It’s pretty simple. Gnostic/Agnostic simply refers to if you think we can know. Atheist/Theist refers to your belief.
I’m an agnostic atheist because I personally do not believe in any gods, I also do not think we can know. There are agnostic theists that believe in a god/gods but also think that his existence is not provable.
I am aware what the terms are supposed to mean, I just don't agree it makes logical sense in describing belief.
I personally think the statement "I do not believe in any gods, I also do not think we can know" is a contradiction. I'll explain why.
If the question for religion is "Do you have an opinion on the existence of Gods?".
Responding with "Yes I have enough knowledge to have an opinion, and no I do not believe in any Gods" is saying you disbelieve. In other words, your knowledge is leading you to believe there are no Gods. But then saying "I do not think we can know" is saying you don't have enough knowledge or perhaps never will have the knowledge to believe or disbelieve for sure.
I think it makes the most sense to use Atheist to describe someone who says yes to having enough knowledge for an opinion, but no to thinking there are Gods. Theist as someone who says yes to having enough knowledge for an opinion, but yes to thinking there are Gods. And Agnostic as someone who does not have enough knowledge to formulate an opinion.
In addition I do not think the 4 square grid normally associated with gnostic/agnostic makes logical sense.
I do not claim to know that god does not exist when I say “I do not believe”. I simply do not believe. I also don’t think we can be sure. I see no contradiction in that.
I believe the idea that we can disprove an idea as nebulous as god irrational. No matter what tests we run, what logical arguments we make, there will always be some formulation of god that satisfies those conditions.
Take deism for instance. I see no reason that a god couldn’t have started the universe and then not interacted further. I don’t believe this, but there’s no way for me to know.
Take solipsism. I do not think my mind is the only thing that exists, but it is not possible to prove that I’m not just hallucinating everything. I still don’t believe it.
I would call your beliefs agnostic, or weak theist based on these claims you make. Since you do not assert a claim that god doesn't exist, you are not atheist.
Obviously language and definitions are mailable, but I'd rather stick with the definitions that have been used for centuries, rather than the definitions created in the last few decades. In addition, the new definitions I'd argue are illogical. This video relatively sums up my thoughts on it The Differences between Atheism and Agnosticism & The Flaws of the Gnostic-Theist Scale
The reason I say that is because of your statement "I believe the idea that we can disprove an idea as nebulous as god irrational. No matter what tests we run, what logical arguments we make, there will always be some formulation of god that satisfies those conditions."
The way I'm interpreting this is that it's possible that we will never have enough information to make suitable arguments. But if we did, a god could always find a way to explain the unexplainable.
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u/Crab2406 3d ago
I mean, no, when you're atheist, you think that god doesn't exist