I am a Christian but I completely respect both athiests and agnostics. I was just wondering, for all you athiests out there, how can you actually be an athiest-knowing that there could not possibly be any god at all? It seems that it would make much more sense to be an agnostic, which neither believes nor disbelieves in God. I know a lot of agnostics but no athiests, and the agnostics all believe that it's impossible to be an actual athiest. So just out of curiousity (I really do not want to offend anyone here, i just want to know) what made you know that there isn't a god? Or are athiests really not certain there isn't one but call themselves athiests instead of agnostics because more people know what athiesm is?
2006-08-19 16:21:00 · 22 answers · asked by Blondie 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
No one is offended. Athiests don't know that there is no God. That is not the point. Nor are they concerned about the minutia of whether they are called agnostics or atheists. To most atheists it is not important.
You have to realize that atheist literally means "not a theist".
People who call themselves atheists (the word is an expection of the rule "i before e except after c") simply don't believe in a God. That is different than knowing that there could not be any possibility of a God.
There is no valid proof for the existence or the non-existence of God. So an atheist, to be sane and rational has nothing to say, know, or believe about God. An atheist doesn't believe in God for exactly the same reason they don't believe in Unicorns or fairies.
Since there is nothing to say, know, or believe, atheists deals with the world without including something they cannot verify in their worldview. They tend to be fairly practical people.
The word "believe" is central to a lot of the misunderstanding here. The word "believe" is a very tricky word that seems to say things that are not really being said.
I don't believe in the existence of God because I don't believe in anything, and God is included in everything. I reject the idea of belief as a dishonest slight of hands to make it look like you know something when there is absolutely no knowledge at all. Belief, if anything about knowledge, is the admission of utter ignorance.
You can notice this yourself if you pay attention to when people say "I know" and "I believe". Politicians love to use the word "believe" as it is a weasel word that can appear to mean one thing but actually mean the opposite. When a politician or preacher says "I believe" they are actually saying "I don't know", although they would deny that. The word allows them to pretend they are sensible leaders when they are ignorant power manipulators.
Belief does not say anything positive about knowledge. So why do people say they believe? Because it is mainly used to identify membership in religious organizations. Belief is a way of drawing a line between them and us. As a consequence all beliefs isolate us from others of other beliefs or no beliefs at all. And the multiplicity of beliefs, which rise from human nature, become adversarial and become the sources of conflicts. All beliefs, no matter how noble or innocent they may seem, are guilty of this divisiveness.
Atheists and/or agnostics simply don't want to be divided up into adversarial memberships by beliefs. They want sanity. It is a bit frustrating to live in a society in which one sees most of the population as utterly mad, pretending something is true that they cannot verify is true. Unfortunately, in many societies and historically in all societies, an apostate (someone who doesn't believe) have been treated with a great deal of abuse. Even today in many areas of the USA you might be prevented from being a teacher if you are an atheist. (I know from personal experience.) In Iran or Saudi Arabia you can be killed. The emotions of believers towards those who choose not to believe, to not belong in the membership of believers, tend towards rage and insanity.
Samuel Beckett say it all when he wrote, "All are born insane. Most stay that way."
Hope this helps you understand atheism.
2006-08-19 17:12:00 · answer #1 · answered by Alan Turing 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No one can "know" either way. No one has proof. Until we die, really everyone is agnostic to a large extent. We have beliefs. We have what we think is true. No one really knows. I am an atheist because I believe there is no god. I believe there is zero rational proof of the existence of an all powerful being. While I would be thrilled to be wrong (I mean come on, it would sure be better if there was an afterlife of clouds and harps than not) I truly don't believe I am. I think god is Santa Claus for grown ups (be good and you'll get a reward later!). The word agnostic means lack of knowledge. It means you don't know. You haven't made up your mind because you don't think you have enough data to make a call. Whereas atheist literally means without god. I do believe I have enough knowledge to make the call. I firmly believe that I have enough evidence that I can say with as much certainty as any human can have that there is no god. I also believe that any god worth worshiping (if I am wrong and s/he exists) would care much more that I am a good person who tries my best each day to do the right thing than that I went to the right building once a week and sangs some songs. If god really does admit murderers and rapists to heaven just because they believed in him and apologized but denies genuinely good people who tried to do their best and make the world better solely based on the fact that they saw large holes in the theory and had doubts then I don't want any part of it. If that's the case then s/he is a self centered egotist and isn't worth worshiping. I don't want any part of a god like that so I will just continue to be the best person I can be and I'm good no matter what. Either I'm right and there is no god and it doesn't matter anyhow. Or there is a god, s/he's a good and worthy deity and will only care that I was a good person and I'm fine there too. Or there is a god, s/he's the self centered moron I mentioned and in that case I'd rather skip out on the whole heaven thing anyhow because none of my friends will be there (and it sounds like a giant country club in the sky) so why bother!!
