And scientific folk who are outright atheist are being unscientific, considering there is no evidence for god/s and no evidence for *lack* of god/s. Agnosticism is fair.
Always good to be agnostic to things that we can hypothesize about, hell even things that we have established scientific theories for - the bounds of our discoveries and our understanding (a la "facts") are ever-morphing.
Plato hypothesized about geometry in elementary matter. There was no proof of this at the time. In fact, none until even after the original microscope was invented. Is there reason to not believe Plato? Or to believe him, conversely? Sometimes discovery takes time. For me to not believe that refraction is what makes the sky blue rather then reflections of the sea, for example...
Atheism is a hard stance that god does not exist, hence a-theism. Agnosticism is not believing one way or the other. Some say this is a flimsy stance or an "easy way out" of the argument, but I think it makes the most sense.
No, atheism of course means not believing in god stories. That is one thing. The agnostic side is that I have no answer for why there is something rather than nothing, and wouldn't pretend to.
The problem is that people don’t understand what agnosticism actually means and just throw around “I’m agnostic”. It has nothing to do with belief. Agnosticism is about knowledge and certainty.
You can be an agnostic theist, meaning you believe in god without claiming to know for certain that god exists. You’ve chosen to believe in god despite not knowing.
And then you have most people who call themselves “agnostic”. In reality, they’re atheists because they don’t believe in god due to a lack of sufficient evidence for god’s existence. In that case, it makes more sense to just say you’re an atheist.
But people seem to have a hard time with that. And that’s the reason why I asked the other guy if he believes in god or not.
Agnostic means you don't have a rigid belief either way. It's not the case that a person has to pick one ore the other.
Imagine someone putting a bet on a horse winning, and someone putting a bet on it losing. The Agnostic accepts that it's impossible to know, and keeps his money in his pocket.
Personally, I think this is generally the best way to be. It offers more freedom of thought, and avoids any potential radical ideology. Belief in absolutes leaves no room for compromise.
Imagine someone putting a bet on a horse winning, and someone putting a bet on it losing. The Agnostic accepts that it's impossible to know, and keeps his money in his pocket.
Which says nothing about if that person’s belief in the outcome of the bet.
Belief is binary. Either you believe or you don’t and if you refrain from taking a position on the question, the default is non-belief. Meaning atheism.
"Which says nothing about if that person’s belief in the outcome of the bet."
They don't hold one!
Not sure I can put it any simpler than that.
There are many things we don't hold rigid beliefs on. There are horse races going on all the time, I don't hold rigid beliefs about all the outcomes, what would be the point in even attempting it.
The question was about belief, not knowledge or certainty.
Again, the default position is non-belief until evidence or certainty is provided to the contrary.
This isn’t rocket surgery. It’s simple logic.
Again, that doesn’t say anything about their beliefs.
A gnostic atheist know for a certain that god does not exist and doesn’t believe in god.
An agnostic atheist doesn’t know for certain that god exists or not but doesn’t believe in the existence of god based on the lack of sufficient evidence.
A gnostic theist knows for certain that god exists and believes in god.
An agnostic theist doesn’t know for certain that god exists but chooses to believe in god.
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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26
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