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[a]gnostic people are dishonest?

I cannot prove or disprove the existance of god(s) however I describe myself as atheist, I use the phrase agnostic (incorrectly) to describe fence sitters or pedants.
 
Richard Masters said:
"Those that don't accept [religious] lies become atheist or, for those that think some lying is OK, agnostic."
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Richard Masters said:

A stance of agnosticism is not equivalent to accepting religion as truth. It doesn't mean one is confused or hasn't made up his or her mind. An agnostic person usually believes the answer to the question "is there a god?" is currently unknown or unknowable.

Any agnostics/atheists agree or disagree?
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Agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive.

For those who don't know agnostic means without knowledge, atheist means without God

A) One can be an atheist because the fairies told you there's no God. One can be an atheist because deep with your soul you know there's no God. These forms of atheist claim knowledge of the status of the existence of God. These atheist firebrands are not agnostic.

B) However you'll find a more common form of atheist is one who live their lives without God because they have no knowledge of God. Just as they live their lives as if there were not a celestial teapot because they have no knowledge that there is one. These would be both agnostic and atheist.

C) There are also people who think that there may be a God, they aren't certain either way but hedge their bets by behaving as if there is one even though they're not certain. These are agnostic but not atheist.

D) Finally there are people who claim certain knowledge of God, they are neither atheist or agnostic.

Richard Dawkins is clearly in category B (if you take the time to read him thoroughly) but is often characterised as a Straw Dawkins of category A by people who mistake his stridency for the fundamental zeal of faith. You might be surprised how many practicing Christians flirt with category C. I think Pascal's wager generates this type of believer but cognitive dissonance can convert them into category D believers - God must exist because I we keep saying he exists and worshipping him, we'd be mad to do so if we didn't actually believe.
 
I don't fit A, B, C, or D, (although I understand these positions are legitimately defined as agnostic). I lean atheist, but since, like Furi, I cannot prove or disprove the existence of a God or gods, I describe myself as agnostic.

A better description for my stance would be weak agnosticism. I think this is the most logical and conclusive stance.

Perhaps since agnosticism is (sometimes incorrectly) associated with fence-sitting, confusion, and is used as a term of derision, people prefer to identify themselves as exclusively atheist.

In my opinion, the arguments for atheism are strong, and definitely stronger than those for theism, but not more logical than agnosticism.
 
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I would be by definition an agnostic atheist, I am currently most definately not a gnostic atheist,
 
Mind you, Christians and Muslims are atheists when it comes to the deities of other religions... Theists but do not belive in Kali, for example.

Its all relative, I think, to the concept of god in question.

When it comes to most of the conceptions of god(s), say, like those derived from the Bible, I am an atheist. They are not supported by any reliable evidence. On the contrary, what we know about the nature of the universe contradicts them.

However, there are some god conceptions which, despite not being supported by any shred of evidence, are hard to disprove. Like some of the "gods of the gaps". I think these concepts are problematic and unlikely, but they rely on some sort on lack of knoweledge from our part of god's nature. The best I can say regarding one of these concepts is something like "I don't think it is real(*) but I can't prove or disprove it". This is an agnostic position.

Is it dishonest? No.

(*) Please, lets not enter in to the "what is reality?" path.
 
Richard Masters said:
"Those that don't accept [religious] lies become atheist or, for those that think some lying is OK, agnostic."

A stance of agnosticism is not equivalent to accepting religion as truth. It doesn't mean one is confused or hasn't made up his or her mind. An agnostic person usually believes the answer to the question "is there a god?" is currently unknown or unknowable.

Any agnostics/atheists agree or disagree?
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Calling an agnostic dishonest is like calling the man who doesn't know whether to turn right or left for Birmingham a liar. If there is dishonesty, it's in people who claim certainty where there is none.
 
Atheism and agnosticism deal with different topics.
Atheism means not believing, agnosticism means not knowing.
I do not believe because there is absolutely no evidence, but I don´t know either.
That makes me an agnostic atheist and has exactly nothing to do with lying, just with admitting "I do not know".
There are quite a few threads on this forum already where this has been discussed to death, for example this one, and this one.

