I mean you go girl more power to ya but it definitely isn't easier to explain pastafarianism than agnosticism to normies. Noone except programmers and other too online people even know it exists (yes i am also a terminally online freak relax peeps, real recognize real)
That's the neat part - you don't have to explain anything. You just assert the truthfulness of your religion and act offended when people point out how ridiculous it is.
Gotta love how one person writing a silly essay, which didn't have anything to do with atheism, just being a gaff, got turned into something very atheist and very serious.
So how will you teach little girls that they're the problem? How will you fondle little boys? How will you comitt a genocide to prove that your religion is more moral?
For real. Literally you can just say, "You are the problem. All girls and women are the problem." There's zero need to bring God into the equation to live a good, normal life.
It's a sarcastic counter to the typical arguments that there's no inherent morality in human culture without religion. You know, people don't naturally have empathy, so they have to be taught to simulate empathy because they beleive they'll be judged when they die.
Generally in atheistic communities discourse around religion tends to be around where religion is used to replace science, often as a means of control of behavior and othering of out groups.
Speculating, that is likely because many people join these communities after being ostracized or faced abuse at the hands of people in the in-group so it makes sense that those are the aspects of religion that stand out most to them are those aspects.
There is a reason communities have had religious and spiritual practices for millennia, they do provide concrete benefits and social good in terms of community building and as forms of cultural preservation and providing support systems, both emotional and material. Those aspects tend not to be talked about in atheistic and skeptic communities. Not saying they're obligated to balance every negative comment with a positive one out of some misguided sense of fairness or balanced discourse but if you're interested in having some kind of well rounded view of the world, it is helpful to understand positive aspects of things you generally disagree with.
In this case, if someone is arguing religion be removed completely it is important to address the loss of positive aspects that keep people in a religion otherwise you're just going to be yelling at a wall and not actually doing anything or putting people off by assuming everyone who holds any kind of religious belief or engages in religious rituals is some kind of brainwashed cultist.
So you’re saying that agnosticism is a spectrum of atheism? That belief must be active - if you don’t specifically believe in a god(s) then you’re atheist, and agnosticism describes the level to which you hold that conviction? Seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. What about those who explicitly believe we can’t know if there’s a god (s)?
I’m interested in the source of your latter assertion as well, I’m taking it to be anecdotal?
No. I'm saying it's orthogonal, but that most self described agnostics are atheists. You can be agnostic and Christian, which, to a point, is even endorsed by the Catholic Church, but agnostic Christians usually just self label as Christian.
I've always thought of agnosticism as being "I don't believe in Gods," and atheism as being "Gods don't exist." It's like the difference between saying "I don't think that plan will work" vs "That plan won't work." One leaves room for you to be wrong, while the other doesn't.
Because I just discovered it on wikipedia I think is worth adding ‘Ignostic’ - the belief that frankly it’s pointless even discussing any of this unless you can first define a deity. Seems bloody sensible to me.
Ignosticism sometimes want you to also define what "to believe" means.
Why? You can see in the comment you replied to.
When you are ignostic it is interesting that you can also be, agnostic and Christian by some definitions and antitheist by other definitions... A schrodinger christian.
There are also some subtle variations in agnosticism.
There's the soft variety that says "there is no proof that convinces me either way but I won't rule out that someone could come up with one".
There's the hard variety that says "I don't think it's possible to prove either way".
There's even a variety that says "it doesn't matter whether (a) god exists or not, hence there's no need for a proof".
But yeah, the core of agnosticism is that you don't believe the existence of (a) god has been conclusively proven or disproven and are unwilling to commit either way without that proof.
Seems like it’s gathered quite a wide definition but this is certainly how I’ve always understood it. If I was to ever start a cult I think it’d be based on militant agnostic fundamentalism.
My understanding was that atheism is the belief that there is no god(s), whereas to be agnostic is the absence of belief one way or another, i.e unable to prove or disprove existence of god(s). With this interpretation it's more scientifically rational (for whatever that's worth) to be agnostic than atheist.
The importance of such a distinction doesn't merit much fuss beyond freshman philosophy though since you get some atheists who are absolutely evil cunts and plenty of genuinely good people of almost all religions.
Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that "there is no god"? I've never seen that, and it seems wrong.
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
It's more like active opposition to a theistic religions. For example many people think that "there's no gods, and theistic religions are harmful to our society"
and they have just as much evidence as believers
This is very stupid way to put it. If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim. The claim is that there is a god or several, yet no proof to support that claim, which means that claim is plain made up shit and the logical conclusion "there's no gods"
If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim.
If your claim is that "there's no gods," then you're making a claim. The assertion that there are affirmatively no gods at all is in fact just as empirically unfalsifiable as the assertion that there is definitely at least one god. In my opinion, the only reasonable position is to not make any claims about the presence or nonpresence of deities in the first place.
Russel's Teapot is fun, but I prefer Starman's copy of Treasure Planet on DVD. Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don't have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim.
There are no proof of god, there's nothing that suggests that there is a god or gods. There's only claims from some people that they've spoken with one. It's rather like sasquatch and loch Ness monster. It's the only logical conclusion that there's no gods
Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don't have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim
This funny exercise makes the assumption that I'm too lazy to come visit your house to see if you have that DVD. As soon as I come grab a cup of coffee and a nice piece of sweet pastry with you and check your film collection, I'll see if you were lying or not.
However, maybe this is the time you tell me that you borrowed the film to your cousin who lives abroad rather than admitting the lie. That'd be what Christians have been doing the past 2 millennias as we have made new scientific discoveries that contradicted priests talks about their DVD collections.
You could disprove specific religions making specific claims, sure. But to say there is no god anywhere in the universe of any sort? That is not a claim you can prove.
Now if you want to reframe antitheists as anti-specific theology on Earth, then what you say makes sense. But you can't both propose a new definition mid-conversation, and then argue that my statement that was based on the first definition is stupid because you're using the second.
The claim is that there is a god, or multiples of them
There's no need to claim that there is no god? It doesn't make any sense to try to prove something like that. A claim requires evidence, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.
Yeah but you’d be surprised how people would hate you more for believing in nothing than believing in a bowl of pasta… even if it’s a fake believe in pasta that symbolizes nothing.
There is a shade of meaning between “I don't believe” and “I don’t know how a person/I could determine that they/I affirmatively believe.”
I personally would interpret the former as non religious and the latter as agnostic, but it probably differs from person to person. Especially because non religious is often used to describe people who do not practice a religion, but may well still believe in it (though that would be non practicing for me).
Of course, many people would admit they aren't certain for yes/no, and so might qualify as an agnostic theist/atheist depending on how strict you are with confidence. Some agnostics will be more rigid and say the answer is inherently unknowable. Regardless, it still seems a lot simpler than having to explain a satirical religion you are pretending to believe in to someone.
Some religious people still have a problem with that, but this explanation seems to work for me.
Me: "Do you believe in Ra, the sun god?"
Them: "No"
Me: "Do you believe in Zeus?"
Them: "No"
Me: "What about Odin, or Quetzacotl, or Shiva?"
Them: "No, I only believe in the one true god who--"
Me: "So, you're basically almost as much of an Athiest as me. Throughout history there have been many cultures who have believed in their gods. You don't believe in any of those gods, and neither do I. The only difference is that there's one god that you believe in that I don't. You're 99.9% towards being fully Athiest, you just have one remaining god that you still believe in."
This also helps when they start giving reasons for why what they believe is real because it's in their bible. You can ask if they've read all the holy books of the Aztecs or the Hindus. Why would their holy book be true and not those other holy books? If we're going to say something is true because it's in a holy book, then you also have to believe the books that talk about Thor and Odin. If they start saying that everything around was created by god, again, which god? The Hindus have a story for how their various gods created everything, so do the Egyptians. Basically every religion has that story. It's also useful to ask them what they'd believe if they'd grown up in India, or in ancient Egypt or in Denmark 1000 years ago since almost everybody gets their religion from their upbringing.
Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It's just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn't incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one's religious views can be brought into question, it doesn't really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They're saying "There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in", despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn't there, but that they're perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it's absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it's perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don't even believe that this "Lord Vishnu" exists. It's not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it's only their god that exists.
If there's a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it's a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that's a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don't have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn't come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don't exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don't believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it's different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn't mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn't been my experience with religious people at least :)
This was my reasoning for a while, I believed in all gods equally and that amount was zero. I still believe in them all equally, that amount just isn't zero anymore.
The words do not mean the same thing, but they often refer to the same people.
That is, most self-labeled atheists would be best described as "agnostic atheist" and most self-labeled agnostics would also be best described as "agnostic atheist."
Atheist and theist refer to whether someone believes in any kind of theism. Anti-theism and pro-theism would take it further in terms of whether you want to promote or reduce the amount of theism.
