One is either a theist or atheist - no middle ground. Agree?

Question

Theist - belief in a god or gods.
Atheist - absence of belief in a god or gods.

When you were a baby did you HAVE belief or absence of belief?

(And don't bring up agnosticism or gnosticism - they are PARTS of theism and atheism; not separate terms and positions.)

Also... one can have belief in a god but believe the god to not interefere with the world - basically that it is nature that is God. This is the deistic version of theism.

It's strange for people to hold on to the incorrect idea of agnosticism as "belief that you cannot prove or disprove the existance of a god."

That has to do with knowledge.

I am not talking about knowledge, but about belief.

An agnostic is still theist-agnostic or atheist-agnostic.

Fortunately, several of you understand this.

Answer 1

I absolutely agree. The two are mutually exclusive, and not being one automatically makes you the other.

It is like someone being Mexican or not Mexican. You can't be both, and you can't be neither.

I will bring up gnosticism but only to illustrate that between theism and gnosticism, there are four pretty distinct categories:

agnostic atheist -- the weak atheist
gnostic atheist -- the strong atheist
agnostic theist -- most people who believe in a higher power
gnostic theist -- someone who claims to have direct interaction and knowledge of a higher power

So, yes, I agree with you. Quite right.

Answer 2

Actually, I will bring up agnosticism. Most atheists are actually more correctly called agnostics, not the other way around. Where no evidence is present, most atheists say, "there is no reason to believe in God, so I do not." Most do not say, "There is absolute proof that no gods exist." The former of these two statements would be an agnostic one, while the latter would be a truly atheist one, a positive and absolute denial of the existence of God. The agnostic position is more defensible.

Another form of agnosticism is someone who simply has not decided, but that is only one form. Atheists who say that they don't believe in god because there is no proof are agnostics, not true atheists.

Answer 3

I disagree. One reason is that the term "god" is semantically ambiguous. Infants are born without any vocabulary, so its tricky to make any claims about the concepts they have, but I expect it is not too misleading to say that infants probably view all adults, but especially their mothers, as "gods". As babies get older and begin to understand language, they might gradually realize that their parents are not truly all-powerful, but if their parents have already started talking about "god" or "the father in heaven" then there might be a relatively smooth transition from the earlier pre-concept of "god" to a more complete concept of "god" that believers have as children. On the other hand, if their parents are atheists, then before the child has fully developed language they might lose their pre-concept of "god", and not even remember ever thinking of their parents as gods.

So, some people might actually have been believers their whole life, even though many atheists claim that atheism is the default position. And some people really think they have been atheists their whole life just maybe can't remember thinking of their parents as gods.

But your point is mainly about the excluded middle. Here I disagree again, partly for the same reason( the concept of "god" is semantically ambiguous), but partly because I am firmly convinced that our minds are quite capable of holding contradictory beliefs. I am 100% atheist with respect to the Bible. To me, Jehovah is very clearly a mythical god, I have no doubts about that. But I was raised religiously, and there are corners of my brain that still wonder how anything exists at all, and believes the possibility of some kind of supernatural creation. This is despite the fact that logically I understand that requiring a designer to explain the existence of something "irreducibly complex" is actually leads to a contradiction, and is therefore one of the best arguments against the existence of an intelligent supernatural creator. Anyway, my point is that I am both atheist and agnostic, and in dark corners of my brain that I have no conscious control over, I am still (sadly) theistic.

By the way, if one studies neural nets and cognitive neuroscience, it makes perfect sense that our minds can hold multiple contradictory beliefs, and that one can never completely eradicate some of these beliefs, but only suppress them.

Answer 4

I will bring up Agnosticism. It is not a part of anything and it stands alone. An agnostic believes that you cannot prove or disprove the existance of a god. They do not concern themselves with the idea. I do not consider that middle ground though. I am an Atheist because I consider the suffering of the innocent to be PROOF that there is no loving god and any other kind of god that may or may not exist does not matter to me either.

Answer 5

What about somebody that alternates beliefs-today a theist tomorrow an atheist and so on. Or somebody that does not have a belief one way or the other-they just have not focused on their belief. They are not agnostic just too busy to philosophize. Or some body that believes in witches-are they theists?

Answer 6

I have to be honest - nothing about religion or god(s) appeals to me. However, as a scientist, I acknowledge that I cannot prove the non-existence of god(s) - nor do I care. Therefore, there is no absolute - theists cannot prove existence, non-theists cannot prove non-existence. I personally consider non-belief as the default, the natural state, and any form of religious or spiritual belief as a hypothesis in need of testing.

Answer 7

all this talk about agnosticism being "weak atheism" is making me sick! Atheism is just like another religion...it demands to have exclusive access to "Truth". But the real truth is there is no way to be 100% sure if there's a God or not.
but if there is...God doesn't want us to fight over his existance...he wants us to make the most out of his gift...LIFE! That's what my faith is all about..making the best out of the only life I'll ever have!...Mother nature, God, A computer system, Aliens or even myself from future/past...God can be all of those things. But he doesn't care if I believe in him..he doesn't need my approval...he wants me to be the best I can be..using my brain and heart..be creative...free thinking...unique...like every human being should be!

Answer 8

While atheism tecnically means what you say it does ( if you are a linguistic perscriptivist) it is used most often to believe in the belief that there is no god. Your definition of atheism is the commonly used definition for agnostisism. Hence your rejection of that possibility makes no sense.

Answer 9

No, I don't agree. One might believe that there is a spiritual component to human life which has nothing at all to do with a deity of any sort.

Answer 10

There are too many ways to go with this. An agnostic could be someone who believes in God, but doesn't care if or that He does exist, or could be someone who is unsure, and unmotivated to find out, or who thinks it is irrelevant, or who is just too scared to say He doesn't exist, just in case He does.

If you ask me, I believe that everyone truly knows that there is a higher power, and that atheists just refuse to admit it, in order to avoid taking the next step, that is, talking to Him.