2014-08-16 10:22:13 · answer #2 · answered by ? 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
An atheist is someone who doesn't have a belief in god...it's not necessarily a knowledge claim that a god couldn't possibly exist. See the following:
What is an atheist?
An atheist is a person who does not believe in god or gods. Other than disbelief in god, atheists don’t necessarily share anything in common.
What an atheist is not (correction of common theist definitions):
- An atheist is not someone who hates god.
- An atheist is not a devil worshiper.
- An atheist is not rebelling against religion or god.
- An atheist is not under the control of some devil.
- An atheist is not something that doesn’t exist.
- An atheist is, in general, not immoral.
What is an agnostic?
Agnostic translates as: a (without) gnostic (knowledge) so it means “without knowledge.” A purely agnostic person does not think it is possible to know if a god exists or not and, thus, remains undecided.
What is an agnostic (weak) atheist?
Agnostic atheism is simply another name for the broadest conception of the word atheist. An agnostic atheist does not believe in a god yet does not claim to have knowledge of said god’s non-existence. A weak atheist’s disbelief is largely dependent on a lack of evidence for a god.
What is a gnostic (strong) atheist?
Strong atheism is a position that certain types of gods definitely do not exist. An atheist may be gnostic towards the non-existence of some types of gods yet an agnostic atheist towards other types of gods.
From http://www.strongatheism.net :
"Strong Atheism is the proposition that we should not suspend judgment about the non-existence of a god or gods. More extensively, it is a positive position against theistic values, semantics and anti-materialism, a rational inquiry in the nature of religious thought, a new way of thinking about religious and spiritual issues."
What is an apatheist?
Apatheism is not having a belief in god and couldn't care less if a god exists or not.
2006-08-19 16:29:51 · answer #3 · answered by laetusatheos 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's really straightforward. Since there is no evidence for a god, the notion of a god is in exactly the same state as the notion of a lime green elephant with purple horns. I can't prove that there is no such elephant, but I firmly believe that there isn't, and therefore it's fine for me to say that I know there isn't.
The "agnosticism" label seems silly to me because it implies that if we're not certain that something doesn't exist, we should say that we don't know whether or not it does. It's just silly to be that hung up on certainty: if there's no evidence for something, it's fine to say "I know it doesn't exist". Doesn't matter if it's gods or green elephants.
Would you say that you know there are no green elephants? Or would you say "well, it's impossible to know whether or not there are"?
Later: BobK defended agnosticism well, but missed my point. I call myself an atheist because I do know that there is no god, but of course I take the open-minded position that there might be a god. I suppose that you could say that makes me an agnostic rather than an atheist, but it's an agnosticism that is shared with ALL of my beliefs, rather than being something unique to belief in gods. I know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. It may not, but I know that it will.
I suppose that if I put belief in god into a special category, and said "I'm certain of everything else, but I'm not about whether or not there is a god" then it would make sense to distinguish between atheism and agnosticism. But I treat the belief in god like I treat all other beliefs. Since there's no evidence for it, I don't believe, and I'm willing to say that I know there is no god, despite the fact that I know that I could turn out to be wrong about that.
As a result, if I were to go around saying "I don't know whether or not there is a god", it'd imply that I'm less sure about whether or not there is a god than whether or not there are lime green horned elephants. I'm not: those two claims have the same status.