Agnostic and gnostic merely indicate a level of certainty in any belief. Its extremely rare that people are perfectly neutral between atheism and theism. They usually lean in one direction or another, so agnostics are either agnostic theists or agnostic atheist. They are usually the latter, as they are also often atheists trying to minimize the social costs of being a non-believer.
that's reddit hogwash , you believe god exists or you dont and that's enough to determine your atheism for as much as words matter at all (and honestly they dont, you dont need a word to describe not believing in astrology)
My main view of things - I couldn't know if there was a god or if there wasn't. But all that ultimate judgement shit never made any sense for me. If you're just behaving decently because of fear of ultimate judgment, then you're not a decent person. Ok if god would want me not to be an asshole, I'd need to be that out of my free will. And if a god demanded adherence to some random rules out of the blue - that god wouldn't have a moral compass and I wouldn't want to have to do anything with them in my life, being smitten down at the end would have been a consequence for me anyways.
I just want to be no asshole. So the question of there's a god or not. I don't care. God is irrelevant.
Thus: agnostic
I started staying I'm an atheist somw time ago, as that's just quicker and I can go by without explaining.
Still - if there's a god around, which is possible but improbable - I'm making sure I make fucking good use of the free will they gave me.
The issue I had with calling myself "agnostic" is that most Christians think of it as "undecided" (which it isn't), so they'll try to convert you. If you tell them you're an atheist, they're more likely to leave you alone (in my experience).
For me personally, atheism is saying 'there is nothing more to the universe or reality, what you see is what you get' which is extremely pretentious. Agnosticism is admitting to the possibility that there's something going on here, but we don't know and would likely be incapable of understanding what it is.
Atheism: I don't believe in the existence of god(s)
Agnosticism: I haven't seen any proof for god thus can't believe in one
It's the same thing really, but without the "negative" connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists.
"See, I'm not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I'm not to be expelled from this community as a heretic"
"See, I'm not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I'm not to be expelled from this community as a heretic"
I identity with this. When I was younger I identified as agnostic, as I saw it as a more socially acceptable option than atheism which allowed me to not have to pretend to be religious.
But I've identified as atheist for many years now. In my case by the time I did, everyone of significance in my life was nonreligious.
It’s the same thing really, but without the “negative” connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists. “See, I’m not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I’m not to be expelled from this community as a heretic”
This, basically. At least that's how I used it. As a kid living in the bible belt, admitting you were an atheist was, in their eyes, literally no different than being a cannibalistic devil worshipper. Agnostic was easier for them to swallow (albeit because odds are high that most of them didn't even know what it meant, and figured it was some sect of Christianity they were unfamiliar with).
When I got older, and escaped the institutional bigotry woven into nearly every facet of society down in the bible belt...the lovely place where our biology teacher also headed the bible club and refused to teach evolution yet somehow still had a job as a biology teacher in the public school system, as a small example...that was when I finally gained the confidence to self-describe as an atheist.
It’s the same thing really, but without the “negative” connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists.
Atheists and Agnostics would obviously disagree. There's a core philosophical difference between being convinced in the negative and being unconvinced in the affirmative.
That said, what are the consequences of being a Theist, an Atheist, or an Agnostic? I might argue that Theists and Atheists have history of leveraging their confidence into an active policy of discrimination and bigotry. Whether you're a Chinese Communist cracking down on under-18 church attendance or an Israeli Zionist conducting a pogrom against Palestinians, there's a habit of imbuing your personal beliefs with political teeth.
“See, I’m not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I’m not to be expelled from this community as a heretic”
The flip side of this being, "I'm not expelling you from the community for excessive display of religious ferver".
It's easier to sympathize with avowed Atheists in nations where atheism is a disenfranchised minority. But as soon as you give someone like Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris an ounce of political capital, they start cheer leading a genocide.
That, I think, is a real tangible difference. Agnostics tend not to begrudge other ideologies in the same way.
Who says that atheism involves being convinced of the negative? I'm an atheist because I'm not a theist. I'm agnostic because I'm neither convinced of the negative nor the affirmative. Both labels apply to me.
Disbelief just means not believing something. Not believing that a claim is true is not the same as believing that that claim is false. A lack of belief in any deities is not the same as a belief in a lack of any deities.
The prefix a- means without. If one is without theism, then they are a-theist. There is no third option. You have theism or you don't. Having no belief one way or the other means you don't have it.
Also, it often means "on," "in," or "at" (e.g., abed, ashore) or indicates a state of being (e.g., ablaze). It can also mean "in a manner" (e.g., aloud)
But now you're getting into etamology, not colloquial application.
Atheism, at it's heart, is an ideology. Agnosticism isn't.
I mean... No? Maybe? Certainly not aliens as in biologically evolved creatures from another planet are involved, what is so hard to understand about that?
Alien as in something completely foreign and unrecognizable to the human brain, sure.
i call myself a devout agnostic. the justaposition of those words is inherently absurd since part of agnosticism and identifying as such is believing there is value to studying theology even if you yourself don't believe the theologies you're studying because ultimately prior to colonization, religion was how groups of people encoded and passed along their wisdom. however saying "devout agnostic" throws people enough off balance enough to introduce them to these concepts since so many say with their whole chest that they're something when traditionally these terms have meant something else to the people who use them.
for example, an astounding (at least to me) number of people say quakers and unitarians aren't christians. when you dig down on this you often find that this position is rooted in a believe (both positive and negative) that the fundamental mechanism and experience of christianity is trauma. however, when you look at the broader world of religion, you find that that's mostly only Christian denominations rooted in the theologies of the roman empire such as roman catholicism and the various european orthodoxies like Greek and russian. however, the oldest denomination, Ethiopian Orthodox, would i think to the people who say quakers and unitarians aren't christians, seem very unchistian. for that matter, i think so would Native America Christianity, Oriental Orthodox, and Armenianism. (fun fact, the Unitarian church is rooted in Oriental Orthodox, which is either the second or third oldest christian denomination)
i will also strongly defend their right to have faith in something that gives them the strength to get through this messed wp world. i will simply brook no bullshit from anyone who use their theological positions for control, and that includes authoritarian atheists.
You can be an agnostic deist. Agnostic just means you have no firm belief. Most people who identify as "nones" in polls are technically agnostic, even if they personally believe in a higher power. Its a lack of certainty.
Most atheists are also technically agnostic atheists. A gnostic athiest would be someone who holds the absence of any higher being or spirituality as an almost axiomatic belief. Though they merely can be so certain that the small chance they're wrong seems irrelevant to them.
Agnosticism isn't a lack of certainty; it's a lack of knowledge. I am agnostic about many, many things. For example, Bigfoot. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of Bigfoot (i.e., I have no knowledge of the existence of Bigfoot), so I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm the same way with the existence of gods.
Eh, I think there's a decent semantic dispute for it. It's of course dependent on your definition of deity and is mostly an exercise of pedantry. However, with the size of the universe I think there's a pretty decent chance that there exists an intellectual being that could be interpreted as being god-like to the human perspective.
Now I'm not making claims that this proposed being has ever had anything to do with humans, nor are they responsible for any universal creation. Just that the universe is big enough for the existence of something significantly more advanced than humans. That being said, the size of the universe that allows for the possibility of this proposal also makes it possible existence mostly pedantic.
We might be early, from how i understand the age of the universe. If we don’t great filter ourselves out of existence soon we may become the elder species. The universe is remarkably young
Atheism just means without theism. If you aren't theist, you're atheist. Agnostic describes the position of lacking belief one way or the other. A lack of belief is not the same as a belief in a lack. The vast majority of atheists are agnostic atheists, because the belief that there are positively no deities is just as baseless as the claim that there are deities.
Theism is belief in gods; atheism is the opposite of that: non-belief in gods.
Gnosticism is knowledge of gods; agnosticism is the opposite of that: no knowledge of gods. (There is also a religious movement called gnosticism. That doesn't relate here.)
The first is about belief and the second is about knowledge.
These are not incompatible. You can believe in something and claim to have knowledge of it (gnostic theism) or you can believe and claim to not have knowledge of it (agnostic theism). I have encountered Christians of both varieties.
For atheists, many (perhaps most) claim to have no knowledge of gods (agnostic atheism), and some claim that gods certainly do not exist (gnostic atheism). The latter demonstrate that the Christian exist, because logically an omniscient and omnipotent God can't also be omni-benevolent, since suffering obviously exists.
I think we largely agree. Your comment is essentially a restatement of my point. Theism is a belief that they are gods, and atheism is a lack of belief that there are gods. That lack of belief can either come from a positive belief that there are no gods, or a withholding of belief one way or the other.
Speaking about myself specifically, it is equally untrue to say that I believe there are gods as it is to say that I believe there are no gods. The former means I am an atheist, and the latter means I am an agnostic. Both labels apply to me.
It's funny how you act like the stereotypical arrogant atheist who thinks of himself better because of his believe and everyone else is just too dumb to understand.
There are still so many wonderous mystical things left. A lot of them we will never be able to understand because they are so much bigger than us
It's impossible to prove the existence of a higher deity as well because it's part of its definition to not be proveable/observable/understandable to our minds.
If this is you, consider joining or supporting The Satanic Temple. This is why they exist, and they do more meaningful and practical good than a meme religion.
"We don't like religious symbols in public space, so let's put more of these, yay!"
"Proselytism is bad, so we need to recruit more people to fight it."
