Maybe yes, maybe not? How about giving you nothing and say - it is a million dollars. Maybe yes, maybe not? Religion is the stupidest, most dangerous idea humans ever invented.

The term "agnostic" was coined by Thomas Huxley, aka Darwin's Bulldog. He defined it as A-gnosis, or without knowledge. An Agnostic therefore lacks knowledge of god. By the same reasoning, an A-theist is without belief in god. I am an agnostic atheist, as I lack any knowledge of a god and therefore lack a belief in god.

The difference between an atheist and agnostic is how much fear they have.... Atheists know there is no reason to fear because gods are just fairy tales while agnostics are afraid the god they were brainwashed into believing as a child might actually be real... Rid yourself of the fear and you won't be so cranky....

Unfortunately semantics gets in the way of informed and constructive debate from time to time. I usually give those situations a wide berth as it is of no real interest to me unless there is any new content presented.

The term Agnostic applies to many things. My question to myself then becomes, “Am I agnostic regarding sprites, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns, unicorns, Santa, the Easter bunny and/or the tooth fairy?” I think the truth is very few of us are truly agnostic about anything. Atheism therefore, being lack of a belief in someone else’s predudices, doesn’t equate to itself being a belief.

It all gets a bit C17th Protestant/Catholic here from time to time, and that didn’t end well! Tomate- o, Tomart-o? Just sayin’

Bit of a long post but I kept going because you make some good points. I have noticed that there is a militant atheist mindset here from time to time so best to move along from those discussions as you would JW or Sunni Islam.

1): The site advertises itself as a meeting place for agnostics, ATHEISTS, etc, etc. I put atheists in blocks as I can only assume you missed it.

2): The atheist position is simple - they, which includes me, don’t believe in a god or gods, or anthing similar, on the grounds of there being no evidence for them. That’s it. Anything else an ‘atheist’ might add to that is just padding to make it sound more complex. The agnostic position, as I understand it (there seems sometimes to be nearly as many definitions as there are agnostics), boils down to that they don’t know whether there’s a god or not. They neither believe nor disbelieve. Forgive me if I’m wrong - I can only pass on what I’ve been told.

3): Even Richard Dawkins is on record as saying that given credible evidence, he would believe. Every atheist I know says the same. Someone further on in the thread critiqued the atheist position that those who promulgate god should provide the evidence. He/she took the position that it was equally an atheist responsibilty to prove god didn’t exist. Rubbish. Apart from it being nigh on impossible to prove a negative, it is always the one that makes a proposal that has to provide the evidence for it. And that is the scientific method, as denied by the same commentator.

4): There are militant, proselytising atheists. For their own various reasons, they seek to ACTIVELY turn people away from religious belief. I’m not one of them - I’d prefer that no-one believed in god, but other than that preference, I couldn’t give a shit what anyone believes, as far as religion is concerned. And I believe in peoples’ freedom of faith and religion, or the lack of it. I’m aware that some who call themselves atheists do not believe in that freedom. They’re just rightists and nazis. Atheism isn’t a political philosophy. Most of us do appear to be ‘progressive’ politically, however.

5): Vaguely carrying on with the political beliefs thing, I note on your profile that you are open to meeting women. Does your ‘sweetie’ (who you say you worship) know about that? And how attractive a prospect to women do you think you may appear to be, given that one of your profile photos shows two naked women, one apparently preparing to sit on the other’s face, or just leaving it? Looks like a winner to me.

Here to help.

Not mutually exclusive

I'm not an atheist. I was never religious. My parents aren't religious and my grandparents were scientists.

I call myself an atheist, but more accurate would be evidence based thinker. I would happily believe in god, telepathy, crop circles, or any of those other things that you mention, if I had evidence to do so. I say atheist because I don't think that evidence for god is likely to present itself.

I have a couple of books that explain the things of which you speak: crop circles, ESP, telepathy, etc.

"The Demon Haunted World." Carl Sagan

"The Skeptics Guide to the Universe." Steven Novella

I have no definitive answer one way or the other, carpe diem.

Thanks for posting this coherent observation. See the link to the scientific method. Focus on the first statement in the section that is called "Some key underpinnings to the scientific method". I have included that first statement below. It states:

"The hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable, according to North Carolina State University. Falsifiable means that there must be a possible negative answer to the hypothesis."

Some Atheists will argue they don't need to falsify the existence of intelligent design regarding the universe. They argue that a lack of verification is all that's needed. This of course is an inaccurate understanding of the scientific method.

[livescience.com]

Lol. I feel you. The constant atheist attacks on an agnostic point of view is ridiculous.

I solved this problem, at least in my own mind, by rejecting the term "atheist" altogether. We do not need a special word to cover one small aspect of disbelief any more than we need special words to describe those who do not believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. We all have a list of beliefs driven by evidence, hearsay, or necessity that we use to function in life. If something fails in meeting the criteria, it doesn't get on the list. Someone who is experienced, discriminating, bright, and critical would not likely put god on that list. No need to use any other adjectives to describe that someone.

I am an atheist and don’t believe in absolutes on much of anything. There is always the possibility that new evidence will be discovered to lead theories a different way. It’s kind of odd that you’re lumping all atheists together and then bashing them for being negative and rigid in their beliefs/the finality of them.

I have been an atheist for 42 years, not an agnostic for what its worth. One thing I do not do is debate my atheism or my reason for it. Nor do I impose my atheism on anyone, politics yes, atheism no. Lol. I know what I know, I know what I believe, but have no inclination to convince anyone else to my way of thinking.

In Science and mathematics we do know and recognize that there are absolutes.

It’s simple...if you have evidence for a claim, present the evidence and make an argument. If your claim cannot be backed by evidence, you have a speculation and not an argument. If you’re upset your speculation (claim without evidence) isn’t taken seriously, don’t be offended personally.

For instance, if I insist there is a dragon in my garage that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, felt, does not displace air, does not change temperature, or cannot be verified by any other means of measurement, I should expect to not be taken seriously. I should ask myself why I’m making a claim without evidence.

I am laughing . Thank u ???

Great post - thanks for sharing. It's interesting reading all these reactions.

There are almost as many definitions of agnosticism and atheism as there are people. Because of such diversity of opinion, (to me) it's best to preface any post like this with your own terms and definitions just avoid confusion. If anyone disagrees with you, that's another thread. And any strident argument about what these two terms mean is a fool's errand, as it's known that dictionaries describe more of a word's common usage as opposed to its actual real meaning... for the most part. (to paraphrase Matt Dillahunty).

When I enter into such discussions, to keep terms clear, I'll sometimes pull out Richard Dawkin's scale, which I tweaked and modified. See here: [niceguyjim.com]

Oh - and not to harp on it, but I like paragraphs too.

Cheers bud.

I like Jordan Peterson on this subject. When people ask him if he believes in god he responds by asking “what do you mean by ‘believe’ and what do you mean by ‘god’?”

[itunes.apple.com]

I was going to read that and look for keywords and phrases like "but to be fair..." Or "bringing balance" or even some references to Heidegger or some s hit like that. But my eyes glazed over way too fast. So here's my totally one sided, judgemental af, single solitary thought line. You can't prove that A leads to B, but notB leads to notA. However you can't disprove it either. So yeah, two possibilities exist. But only one can be right. I've made up my mind, and there's not much to talk about. I'm fairly certain there are more people like me.

Tl;dr

Words...words...more words.

This is just a post, not an essay. A wall of text is never a good way to present a topic for discussion. Knock this down to 1/3rd its size, add a few illustrations, maybe a link to some midget porn and I'll consider reading it.