"Agnosticism" seems to me to be the silly position of saying "I don't know whether or not there are lime green horned elephants". In some circles the phrase "mind so open it leaks" is used to describe that stance. The atheism stance is plenty open-minded enough.
2006-08-19 16:26:45 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
For atheists, it's an evidence thing. If there were *testable* evidence it would make a difference.
But what if someone or even a large group claim - without evidence - that some alien named Xenu is the source? Shall we accept that maybe it is possible and be agnostic about it? What of any of the other creation stories, some of which are quite fascinating? There is simply no reason to believe one unsupported and unsubstantiated story over another. So we don't.
Some atheists (known as positive atheists) believe they can prove there is no god. Especially any god you care to define in sufficient detail to make it possible to test for it's existence or non-existence. I lean a bit in the positive direction.
2006-08-19 16:34:30 · answer #5 · answered by sheeple_rancher 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Atheists flat out believe there is nothing beyond the material world...that all emotions, reactions, thoughts, actions are called by chemical reactions in the brain, right down to the experience of death and near-death experiences.
Atheists believe there is no God because there is simply no proof of a God from a scientific perspective. Nothing beyond the physical world has ever been proven, so why spend time worshipping it? I know quite a few atheists (I am Agnostic myself) who believe that nature, this planet and anything material is what should be focused on. I know that's hard to comprehend, because without a belief system backing what they believe in, how are they motivated to be nice to people etc, do good deeds, not kill people etc?
Their values are very reality-based, and while they don't believe in punishment from above if they do something deemed bad by religion or society, the few I know are very very very nice people.
2006-08-19 16:31:40 · answer #6 · answered by Mike V 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is plenty of archaeological evidence that supports the idea that god is the result of human creation. there is no doubt that any bible used today has been altered to reflect the prevailing government's agenda. It is a collection of fables and stories from many ancient cultures and religions. These stories were put together in a book to give some common idealogial ground to people who lived in large towns and cities. With this common idealogy, it was easier for the govt. to put policies in place that everyone could relate to. There is also evidence that ancient ziggurats have been altered after the death of kings who were then worshipped as gods.
I don't call myself any of those two names. I don't feel the need to qualify who I am or what I believe to anyone except myself. I believe the idea of god has hurt humanity far more than it has helped us. If you don't believe me, watch the news and see how many people are being killed for a religious idealogy directly related to what each sides "god" is telling them to do.
2006-08-19 16:44:10 · answer #7 · answered by Billy W 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Since Paul S raised the question of agnosticism, I'll address that.
Paul claimed it's easy to say "I know..." in the absence of any evidence. Agnostics would say "I don't know..." because the absence of evidence is not necessarily indisputable proof that evidence will -always- be absent.
The nature of the development of tools to help analyze the process of evolution is a good example of how the scientific community have improved our ability to analyze the world.
There is no evidence to support the belief we cannot improve our abilities yet further, discover new aspects of reality that are unrecognized now.
Thus the Agnostic holds to the truly open-minded position that "I don't know" represents. Claiming "I don't know" is not the same as claiming something is unknowable. More like "I don't know...yet".
2006-08-19 16:39:13 · answer #8 · answered by bobkgin 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lot of people have their beliefs in what their faith tells them to. There is no substantial evidence to support that there is a god or not, it is all up to the beliefs of the person.
A main argument that I have heard from atheists is that the bible is just a book of stories, to explain how the earth was created or what/not, just like how tribes would try to explain their existence. But again, there is no real way to prove if a god exists or not.
I myself, am unsure whether to decide between Agnostic/Believer.
2006-08-19 16:30:25 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Of course everyone SHOULD be an agnostic. Nobody can know for SURE what the truth is.
However, the difference I suppose is: You, as a Christian, believe in god but if you WERE proven wrong, somehow, you wouldn't believe in him anymore. On the other hand, Atheists DON'T believe in god, but if they were proven wrong somehow, they WOULD believe in god. So it's just a matter of what you believe in until proven wrong.
It's just easier to say that you're an atheist or a theist, especially since there's no real evidence or way to prove anything.
2014-03-23 12:22:56 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