"The guy at the top is not a Nazi anymore, so it's fine."
We don’t like religious symbols in public space, so let’s put more of these, yay!
Yeah, they try to put non-religious things instead like cool Dante's inferno statues. End result is that the religious symbols are banned, or if they aren't, that there are other non-religious symbols around them. As much as they are a religion legally, they are atheists and their symbols are not religious, just fancy branding.
Proselytism is bad, so we need to recruit more people to fight it.
Yeah, what's weird about that? Fire is bad so we need to recruit more firefighters to fight it. TST does not proselytize, as they don't try to convert you into any religion. The are just an NGO.
They did try to put a baphomet statue in front of a 10 commandments monument in Arkansas. They are fighting for a plurality of religion, not secularism.
If I wanted to contribute to a secular cause, I would much rather contribute to a secular organization to begin with.
TST does not proselytize
But the only times you hear of them is when people are trying to get more folk implied (or when they send a lawsuit, but that's an other story). TST plays the card of a non profit when they don't want to be associated with religious weirdos, and the card of religion when they want a special treatment. In the end it's a knockoff religion that hijacked the name "satanism" while replicating what they denounce of christians.
Fire is bad so we need to recruit more firefighters to fight it.
It's much closer to putting up advertisement against advertisement.
They are just an NGO.
That's not true. It's a bunch of for-profit organizations coupled with a recognized nonprofit church so they can be exempted from taxation. See here : https://the.satanic.wiki/index.php/The_Satanic_Wiki . Also, as a supposedly non-profit org, they do not disclose their financial information, which is usually a big red flag.
But the only times you hear of them is when people are trying to get more folk implied
Yes, and that's plain old recrutiment/advertising of their cause. Proselytization refers to trying to convert someone to a religion, which they don't do.
It’s much closer to putting up advertisement against advertisement.
Correct.
That’s not true. It’s a bunch of for-profit organizations coupled with a recognized nonprofit
Yes, so an NGO. Where did I say they are a non-profit?
Proselytization refers to trying to convert someone to a religion, which they don’t do.
They do claim it's a religion. It is legally a religion. When they are recruiting, it is proselytism. Also, proselytism is part of the definition of a church in most countries, that is why, for instance, the Church of Satan is not legally a church in the US, because they do not proselytize. By their own saying and by the government, TST is a religion and they do proselytize.
Where did I say they are a non-profit?
You said it is just an NGO. I mean, yeah, but you could say that about pretty much anything. But clearly there is something more to it than the average NGO, with them being both a church and a couple for-profit organizations.
I've never heard of TST proselytizing. When and where have you seen this?
Also, proselytism is part of the definition of a church in most countries, that is why, for instance, the Church of Satan is not legally a church in the US, because they do not proselytize.
Please post evidence for this.
The US government is pretty hands-off when it comes to deciding what is and isn't a religion. It's that whole First Amendment thing.
Well, here and now, with the original comment asking to join them. I do have some anecdotes but they aren't really relevant here, I guess.
Here is the CRA rule and the IRS one
Both state that "advancement of religion" is a requirement, which is quite close to proselytizing (promoting and manifesting religious belief).
The thing is that both countries were funded by christian people, so their definition of religion is biased towards it, so you can't really have an individualistic religion like satanism be recognized.
We can also note that Canada is discriminating against non-theistic religions and asks quite explicitly to "support and maintain missions and missionaries to propagate the faith". Canada is still a religious state, after all.
Good time to point out there is a huge difference between being agnostic and agnostcism. One is a literal state of being, not specific to religion. The other is an ideology toward "deities" based around being agnostic in the topic.
It's just how -ic and -ism be. Most people that say they are agnostic do not follow agnosticism, even if they may share some of its very widely ranged ideas and concepts.
Richard Dawkins referred to himself as a nontheist as a better term then atheist in one of his books. He said there is no such thing as an agnostic, either you believe or you don't believe. If undeniable proof of the existence of a god comes along and you refuse to believe then you are just a fool.
It's that muddy middle that has many atheists describing atheism as "hard" and "soft". If the answer to the question "do you believe in a god or gods" is anything other than yes, you're an atheist.
All isms are idealogies attached to their leading premise. Atheism is no exception to any other word in this regard.
It is the people's poor understanding of language but allure to social labels that has caused the word, which is otherwise very clear, to now be seen on a spectrum. Like how people now refer to LLMs as AI, for lack of understanding the fundamentals of the terminology first.
There are those that misunderstand it to mean a-theism instead of atheos-ism. Which is madd
If the answer to the question "do you believe in a god or gods" is anything other than yes, you're an atheist.
No. We have preexisting terms for this and atheism is, at best, a distant association for its crossover similarities of that statement. You are simply describing the state of being nontheistic, no isms necessarily attached.
There are many isms that fit into your statement by being nontheistic positions. Atheism is just one of many. However a person can be nontheistic and not adhere to any of them, since every individual is capable of rejecting any ideology. Those that don't even know about the idea of deities aren't even capable of aligning to theism or atheism, for example.
No. You're just at different levels of not believing. "While I know Jesus existed I'm just not convinced he was the son of a god" and "There is no way any god exists" will both get you to Hell according to the Bible, or beheaded for heresy depending where and when you are.
An ideology that asserts itself without knowledge is, by definition, a belief.Tbis is why, in science, we talk of theory and not belief. It acknowledges that gaps of knowledge are filled by assumption based on likelihood, but fact is never asserted until a bridge of knowledge is completely constructed.
Dawkins refers to the theism of our species. However he knows as much of our reality as anyone else. Very, very little. But take comfort in knowing that science, at least philosophically, would pursue what is beyond a deity should one ever be known. Or none of this is real. You don't actually know.
I've encountered several TST members who also practice Buddhism. It seems to be the religion that overlaps the most. It seems odd to me, because I thought Buddhism rejected the material world while TST embraces it, but I'm probably missing something.
I apologize. When you said embrace the material world I thought you meant some of the form of satanism that is kinda hedonistic. Its an athiest religion so does not recognize an actual metaphysical world and does focus in how to be in the actual material world. I view much of the tenets being about the cognitive/mental part of our existence as opposed to the experiential material. For me buddhism is more about that mental type of existence. So tenent 1 completely overlaps as compassion, loving kindness, is what is being fostered. 2 and 3 and even 4 and 5 are kinda funny as in some ways given buddhism would kind of agree but believes self is a kind of illusion. 6 and 7 I would say fit well with 7 sorta a reflection back on 1.
I remember watching an interview with a mushroom man, he posited that humans have receptors built in for magic mushrooms because humans used to have an organ that provided hallucinogenic euphoria. This allowed humans to survive in groups without killing eachother, then religion eventually evolved socially and replaced it. Now that we have technology and modern governments thats slowly replacing religion.
It was a neat idea anyways. Its also neat to think about how religions could be a form of evolution, even though they arent technically biological changes.
God I swear even here atheism is more like a cult. They can't even help themselves from saying, "well you must not know what being agnostic is." I absolutely appreciate you being agnostic & it is unfortunate that more people can't accept that.
I mean is there a word for someone who accepts the possibility of a god but there's absolutely no way it's the Christian or any of the other established gods?
Yeah, it's called being agnostic. There is nothing wrong with it & I honestly think it makes more sense than claiming to know there is no God(s) or supernatural power. Heck, even Quantum Physics continually makes me consider the idea that we exist in infinite universes simultaneously, or that we could be 7 inception layers deep in some advanced computer simulation.
Personally, I say "there is no god", because I also say "there is no pink space unicorn hiding behind Pluto". I don't know either for sure, but if a kid asks me and I start humming and hawing whether there might be pink space unicorns behind Pluto, then that sends entirely the wrong message.
So, the difference between agnosticism and atheism is pure semantics to me. I do not claim to know that there is no god. But I assume there is no god until proven otherwise.
Do you have proof it's not an established god? Do you have proof that any of the current representations are accurate or inaccurate to the original god being referenced? Saying it can't be an established god is as much of a commitment of faith as saying it is a specific god.
They're an agnostic atheist. And which of those words they use to describe themselves effects people's opinions of atheism and atheists. If I want to criticize them for their cowardice I'm going to.
The sooner religion and spirituality dies the better. Its mass psychosis.
Damn, that's a real convincing argument you got there.
Any cursory understanding of world religions and theology will tell you that this "Sky Daddy" view of divinity is incredibly rare. Not only because not all religions are monotheistic, but even among monotheists, conceptions of God are incredibly varied and diverse.
I think what irks me about this kind of 'New Atheism' common in Western internet spaces (which frankly, I thought was a decade+ out of vogue by now) is that it isn't simply a lack of God belief, but a specific disbelief in the God of American Evangelical Protestantism that somehow manages to retain so much of the philosophical underpinnings of the thing supposedly being rejected.
When Sam Harris famously said, "Islam is the motherload of bad ideas" he's rooting that position in, not only War-on-terror Imperial chauvanism and racism, but also on the very Protestant idea that right beliefs are what bring about salvation.
