic. cuz often in forms or polls, it doesn't even give you the choice it says "christian muslim buddhist etc atheist other". when someone looks at a poll like that they think atheist means the hard version, so safer to put other instead.
the difference in mentality between agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism are so strong it should warrant complete language separation to avoid confusion. -
Date: Fri, Dec 25 2009 22:29:11QUOTE (Sadistic @ Dec 24 2009, 03:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Similarly I could say, ad populum, that Muslims are people who hate America. Regardless of this being "semantics", it is often a very harmful and incorrect image placed upon Islamic organizations.
Easily the worst analogy I've ever encountered in an intelligent discussion ...
Also, after reading this topic I did some research, and there is no one definite definition of 'atheism.' You may (adamantly) support one of them, but that doesn't make everyone else wrong
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Date: Sat, Dec 26 2009 01:29:51QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 25 2009, 11:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>well I can kinda approach it the other way: when someone discusses atheism, I always mention the distinction between agnostic and gnostic so that I'm really sure of what they're talking about. it seems that if you really separate agnostic from atheism, ppl have less misconceptions, even though it might not be linguistically correct.
imo if the term atheism is tainted, then they should redefine the terms and make it so that agnostics don't have to consider themselves atheists. then they'll be free of the stereotype. in common language, dont even mention you're atheist, just say agnostic. cuz often in forms or polls, it doesn't even give you the choice it says "christian muslim buddhist etc atheist other". when someone looks at a poll like that they think atheist means the hard version, so safer to put other instead.
the difference in mentality between agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism are so strong it should warrant complete language separation to avoid confusion.
Yes I really think that it would be nice to have a totally separated word, but considering how little people know about atheism already it seems as though finding a different title would just work to deter getting the message out. I get what you mean about the polls too, the fact that they have to differentiate with those words just goes to show how little people know about either. I mean, I doubt there are more than a few people on this forum who have ever heard of secular humanism.
In countries like France or Japan where atheism is much more recognized, the vocabulary is often a lot more specific on the subject, but because American media (which outside maybe msnbc is pretty Christian oriented) is so dominant these days, most people just never care to learn about it.QUOTE (strat1227 @ Dec 25 2009, 05:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Easily the worst analogy I've ever encountered in an intelligent discussion ...
Also, after reading this topic I did some research, and there is no one definite definition of 'atheism.' You may (adamantly) support one of them, but that doesn't make everyone else wrong
Actually if I, an atheist, as well as the atheistic community, consider a word that describes us to mean one thing or another, that is exactly what it means and anyone using it to describe us otherwise is wrong. I very much doubt if you tried to scold a republican of today by telling them that you disagree with the republican ideologies of Abraham Lincoln, they would consider you very knowledgeable upon the subject your speaking about. The separation between agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism is very well known in the atheist community, that is, people who actually participate in learning about atheism.
If you don't like my analogy, then tell me what I did wrong and we can debate it. It certainly worked to convey an understandable message to Zombo. By just telling me its bad without even a mentioning of why, you may as well be trolling me, and if your trolling me, you can kindly fuck off and take your shit to the spammer's bin.