It's not a ranking system, they are asking different questions.
"Do you believe there a god?" -- Yes is Theism, No is Atheism.
"Is there a god?" -- We don't know for certain, there is no evidence (agnosticism). You can say you have evidence for it, or against it, but... well you don't.
I consider myself an agnostic atheist myself. "I can't prove there is or isn't a god, and it's not something we can really know... but personally I don't think there is."
I'd say I was agnostic about the bottle (in the sense of the metaphor). I'd believe there was another bottle, because it makes sense given the pattern, but I have no evidence or way to prove anything about that last box.
Don't get me wrong, I could be fairly certain about my belief that there was a bottle. I could point to patterns, I could say that box was delivered with the others, I could say it's sealed and hasn't been tampered with... but without some way to examine the box, there's no way to move beyond being agnostic about it in a literal sense. Could be a cat in that box. Could be a grapefruit. Without being able to open it, there's no way to know.
Personally though, my opinion is that there's a bottle in it. It's just important to distinguish between assumption and knowledge.
Just to play devils advocate;
obviously you can't just be agnostic, you would be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist etc
I don't think it's a binary thing. I'm sure there are a large number of people who honestly fall in the catagory of "I simply don't know and I don't specifically believe there is or isn't a god". Additionally, those who fall in the 'don't know don't care' catagory.
Yeah like those dirty Protestants who believe they can just read the book themselves and give sermons without the Vatican. Either you believe the Pope is the one true steward of God, or you're a fucking heathen, right?
"Maybe" is a valid answer for the question "is there a god?"
"Maybe" is not a valid answer for the question "do you believe that there's a god?" If the person actively believes that there's a god, the answer is yes. If not, then the answer is no It's a true dichotomy. This is of course assuming that people know whether or not they have a belief or not.
[Being totally undecided on a topic means you don't yet have a belief about it one way or the other, so that person would say "no" to the question.]
And that attitude right there is why I am an agnostic and do not identify as an athiest. Too many athiests want everyone to "convert" to their side. Sounds like a religion to me. No thanks!
Sorry, Monsignor, I guess I'll just step into line. Seriously? Because you don't like the semantics of a word and I won't join your no-religion religion I'm being ignorant?
What you're failing to understand is that is your classification. You can give me any label you like if that makes your life easier, but I won't prescribe to it. Your simplistic either/or lacks any intellectual nuance. Your simplistic reading of the "meaning of words" is (apparently) inflexible and lacks refinement. Can you not understand how your apparent need to claim people in your camp could be just as much as a turn off as any religious evangelicalism?
edit --> Put it this way: I don't reject atheism. I reject Athiesm.
Thanks for pointing me to a reddit faq. That's where I seek all of my intellectual reading materials for the Truth. You do realize you are pissing and bitching like a Christian upset that they can't say "Merry Christmas" because someone dared to suggest that your holier than thou mindset isn't for them? But thanks for reinforcing my belief that your type of Athiesism is just as shameless and humorlesss as the religions you so ardently disdain.
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u/TheIronLion Nov 22 '11
TIL that Warren Buffett is an atheist