Of course, the secular version of this idea eschews God. But it replaces faith with belief in so-called Western Values, and Salvation with 'backward' nations of the global south being enfolded into the sphere of western liberal hegemony.
Any cursory understanding of world religions and theology will tell you that this "Sky Daddy" view of divinity is incredibly rare. Not only because not all religions are monotheistic, but even among monotheists, conceptions of God are incredibly varied and diverse.
When an adivasi Hindu gets small pox and she believes that the affliction is her communing with the goddess Sītala, is that the same thing as "Sky Daddy" theology?
When a Wiccan performs a ritual to the Horned God who is a god of hunting, the underworld, (and is himself a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people) so they might have a successful fishing trip. Is that "Sky Daddy" theology?
When a Muslim theologian says that, "God is completely different from whatever comes to your mind concerning Him" and that the nature of God is incomprehensible to human minds. Is that "Sky Daddy" theology?
I looked it up like you told me to. And none of this sounds very "Sky Daddy" to me
It really, really isn't. Most people (think they) know Christianity and then pattern match everything else to it, instead of looking at other religions as arising from completely different frameworks, with very different philosophical assumptions about the world.
I never said atheism is a religion. There are many religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Satanism which don't believe in god but are still considered religions.
I'm aware of how my original comment came across so I should probably specify that I myself do not believe in a supernatural god.
Buddhism can definitely be theistic. Satanism is defined as "non-theistic", which means it is not about the existence of a divinity in the usual meaning, so there could be atheistic and theistic satanists. Confucianism is kind of tricky because, if I recall right, it is mostly considered as a philosophy before a religion, even though it does include rituals and dogmas.
But I do agree with you, people will see the bad things coming from major and enshitified religions and ignore that other views, other options exist.
Buddhism technically does have gods, but they're not creators and are not all-powerful. Buddhism is mainly about understanding suffering, escaping the cycle of rebirth, and achieving enlightenment.
As for Satanism, allow me to correct one small detail. There are theistic forms, but they're not "Satanism". The Church of Satan, founded in 1966 was the first religion in history to explicitly organize itself under the name "Satanism". They deify the self, and there is a lot of psychodrama/ritual involved. It was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand but fused with ritual, symbolism, carnality, elitism, and psychodrama. Many LaVeyan Satanists consider this to be the one true form of Satanism. That's part of the reason The Church of Satan and Satanic Temple hate each other. (Fun fact, one of the founders of the Satanic Temple, formerly a LaVeyan Satanist, left because he said TST "isn't satanism". His name was Brian Werner in case you want to fact check that yourself.)
The Church of Satan are atheists. They might worship the self, but they don't think the self is a god. I don't have the patience if you want to split hairs in that, but it isn't a kind of theism as it's commonly understood. It's like saying that vegetarians eat meat because the edible part of a nut is called "meat".
That's exactly my point. They're atheists, but LaVeyan Satanism is still technically a religion. Religion does not necessarily require belief in a god. People get confused because the Church of Satan has never actively pursued formal legal recognition and public facing institutional status. That's just because they don't care what people think of them. Asking institutions for validation is very un-Satanic.
So do you lean more towards sacrificing still beating hearts to our father the Sun or are you more into hugging trees and dancing naked in the moonlight?
Let's not pretend your previous comment wasn't supposed to be a thinly veiled insult. If i'm not into supernatural gods then I must believe in some other woo-woo. And you phrased it in a delicately ridiculous way.
Let's not pretend your previous comment wasn't supposed to be a thinly veiled insult.
Well no, it was meant as a stupid joke, because let's face it; nobody sacrifices inca-style anymore and most people look at you weirdly if you mention naked dancing for your religion.
And you phrased it in a delicately ridiculous way.
Sort of. Pastafarianism is technically a religion, but it started as a satirical protest. I'm talking about religions which do not believe in a supernatural god.
People seem to think belief (or lack thereof) is a one dimensional line.
Theism - Agnosticism - Atheism
But it's more like the political compass with Theism - Atheism on one axis and Gnostism - Agnosticism on the other.
Theism/Atheism is a comment on whether you believe in god(s).
Gnostism/Agnosticism is a comment on how strongly you hold that belief (or lack of belief).
Are you absolutely certain there's no god? Then you're a gnostic atheist. Believe in god in sort of a wishy-washy way? Then you're an agnostic theist.
I'm a die hard atheist, but I also consider myself an agnostic. Because although there's no evidence of a god it's also impossible to prove a negative.
To be a gnostic atheist would actually take a leap of faith I'm not willing to risk.
Being honest about the uncertain nature of the mystical experiences of our world is a cowards move now? P sure that has been a marker of wisdom for many great thinkers in the western canon, eg well over 2000 years
Atheism is not about treating the nonexistence of gods as more certain than mathematical theorems. It's about recognizing that just because the theist ideas are put into words doesn't mean we should treat them as any closer to the truth then the virtually infinite potential strings of characters - meaningful or otherwise - that were not "fortunate enough" to be put to writing.
Agnosticism is the centrism of the theological world.
I believe it's impossible to prove the existence of two gods.
I'm a diagnostic.
I don't drink tea.
I'm an atheaist
I hate definite articles, I’m an a-the-ist
God, my mother is going to cackle at that one
Nice, tell her we all said hi! She'll know who you mean.
Ramen.
I prefer my men cooked , thank you
Have you felt the touch of His noodly appendage?
I'm tall. So according to Scripture: Not so much ... 😫
I mean you go girl more power to ya but it definitely isn't easier to explain pastafarianism than agnosticism to normies. Noone except programmers and other too online people even know it exists (yes i am also a terminally online freak relax peeps, real recognize real)
That's the neat part - you don't have to explain anything. You just assert the truthfulness of your religion and act offended when people point out how ridiculous it is.
Chad moves. Get theology-mogged you faithless heathencell
Just show them the graph. Can't argue with hard data.
Gotta love how one person writing a silly essay, which didn't have anything to do with atheism, just being a gaff, got turned into something very atheist and very serious.
Yeah pastafarianism is downright nostalgic and about what 20 years old now? That isn't very relevant anymore imho
IKR... and normies go worshiping 2k+ yo books... sheesh
Lol true
That said I just call myself an atheist and keep it simple
"I'm not religious"
Can't say I've ever had to explain anything more than that.
i prefer "i'm not superstitious", because that's what all religions are
Yeah, you can give up on superstition without giving up on religion.
So how will you teach little girls that they're the problem? How will you fondle little boys? How will you comitt a genocide to prove that your religion is more moral?
You can do all of those without having to actually believe in a specific religion. And the first two happen very easily without religion.
The last also happens in the absence of religious motivation quite a bit.
For real. Literally you can just say, "You are the problem. All girls and women are the problem." There's zero need to bring God into the equation to live a good, normal life.
Wtf are you talking about?
It's a sarcastic counter to the typical arguments that there's no inherent morality in human culture without religion. You know, people don't naturally have empathy, so they have to be taught to simulate empathy because they beleive they'll be judged when they die.
But what does that have to do with my comment?
If you're not religious, how else do you achieve any of the things I mentioned?
Generally in atheistic communities discourse around religion tends to be around where religion is used to replace science, often as a means of control of behavior and othering of out groups.
Speculating, that is likely because many people join these communities after being ostracized or faced abuse at the hands of people in the in-group so it makes sense that those are the aspects of religion that stand out most to them are those aspects.
There is a reason communities have had religious and spiritual practices for millennia, they do provide concrete benefits and social good in terms of community building and as forms of cultural preservation and providing support systems, both emotional and material. Those aspects tend not to be talked about in atheistic and skeptic communities. Not saying they're obligated to balance every negative comment with a positive one out of some misguided sense of fairness or balanced discourse but if you're interested in having some kind of well rounded view of the world, it is helpful to understand positive aspects of things you generally disagree with.
In this case, if someone is arguing religion be removed completely it is important to address the loss of positive aspects that keep people in a religion otherwise you're just going to be yelling at a wall and not actually doing anything or putting people off by assuming everyone who holds any kind of religious belief or engages in religious rituals is some kind of brainwashed cultist.
I didn't make any kind of argument though?
May your water always be salted
Ramen
It's not at all difficult to explain. "I don't believe in gods." Simple as that.
That’s atheism?
You either believe in god(s) or you don't. Orthogonally you might be sure of your beliefs or not.
Most self-described agnostics are agnostic atheists.
Jesus thank god, only one accurate comment in this thread on the difference between atheists and agnostics.
They are the answers to two different questions
There's also Ignosticism. They believe the question is underspecified because "God" isn't well-defined.
Exactly.
So you’re saying that agnosticism is a spectrum of atheism? That belief must be active - if you don’t specifically believe in a god(s) then you’re atheist, and agnosticism describes the level to which you hold that conviction? Seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. What about those who explicitly believe we can’t know if there’s a god (s)?
I’m interested in the source of your latter assertion as well, I’m taking it to be anecdotal?
No. I'm saying it's orthogonal, but that most self described agnostics are atheists. You can be agnostic and Christian, which, to a point, is even endorsed by the Catholic Church, but agnostic Christians usually just self label as Christian.
That’s strong agnosticism.