In the second, Piggy, a strong atheist that sort of says "I know there is no god" invites other posters to challenge him, it is a good read in my opinion. I don´t share his opinion but have to say that he is doing a very good job defending his stance.
 
I am a little bit of column B and a little bit of column C.

I have personaly not seen any evidence that would lead me to believe that there is a god, But, you never know.

The way I look at it is even if there is a god, he seems to want us to go about our business as if he isn't there. God could certainly make his presence known to us unequivicaly if he wanted to.
 
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_huxley/huxley_wace/part_02.html

Here's Huxley himself on the subject.

Huxley's intellectual courage is hard for me to doubt. That he preferred "agnostic" to "atheist" is an indication of intellectual honesty, not cowardice.

That he disbelieved much of biblical scripture is most plain.

I have no doubt that he would have agreed with the invisible pink unicorn argument and that he felt no need to name himself "agnostic" on the existence of leprechauns.
But just as many people on this website still extend more tolerance to religion than to other irrationalisms, so Huxley was a man of his time and tolerated the irrationalities of people he respected as good people for many other reasons.
The object od proselytising sceptics should not be to alienate good people by pouring sdcorn on their irrationalities and putting them on the defensive; we should be , like Huxley, explaining why we do not share their beliefs and pointing out the likely sources of error for them to consider as they will.
Some will listen, some will not. We do not convert with the sword, but with sense- and, if we're lucky, with good humour.
 
I am a fence-sitter and call myself agnostic. Why? Because I am also agnostic. I refuse to call myself theist or atheist, because neither are correct descriptions of my position. However, I do not claim to have knowledge of God, and I do not believe that absolute knowledge of the concept is attainable, making me an agnostic.

So I am a fence-sitter and an agnostic, but I don't have a fancy Latin or Greek term for fence-sitter (except for my own attempt, Kathomaiprachtetist, but it's lousy Greek and never caught on for some reason), so I call myself an agnostic.

So I use the term correctly, but contribute to the confusion nevertheless. I'm a horrible, horrible person.
 
Georg said:
Atheism and agnosticism deal with different topics.
Atheism means not believing, agnosticism means not knowing.
I do not believe because there is absolutely no evidence, but I don´t know either.
That makes me an agnostic atheist and has exactly nothing to do with lying, just with admitting "I do not know".
There are quite a few threads on this forum already where this has been discussed to death, for example this one, and this one.

In the second, Piggy, a strong atheist that sort of says "I know there is no god" invites other posters to challenge him, it is a good read in my opinion. I don´t share his opinion but have to say that he is doing a very good job defending his stance.
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Good threads. Thanks. After reading through several of Piggy's posts, I still think his position is strong but not fully defensible logically because it assumes a particular null-hypothesis a priori, where he could have started off with an alternative null-hypothesis and reached a different conclusion.
 
I describe myself in athestic fashion but consider myself agnostic. I find it really difficult to be absolutely sure of anything when there is NO evidence in either direction. Logically I can't believe there is a god, but the definitions of what a god is and can do defies all logic anyway. I'm also not very vocal about it one way or the other, as I don't really care what anyone believes or doesn't believe; as long as no one is trying to push beliefs onto me.
 
How is the statement "There's no evidence regarding something, therefore we have no knowledge about it" intellectually dishonest in any way, shape, or form? It seems at least equally honest to "There's no evidence regarding something, therefore we can conclusively state that it doesn't exist."
 
Ocelot said:
B) However you'll find a more common form of atheist is one who live their lives without God because they have no knowledge of God. Just as they live their lives as if there were not a celestial teapot because they have no knowledge that there is one. These would be both agnostic and atheist.
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Well, we're "agnostic" in the same sense we're agnostic about the teapot, Santa, and Nessie. Can we prove an exhaustive search of all reality doesn't have such things? No, of course not.