I've always thought of agnosticism as being "I don't believe in Gods," and atheism as being "Gods don't exist." It's like the difference between saying "I don't think that plan will work" vs "That plan won't work." One leaves room for you to be wrong, while the other doesn't.
Agnostics are "I don't know, probably not. It's impossible to know.".
Atheists are "I don't think there's a god, there's no proof".
Anti-theists are "there is definitely no god", and they have just as much evidence as believers.
Because I just discovered it on wikipedia I think is worth adding ‘Ignostic’ - the belief that frankly it’s pointless even discussing any of this unless you can first define a deity. Seems bloody sensible to me.
...who can't define a deity?
Ignosticism sometimes want you to also define what "to believe" means.
Why? You can see in the comment you replied to.
When you are ignostic it is interesting that you can also be, agnostic and Christian by some definitions and antitheist by other definitions... A schrodinger christian.
My hot take: If most atheists would use the same definition for God as most Christians do, they would consider themselves as Christians.
And most christians would be considered atheists if they used common atheist definition.
What is the definition for God most Christians use?
I'd like to hear this definition of god
There are also some subtle variations in agnosticism.
There's the soft variety that says "there is no proof that convinces me either way but I won't rule out that someone could come up with one".
There's the hard variety that says "I don't think it's possible to prove either way".
There's even a variety that says "it doesn't matter whether (a) god exists or not, hence there's no need for a proof".
But yeah, the core of agnosticism is that you don't believe the existence of (a) god has been conclusively proven or disproven and are unwilling to commit either way without that proof.
Seems like it’s gathered quite a wide definition but this is certainly how I’ve always understood it. If I was to ever start a cult I think it’d be based on militant agnostic fundamentalism.
Ah, interesting. Never heard the term "Anti-theist," but that does fit the bill a bit better.
My understanding was that atheism is the belief that there is no god(s), whereas to be agnostic is the absence of belief one way or another, i.e unable to prove or disprove existence of god(s). With this interpretation it's more scientifically rational (for whatever that's worth) to be agnostic than atheist.
The importance of such a distinction doesn't merit much fuss beyond freshman philosophy though since you get some atheists who are absolutely evil cunts and plenty of genuinely good people of almost all religions.
Atheism doesn't make any positive claims. It doesn't claim to know there is no god. That's anti-theist.
Atheism makes the negative claim of: none of your god claims has sufficient evidence, therefore I don't believe them.
Now, individual atheists themselves can say and do whatever. That's on them.
Mhmmm... not quite. To claim there is no god is gnostic (or strong) atheism.
Anti-Theism is the conviction that belief in a deity or religion is foolish and overall something bad for society.
Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that "there is no god"? I've never seen that, and it seems wrong.
Here's my counter reference:
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
It's more like active opposition to a theistic religions. For example many people think that "there's no gods, and theistic religions are harmful to our society"
This is very stupid way to put it. If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim. The claim is that there is a god or several, yet no proof to support that claim, which means that claim is plain made up shit and the logical conclusion "there's no gods"
See also Russell's teapot
If your claim is that "there's no gods," then you're making a claim. The assertion that there are affirmatively no gods at all is in fact just as empirically unfalsifiable as the assertion that there is definitely at least one god. In my opinion, the only reasonable position is to not make any claims about the presence or nonpresence of deities in the first place.
Russel's Teapot is fun, but I prefer Starman's copy of Treasure Planet on DVD. Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don't have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim.
There are no proof of god, there's nothing that suggests that there is a god or gods. There's only claims from some people that they've spoken with one. It's rather like sasquatch and loch Ness monster. It's the only logical conclusion that there's no gods
This funny exercise makes the assumption that I'm too lazy to come visit your house to see if you have that DVD. As soon as I come grab a cup of coffee and a nice piece of sweet pastry with you and check your film collection, I'll see if you were lying or not.
However, maybe this is the time you tell me that you borrowed the film to your cousin who lives abroad rather than admitting the lie. That'd be what Christians have been doing the past 2 millennias as we have made new scientific discoveries that contradicted priests talks about their DVD collections.
You have no evidence of no god.
You could disprove specific religions making specific claims, sure. But to say there is no god anywhere in the universe of any sort? That is not a claim you can prove.
Now if you want to reframe antitheists as anti-specific theology on Earth, then what you say makes sense. But you can't both propose a new definition mid-conversation, and then argue that my statement that was based on the first definition is stupid because you're using the second.
The claim is not "there is no god".
The claim is that there is a god, or multiples of them
There's no need to claim that there is no god? It doesn't make any sense to try to prove something like that. A claim requires evidence, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.
I don't know that to tell you. This seems internally inconsistent.
Even easier to explain than Pastafarianism though.
Yeah but you’d be surprised how people would hate you more for believing in nothing than believing in a bowl of pasta… even if it’s a fake believe in pasta that symbolizes nothing.
Hate is hater's problem, not mine
They have a way of making it your problem.
Or simply assume you didn't suffer enough yet. Because everyone who strongly suffers will start praying, right?
Just because i don't believe in gods, doesn't mean i believe in nothing. That's a common misconception that the religious like to promote.
There is a shade of meaning between “I don't believe” and “I don’t know how a person/I could determine that they/I affirmatively believe.”
I personally would interpret the former as non religious and the latter as agnostic, but it probably differs from person to person. Especially because non religious is often used to describe people who do not practice a religion, but may well still believe in it (though that would be non practicing for me).
Yeah, I think it boils down to this.
"Do you believe in a god or gods?"
"Yes" - Theist
"No" - Atheist
"I don't know." - Agnostic
Of course, many people would admit they aren't certain for yes/no, and so might qualify as an agnostic theist/atheist depending on how strict you are with confidence. Some agnostics will be more rigid and say the answer is inherently unknowable. Regardless, it still seems a lot simpler than having to explain a satirical religion you are pretending to believe in to someone.
But if we acknowledge that, how is OP gonna get away with posting this 2009-ass r/atheism meme?
Some religious people still have a problem with that, but this explanation seems to work for me.
Me: "Do you believe in Ra, the sun god?"
Them: "No"
Me: "Do you believe in Zeus?"
Them: "No"
Me: "What about Odin, or Quetzacotl, or Shiva?"
Them: "No, I only believe in the one true god who--"
Me: "So, you're basically almost as much of an Athiest as me. Throughout history there have been many cultures who have believed in their gods. You don't believe in any of those gods, and neither do I. The only difference is that there's one god that you believe in that I don't. You're 99.9% towards being fully Athiest, you just have one remaining god that you still believe in."
This also helps when they start giving reasons for why what they believe is real because it's in their bible. You can ask if they've read all the holy books of the Aztecs or the Hindus. Why would their holy book be true and not those other holy books? If we're going to say something is true because it's in a holy book, then you also have to believe the books that talk about Thor and Odin. If they start saying that everything around was created by god, again, which god? The Hindus have a story for how their various gods created everything, so do the Egyptians. Basically every religion has that story. It's also useful to ask them what they'd believe if they'd grown up in India, or in ancient Egypt or in Denmark 1000 years ago since almost everybody gets their religion from their upbringing.
I think that's completely missing the point of people's faith lmao.
What point is that, laughing your ass off?
Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It's just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn't incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one's religious views can be brought into question, it doesn't really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They're saying "There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in", despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn't there, but that they're perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it's absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it's perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don't even believe that this "Lord Vishnu" exists. It's not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it's only their god that exists.
If there's a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it's a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that's a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don't have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn't come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don't exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don't believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it's different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn't mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn't been my experience with religious people at least :)
That's the common Ricky Gervais answer. I find it easier to just say "No." If they want to take it further, I walk away.
This was my reasoning for a while, I believed in all gods equally and that amount was zero. I still believe in them all equally, that amount just isn't zero anymore.
RAmen
You can just call yourself an atheist. Hell, if you call yourself a pastafarian you are basically an anti-theist.
Atheist and agnostic are not synonyms.
The words do not mean the same thing, but they often refer to the same people.
That is, most self-labeled atheists would be best described as "agnostic atheist" and most self-labeled agnostics would also be best described as "agnostic atheist."
No, but if you also find all religions audacious and absurd, then wouldn't atheist be a more accurate term anyway?
They are terms for different axes of belief.
Atheist and theist refer to whether someone believes in any kind of theism. Anti-theism and pro-theism would take it further in terms of whether you want to promote or reduce the amount of theism.
Agnostic and gnostic merely indicate a level of certainty in any belief. Its extremely rare that people are perfectly neutral between atheism and theism. They usually lean in one direction or another, so agnostics are either agnostic theists or agnostic atheist. They are usually the latter, as they are also often atheists trying to minimize the social costs of being a non-believer.
all agnostics are atheists because they dont believe in god
That is not true. There are gnostic athiests and agnostic deists.
that's reddit hogwash , you believe god exists or you dont and that's enough to determine your atheism for as much as words matter at all (and honestly they dont, you dont need a word to describe not believing in astrology)
I'm anti-theist and I want to slay all gods.
I used to be a pastafarian, now I'm a dudeist.
Splitter!
As a discordian, I'll fight you until I get bored.
OK, that's enough for today.
Why agnostic? Like... If there's no proof, why believe in the existence of a deity at all?
I was an agnostic for a very long time.
My main view of things - I couldn't know if there was a god or if there wasn't. But all that ultimate judgement shit never made any sense for me. If you're just behaving decently because of fear of ultimate judgment, then you're not a decent person. Ok if god would want me not to be an asshole, I'd need to be that out of my free will. And if a god demanded adherence to some random rules out of the blue - that god wouldn't have a moral compass and I wouldn't want to have to do anything with them in my life, being smitten down at the end would have been a consequence for me anyways.
I just want to be no asshole. So the question of there's a god or not. I don't care. God is irrelevant.
Thus: agnostic
I started staying I'm an atheist somw time ago, as that's just quicker and I can go by without explaining.
Still - if there's a god around, which is possible but improbable - I'm making sure I make fucking good use of the free will they gave me.
The issue I had with calling myself "agnostic" is that most Christians think of it as "undecided" (which it isn't), so they'll try to convert you. If you tell them you're an atheist, they're more likely to leave you alone (in my experience).
Most Christians think athiests just hate god. Basing your stance around irrational people is, itself, irrational.
I don't. I'm still an agnostic. I just don't tell people that if I think they won't understand and it isn't worth the time explaining it to them.
For me personally, atheism is saying 'there is nothing more to the universe or reality, what you see is what you get' which is extremely pretentious. Agnosticism is admitting to the possibility that there's something going on here, but we don't know and would likely be incapable of understanding what it is.
Atheism: I don't believe in the existence of god(s)
Agnosticism: I haven't seen any proof for god thus can't believe in one
It's the same thing really, but without the "negative" connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists. "See, I'm not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I'm not to be expelled from this community as a heretic"
I identity with this. When I was younger I identified as agnostic, as I saw it as a more socially acceptable option than atheism which allowed me to not have to pretend to be religious.
But I've identified as atheist for many years now. In my case by the time I did, everyone of significance in my life was nonreligious.
This, basically. At least that's how I used it. As a kid living in the bible belt, admitting you were an atheist was, in their eyes, literally no different than being a cannibalistic devil worshipper. Agnostic was easier for them to swallow (albeit because odds are high that most of them didn't even know what it meant, and figured it was some sect of Christianity they were unfamiliar with).
When I got older, and escaped the institutional bigotry woven into nearly every facet of society down in the bible belt...the lovely place where our biology teacher also headed the bible club and refused to teach evolution yet somehow still had a job as a biology teacher in the public school system, as a small example...that was when I finally gained the confidence to self-describe as an atheist.
Atheists and Agnostics would obviously disagree. There's a core philosophical difference between being convinced in the negative and being unconvinced in the affirmative.
That said, what are the consequences of being a Theist, an Atheist, or an Agnostic? I might argue that Theists and Atheists have history of leveraging their confidence into an active policy of discrimination and bigotry. Whether you're a Chinese Communist cracking down on under-18 church attendance or an Israeli Zionist conducting a pogrom against Palestinians, there's a habit of imbuing your personal beliefs with political teeth.
The flip side of this being, "I'm not expelling you from the community for excessive display of religious ferver".
It's easier to sympathize with avowed Atheists in nations where atheism is a disenfranchised minority. But as soon as you give someone like Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris an ounce of political capital, they start cheer leading a genocide.
That, I think, is a real tangible difference. Agnostics tend not to begrudge other ideologies in the same way.
Who says that atheism involves being convinced of the negative? I'm an atheist because I'm not a theist. I'm agnostic because I'm neither convinced of the negative nor the affirmative. Both labels apply to me.
The textbook definition: disbelief in the existence of God or gods.
That doesn't logically follow. You're ignoring the third option of simply not having an opinion.
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact.
That's very different from a strict disbelief.
Disbelief just means not believing something. Not believing that a claim is true is not the same as believing that that claim is false. A lack of belief in any deities is not the same as a belief in a lack of any deities.
The prefix a- means without. If one is without theism, then they are a-theist. There is no third option. You have theism or you don't. Having no belief one way or the other means you don't have it.
you can suspend judgement. that's the reasonable thing to do. it's literally the middle ground between accepting and rejecting a claim.
Disbelief means rejecting it, not having no thoughts or opinions on it
Also, it often means "on," "in," or "at" (e.g., abed, ashore) or indicates a state of being (e.g., ablaze). It can also mean "in a manner" (e.g., aloud)
But now you're getting into etamology, not colloquial application.
Atheism, at it's heart, is an ideology. Agnosticism isn't.
You'd agree with more atheists than you'd think with that comment.
So aliens.
I mean... No? Maybe? Certainly not aliens as in biologically evolved creatures from another planet are involved, what is so hard to understand about that? Alien as in something completely foreign and unrecognizable to the human brain, sure.
I've always considered agnostics to be atheists who just don't wanna debate. At least that's why I used to call myself an agnostic when I was younger.
i call myself a devout agnostic. the justaposition of those words is inherently absurd since part of agnosticism and identifying as such is believing there is value to studying theology even if you yourself don't believe the theologies you're studying because ultimately prior to colonization, religion was how groups of people encoded and passed along their wisdom. however saying "devout agnostic" throws people enough off balance enough to introduce them to these concepts since so many say with their whole chest that they're something when traditionally these terms have meant something else to the people who use them.
for example, an astounding (at least to me) number of people say quakers and unitarians aren't christians. when you dig down on this you often find that this position is rooted in a believe (both positive and negative) that the fundamental mechanism and experience of christianity is trauma. however, when you look at the broader world of religion, you find that that's mostly only Christian denominations rooted in the theologies of the roman empire such as roman catholicism and the various european orthodoxies like Greek and russian. however, the oldest denomination, Ethiopian Orthodox, would i think to the people who say quakers and unitarians aren't christians, seem very unchistian. for that matter, i think so would Native America Christianity, Oriental Orthodox, and Armenianism. (fun fact, the Unitarian church is rooted in Oriental Orthodox, which is either the second or third oldest christian denomination)
Devotion to agnosticism is beautiful.
To me, it means I will passionately defend another person's right to remain "undecided" on all things spiritual.
It can be surprisingly effective in some circles.
i will also strongly defend their right to have faith in something that gives them the strength to get through this messed wp world. i will simply brook no bullshit from anyone who use their theological positions for control, and that includes authoritarian atheists.
But agnostics don't believe in the existence of a deity. Are you maybe confusing it with deism?
You can be an agnostic deist. Agnostic just means you have no firm belief. Most people who identify as "nones" in polls are technically agnostic, even if they personally believe in a higher power. Its a lack of certainty.
Most atheists are also technically agnostic atheists. A gnostic athiest would be someone who holds the absence of any higher being or spirituality as an almost axiomatic belief. Though they merely can be so certain that the small chance they're wrong seems irrelevant to them.
For simplicity, I've always explained agnosticism as the belief that "I don't know and neither do you".
Agnosticism isn't a lack of certainty; it's a lack of knowledge. I am agnostic about many, many things. For example, Bigfoot. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of Bigfoot (i.e., I have no knowledge of the existence of Bigfoot), so I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm the same way with the existence of gods.
Eh, I think there's a decent semantic dispute for it. It's of course dependent on your definition of deity and is mostly an exercise of pedantry. However, with the size of the universe I think there's a pretty decent chance that there exists an intellectual being that could be interpreted as being god-like to the human perspective.
Now I'm not making claims that this proposed being has ever had anything to do with humans, nor are they responsible for any universal creation. Just that the universe is big enough for the existence of something significantly more advanced than humans. That being said, the size of the universe that allows for the possibility of this proposal also makes it possible existence mostly pedantic.
We might be early, from how i understand the age of the universe. If we don’t great filter ourselves out of existence soon we may become the elder species. The universe is remarkably young
Atheism just means without theism. If you aren't theist, you're atheist. Agnostic describes the position of lacking belief one way or the other. A lack of belief is not the same as a belief in a lack. The vast majority of atheists are agnostic atheists, because the belief that there are positively no deities is just as baseless as the claim that there are deities.
Theism is belief in gods; atheism is the opposite of that: non-belief in gods.
Gnosticism is knowledge of gods; agnosticism is the opposite of that: no knowledge of gods. (There is also a religious movement called gnosticism. That doesn't relate here.)
The first is about belief and the second is about knowledge.
These are not incompatible. You can believe in something and claim to have knowledge of it (gnostic theism) or you can believe and claim to not have knowledge of it (agnostic theism). I have encountered Christians of both varieties.
For atheists, many (perhaps most) claim to have no knowledge of gods (agnostic atheism), and some claim that gods certainly do not exist (gnostic atheism). The latter demonstrate that the Christian exist, because logically an omniscient and omnipotent God can't also be omni-benevolent, since suffering obviously exists.
I think we largely agree. Your comment is essentially a restatement of my point. Theism is a belief that they are gods, and atheism is a lack of belief that there are gods. That lack of belief can either come from a positive belief that there are no gods, or a withholding of belief one way or the other.