Have we seen any evidence anywhere of God? No.

Have we seen tons of evidence religion develops naturally in populations as a function of the human mind and cultural development, in lieu of any actual, existing god? Most certainly. Look around you.


Given that religion develops naturally without a god, and it develops into many radically different forms around the world, the overwhelming majority contradictory, the parsimmonous explanation is that there is no god.


I view this as solid reasoning and on the same foot as relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Probably more so because those all continue to undergo refinement and have known issues.
 
GreyICE said:
How is the statement "There's no evidence regarding something, therefore we have no knowledge about it" intellectually dishonest in any way, shape, or form? It seems at least equally honest to "There's no evidence regarding something, therefore we can conclusively state that it doesn't exist."
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Yes. But only one side gives a name to the "something".

"There's no evidence regarding the teapot orbiting Jupiter, therefore we have no knowledge about it" isn't the whole story, is it?

You're either not having a coherent conversation, i.e. constructing sentences randomly, or your statement implies that the teapot is somehow special. Why else talk about a teapot?

Allow me to pervert Pascal: If you were forced to bet your life regarding the teapot's existance - would you wager that it exists? (Assume that I could deliver a truthful and sound answer to the question if it really exists.)

Then, if you had to bet your life on the existence of a god, what reason could you possibly have to bet that there is a god?
 
Rasmus said:
Yes. But only one side gives a name to the "something".

"There's no evidence regarding the teapot orbiting Jupiter, therefore we have no knowledge about it" isn't the whole story, is it?

You're either not having a coherent conversation, i.e. constructing sentences randomly, or your statement implies that the teapot is somehow special. Why else talk about a teapot?

Allow me to pervert Pascal: If you were forced to bet your life regarding the teapot's existance - would you wager that it exists? (Assume that I could deliver a truthful and sound answer to the question if it really exists.)

Then, if you had to bet your life on the existence of a god, what reason could you possibly have to bet that there is a god?
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Here your argument is based on confidence, not certainty; but the agnostic position isn't necessarily a wager. The difference between a teapot and a "traditional" God, is that there is some purported evidence for the existence of "traditional" gods, whereas it is well-understood and uncontroversial that the teapot is a construct.
 
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I'm an agnostic atheist.

Personally I think that strong atheists are just as dishonest as theists. They claim to know something which is beyond knowledge. You can claim that the Christian God doesn't exist, but even that is something we cannot know for sure. I seriously doubt it, but that's very different from knowing it.
 
Rasmus said:
Yes. But only one side gives a name to the "something".

"There's no evidence regarding the teapot orbiting Jupiter, therefore we have no knowledge about it" isn't the whole story, is it?

You're either not having a coherent conversation, i.e. constructing sentences randomly, or your statement implies that the teapot is somehow special. Why else talk about a teapot?

Allow me to pervert Pascal: If you were forced to bet your life regarding the teapot's existance - would you wager that it exists? (Assume that I could deliver a truthful and sound answer to the question if it really exists.)

Then, if you had to bet your life on the existence of a god, what reason could you possibly have to bet that there is a god?
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Well I'd like to point out that you'd be betting your life on the concept that this hypothetical God cared whether you lived or died, which is a completely different proposition.

As for reasons for God, we have to consider there are three logical alternatives about the universe's existence:

It came into being without a cause
Some force was responsible for it coming into being
The universe never came into being, it simply was (Hawking hypothesis)

I've arranged them in roughly the order I consider their likeliness, from most to least.

Of course possibility four is I've missed possibilities, but such is life, and I think I covered most of the bases there.

So unlike your hypothetical teapot (which has evidence for non-existence, that being that teapots are created by man, man never launched a teapot into Jupiter orbit, therefore it being there would more or less constitute positive evidence, if not absolute proof, of the existence of the supernatural) God arises as a possible hypothesis simply by considering the universe around us.

I don't think there's any evidence for that hypothesis, but I haven't seen solid evidence for the other two either.
 
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