Speaking about myself specifically, it is equally untrue to say that I believe there are gods as it is to say that I believe there are no gods. The former means I am an atheist, and the latter means I am an agnostic. Both labels apply to me.
Atheism is just another belief
Reading comprehension ain't your strong suit, is it?
What's the proof that there is no deity at all?
I rest my case
It's impossible to prove a negative, but if you were as clever as you think you are, you'd already know that
I'm not even going to bother with the whole "burden of proof" thing because I don't think you're capable of understanding it
It's funny how you act like the stereotypical arrogant atheist who thinks of himself better because of his believe and everyone else is just too dumb to understand.
There are still so many wonderous mystical things left. A lot of them we will never be able to understand because they are so much bigger than us
It's impossible to prove the existence of a higher deity as well because it's part of its definition to not be proveable/observable/understandable to our minds.
Not everyone
You.
If this is you, consider joining or supporting The Satanic Temple. This is why they exist, and they do more meaningful and practical good than a meme religion.
One of the core tenants of Pastafarianism is being too lazy or broke (or both) to actually contribute
"We don't like religious symbols in public space, so let's put more of these, yay!"
"Proselytism is bad, so we need to recruit more people to fight it."
"The guy at the top is not a Nazi anymore, so it's fine."
Yeah, they try to put non-religious things instead like cool Dante's inferno statues. End result is that the religious symbols are banned, or if they aren't, that there are other non-religious symbols around them. As much as they are a religion legally, they are atheists and their symbols are not religious, just fancy branding.
Yeah, what's weird about that? Fire is bad so we need to recruit more firefighters to fight it. TST does not proselytize, as they don't try to convert you into any religion. The are just an NGO.
They are religious, because Satanism is a religion. I am a member of TST and a religious Satanist. This is covered in the FAQ on TST's website.
TST is an atheistic religion. That is not a contradiction because you don't need to believe in gods to have a religion (see also Buddhism).
They did try to put a baphomet statue in front of a 10 commandments monument in Arkansas. They are fighting for a plurality of religion, not secularism.
If I wanted to contribute to a secular cause, I would much rather contribute to a secular organization to begin with.
But the only times you hear of them is when people are trying to get more folk implied (or when they send a lawsuit, but that's an other story). TST plays the card of a non profit when they don't want to be associated with religious weirdos, and the card of religion when they want a special treatment. In the end it's a knockoff religion that hijacked the name "satanism" while replicating what they denounce of christians.
It's much closer to putting up advertisement against advertisement.
That's not true. It's a bunch of for-profit organizations coupled with a recognized nonprofit church so they can be exempted from taxation. See here : https://the.satanic.wiki/index.php/The_Satanic_Wiki . Also, as a supposedly non-profit org, they do not disclose their financial information, which is usually a big red flag.
Yes, and that's plain old recrutiment/advertising of their cause. Proselytization refers to trying to convert someone to a religion, which they don't do.
Correct.
Yes, so an NGO. Where did I say they are a non-profit?
They do claim it's a religion. It is legally a religion. When they are recruiting, it is proselytism. Also, proselytism is part of the definition of a church in most countries, that is why, for instance, the Church of Satan is not legally a church in the US, because they do not proselytize. By their own saying and by the government, TST is a religion and they do proselytize.
You said it is just an NGO. I mean, yeah, but you could say that about pretty much anything. But clearly there is something more to it than the average NGO, with them being both a church and a couple for-profit organizations.
I've never heard of TST proselytizing. When and where have you seen this?
Please post evidence for this.
The US government is pretty hands-off when it comes to deciding what is and isn't a religion. It's that whole First Amendment thing.
Well, here and now, with the original comment asking to join them. I do have some anecdotes but they aren't really relevant here, I guess.
Here is the CRA rule and the IRS one
Both state that "advancement of religion" is a requirement, which is quite close to proselytizing (promoting and manifesting religious belief).
The thing is that both countries were funded by christian people, so their definition of religion is biased towards it, so you can't really have an individualistic religion like satanism be recognized.
We can also note that Canada is discriminating against non-theistic religions and asks quite explicitly to "support and maintain missions and missionaries to propagate the faith". Canada is still a religious state, after all.
Someone missed the point
Honestly, “it’s easier than explaining” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here 😅
I serve the Omnissiah.
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh…
Blood for the blood god.
Good time to point out there is a huge difference between being agnostic and agnostcism. One is a literal state of being, not specific to religion. The other is an ideology toward "deities" based around being agnostic in the topic.
It's just how -ic and -ism be. Most people that say they are agnostic do not follow agnosticism, even if they may share some of its very widely ranged ideas and concepts.
Richard Dawkins referred to himself as a nontheist as a better term then atheist in one of his books. He said there is no such thing as an agnostic, either you believe or you don't believe. If undeniable proof of the existence of a god comes along and you refuse to believe then you are just a fool.
Eh, the converse isn't true. I can be on the fence on whether deities exist. That's different from being convinced that they don't.
It's that muddy middle that has many atheists describing atheism as "hard" and "soft". If the answer to the question "do you believe in a god or gods" is anything other than yes, you're an atheist.
Atheism is an ism attached to the idea of atheos.
All isms are idealogies attached to their leading premise. Atheism is no exception to any other word in this regard.
It is the people's poor understanding of language but allure to social labels that has caused the word, which is otherwise very clear, to now be seen on a spectrum. Like how people now refer to LLMs as AI, for lack of understanding the fundamentals of the terminology first.
There are those that misunderstand it to mean a-theism instead of atheos-ism. Which is madd
No. We have preexisting terms for this and atheism is, at best, a distant association for its crossover similarities of that statement. You are simply describing the state of being nontheistic, no isms necessarily attached.
There are many isms that fit into your statement by being nontheistic positions. Atheism is just one of many. However a person can be nontheistic and not adhere to any of them, since every individual is capable of rejecting any ideology. Those that don't even know about the idea of deities aren't even capable of aligning to theism or atheism, for example.
No. You're just at different levels of not believing. "While I know Jesus existed I'm just not convinced he was the son of a god" and "There is no way any god exists" will both get you to Hell according to the Bible, or beheaded for heresy depending where and when you are.
Well, the opinion of Christians on my eligibility to burn in hell isn't my yardstick, thank god.
An ideology that asserts itself without knowledge is, by definition, a belief.Tbis is why, in science, we talk of theory and not belief. It acknowledges that gaps of knowledge are filled by assumption based on likelihood, but fact is never asserted until a bridge of knowledge is completely constructed.
Dawkins refers to the theism of our species. However he knows as much of our reality as anyone else. Very, very little. But take comfort in knowing that science, at least philosophically, would pursue what is beyond a deity should one ever be known. Or none of this is real. You don't actually know.
I tell them I'm a SubGenius and give them a pamphlet about our great guru J. R. "Bob" Dobbs!
PRAISE "BOB"!
So you DO believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! :D
As in the R.E.M. song: "boobs are my religion"
Now i can't unhear that.
Not complaining.
.. and piracy! yeah
Sithrak is the only one true god.
This is very offensive to me. I'm Eastern Orthodox, that's not spaghetti that's lo-mein with fish balls. Heathen degenerate.
Yarrrgh!
Spaghnostic
I share my faith equally between all known and unknown deities so my faith in any particular one is quite limited.
im torn between tst and secular buddhism. Luckily they are not mutually exclusive or demand they are the only way.
I've encountered several TST members who also practice Buddhism. It seems to be the religion that overlaps the most. It seems odd to me, because I thought Buddhism rejected the material world while TST embraces it, but I'm probably missing something.
embracing the material world is a different satanism. tst has the seven tenents which are mostly about human rights.
How are those not embracing the material world? The 5th tenet makes it explicitly materialist.
The leaders aren't sitting around meditating. They're in court, doing material things.
I apologize. When you said embrace the material world I thought you meant some of the form of satanism that is kinda hedonistic. Its an athiest religion so does not recognize an actual metaphysical world and does focus in how to be in the actual material world. I view much of the tenets being about the cognitive/mental part of our existence as opposed to the experiential material. For me buddhism is more about that mental type of existence. So tenent 1 completely overlaps as compassion, loving kindness, is what is being fostered. 2 and 3 and even 4 and 5 are kinda funny as in some ways given buddhism would kind of agree but believes self is a kind of illusion. 6 and 7 I would say fit well with 7 sorta a reflection back on 1.
And the piracy, of course.
I believe in all the Gods
I've decided to worship the reconstructed proto-indo-european pantheon.
OG gods for the win!
Why get all fancy with the rules and names and shit? I just worship the straight-up sun. Maybe the occasional volcano. REAL OG shit.
Them too!.... looks around...
...there is older
much older
All gods matter
yes!
....also no gods matter
Vacuous truth FTW
Vacuous? Hardly, see atheism
How does atheism make our statements any less vacuous?
I list myself as Bokononist. I've been part of many granfalloons, but I've yet to find my karass
I remember watching an interview with a mushroom man, he posited that humans have receptors built in for magic mushrooms because humans used to have an organ that provided hallucinogenic euphoria. This allowed humans to survive in groups without killing eachother, then religion eventually evolved socially and replaced it. Now that we have technology and modern governments thats slowly replacing religion.
It was a neat idea anyways. Its also neat to think about how religions could be a form of evolution, even though they arent technically biological changes.
If you're into that kind of speculation, you might enjoy "The Cosmic Serpent" by Jeremy Narby.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Have you ever done mushrooms? This theory makes no sense.
I'd rather trip tbh
God I swear even here atheism is more like a cult. They can't even help themselves from saying, "well you must not know what being agnostic is." I absolutely appreciate you being agnostic & it is unfortunate that more people can't accept that.
I mean is there a word for someone who accepts the possibility of a god but there's absolutely no way it's the Christian or any of the other established gods?
Yeah, it's called being agnostic. There is nothing wrong with it & I honestly think it makes more sense than claiming to know there is no God(s) or supernatural power. Heck, even Quantum Physics continually makes me consider the idea that we exist in infinite universes simultaneously, or that we could be 7 inception layers deep in some advanced computer simulation.
Personally, I say "there is no god", because I also say "there is no pink space unicorn hiding behind Pluto". I don't know either for sure, but if a kid asks me and I start humming and hawing whether there might be pink space unicorns behind Pluto, then that sends entirely the wrong message.
So, the difference between agnosticism and atheism is pure semantics to me. I do not claim to know that there is no god. But I assume there is no god until proven otherwise.
Do you have proof it's not an established god? Do you have proof that any of the current representations are accurate or inaccurate to the original god being referenced? Saying it can't be an established god is as much of a commitment of faith as saying it is a specific god.
They're an agnostic atheist. And which of those words they use to describe themselves effects people's opinions of atheism and atheists. If I want to criticize them for their cowardice I'm going to.
The sooner religion and spirituality dies the better. Its mass psychosis.
I'm willing to bet they only know Christianity and think all religions are like Christianity, just with a different looking skydaddy.
To be fair that's most religion.
Its not, but thanks for playing
Yes it is, look it up
Damn, that's a real convincing argument you got there.
Any cursory understanding of world religions and theology will tell you that this "Sky Daddy" view of divinity is incredibly rare. Not only because not all religions are monotheistic, but even among monotheists, conceptions of God are incredibly varied and diverse.
I think what irks me about this kind of 'New Atheism' common in Western internet spaces (which frankly, I thought was a decade+ out of vogue by now) is that it isn't simply a lack of God belief, but a specific disbelief in the God of American Evangelical Protestantism that somehow manages to retain so much of the philosophical underpinnings of the thing supposedly being rejected.
When Sam Harris famously said, "Islam is the motherload of bad ideas" he's rooting that position in, not only War-on-terror Imperial chauvanism and racism, but also on the very Protestant idea that right beliefs are what bring about salvation.
Of course, the secular version of this idea eschews God. But it replaces faith with belief in so-called Western Values, and Salvation with 'backward' nations of the global south being enfolded into the sphere of western liberal hegemony.
lol nope that's a sky daddy
So, when a Shinto practitioner worships the animist spirit which he believes resides within Mt. Fuji, so that the crops he's growing at its base might yield a fruitful harvest, that's the same thing as "Sky Daddy" theology?
When an adivasi Hindu gets small pox and she believes that the affliction is her communing with the goddess Sītala, is that the same thing as "Sky Daddy" theology?
When a Wiccan performs a ritual to the Horned God who is a god of hunting, the underworld, (and is himself a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people) so they might have a successful fishing trip. Is that "Sky Daddy" theology?
When a Muslim theologian says that, "God is completely different from whatever comes to your mind concerning Him" and that the nature of God is incomprehensible to human minds. Is that "Sky Daddy" theology?
I looked it up like you told me to. And none of this sounds very "Sky Daddy" to me
Yes
It really, really isn't. Most people (think they) know Christianity and then pattern match everything else to it, instead of looking at other religions as arising from completely different frameworks, with very different philosophical assumptions about the world.
They're still absurd
Out of curiosity, when you say "all religion", does that include the many atheistic religions?
Oh look, the old "aThEiSm Is A rElIgIoN" trope.
Seriously, you guys need some new material. If Jesus were real he'd be looking for new writers.
I never said atheism is a religion. There are many religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Satanism which don't believe in god but are still considered religions.
I'm aware of how my original comment came across so I should probably specify that I myself do not believe in a supernatural god.
Buddhism can definitely be theistic. Satanism is defined as "non-theistic", which means it is not about the existence of a divinity in the usual meaning, so there could be atheistic and theistic satanists. Confucianism is kind of tricky because, if I recall right, it is mostly considered as a philosophy before a religion, even though it does include rituals and dogmas.
But I do agree with you, people will see the bad things coming from major and enshitified religions and ignore that other views, other options exist.
Buddhism technically does have gods, but they're not creators and are not all-powerful. Buddhism is mainly about understanding suffering, escaping the cycle of rebirth, and achieving enlightenment.
As for Satanism, allow me to correct one small detail. There are theistic forms, but they're not "Satanism". The Church of Satan, founded in 1966 was the first religion in history to explicitly organize itself under the name "Satanism". They deify the self, and there is a lot of psychodrama/ritual involved. It was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand but fused with ritual, symbolism, carnality, elitism, and psychodrama. Many LaVeyan Satanists consider this to be the one true form of Satanism. That's part of the reason The Church of Satan and Satanic Temple hate each other. (Fun fact, one of the founders of the Satanic Temple, formerly a LaVeyan Satanist, left because he said TST "isn't satanism". His name was Brian Werner in case you want to fact check that yourself.)
The Church of Satan are atheists. They might worship the self, but they don't think the self is a god. I don't have the patience if you want to split hairs in that, but it isn't a kind of theism as it's commonly understood. It's like saying that vegetarians eat meat because the edible part of a nut is called "meat".
That's exactly my point. They're atheists, but LaVeyan Satanism is still technically a religion. Religion does not necessarily require belief in a god. People get confused because the Church of Satan has never actively pursued formal legal recognition and public facing institutional status. That's just because they don't care what people think of them. Asking institutions for validation is very un-Satanic.
You're right, I got mixed up. It is both non-theistic and officially atheistic. I haven't read about it in a long time.
So do you lean more towards sacrificing still beating hearts to our father the Sun or are you more into hugging trees and dancing naked in the moonlight?
What?
Well, you weren't into supernatural gods, so I figured you might be into natural gods ;P can't get more natural than the Sun and nature.
Let's not pretend your previous comment wasn't supposed to be a thinly veiled insult. If i'm not into supernatural gods then I must believe in some other woo-woo. And you phrased it in a delicately ridiculous way.
Well no, it was meant as a stupid joke, because let's face it; nobody sacrifices inca-style anymore and most people look at you weirdly if you mention naked dancing for your religion.
Yes I'm well aware, this was intentional.
Dodged the question without even first processing it.
Ninja shit.
You mean like Pastafarian?
Sort of. Pastafarianism is technically a religion, but it started as a satirical protest. I'm talking about religions which do not believe in a supernatural god.
Eastern religions like Buddhism?
Buddhism, Jainism, some forms of Taoism, Secular Humanism, Satanism etc.
Secular humanism isn't a religion. "Secular" means "non-religious".
Just out of curiosity, who is this question directed at?
The person who posted the meme.
And you expect them to answer questions about the philosophical beliefs of the artist?
It’s a philosophical meme. I’ll try not to assume people stand by what they post next time.
Good idea.
Agnosticism is weird. It's just atheism for cowards.
People seem to think belief (or lack thereof) is a one dimensional line.
Theism - Agnosticism - Atheism
But it's more like the political compass with Theism - Atheism on one axis and Gnostism - Agnosticism on the other.
Theism/Atheism is a comment on whether you believe in god(s).
Gnostism/Agnosticism is a comment on how strongly you hold that belief (or lack of belief).
Are you absolutely certain there's no god? Then you're a gnostic atheist. Believe in god in sort of a wishy-washy way? Then you're an agnostic theist.
I'm a die hard atheist, but I also consider myself an agnostic. Because although there's no evidence of a god it's also impossible to prove a negative.
To be a gnostic atheist would actually take a leap of faith I'm not willing to risk.
Being honest about the uncertain nature of the mystical experiences of our world is a cowards move now? P sure that has been a marker of wisdom for many great thinkers in the western canon, eg well over 2000 years
Atheism is not about treating the nonexistence of gods as more certain than mathematical theorems. It's about recognizing that just because the theist ideas are put into words doesn't mean we should treat them as any closer to the truth then the virtually infinite potential strings of characters - meaningful or otherwise - that were not "fortunate enough" to be put to writing.
Agnosticism is the centrism of the theological world.
Agnosticism is just saying "I don't know". If you know that gods don't exist, I'd like to hear about how you got this knowledge.
There is a world of difference between "I don't know" and "I'm not 100% sure because we can't ever be 100% sure of anything".
Agnostics are just people who are willing to admit when they don't know something. It's a quality that a lot of people seem to lack.
So you're atheist? You have unwavering faith in the unknown then. No proof, just feelings and opinions. Just like theists.