Whats the difference between an Atheist and an Agnostic?

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jezz8me

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I am an agnostic following the school of absurdism. I do not belive in any perticular religion but i do not deny the entire concept of religion nor to i completely belive in it. Absurdism states, in the wise words of Albert Camus, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." So i live in contenment with unkowing but will accept religion if it so happens to come my way.
 

koichan

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bigolbear said:
Glefistus said:
Quite to the contrary. I am an anti-theist, and if you could give me ACTUAL proof or argue for the existence of a god without the use of a non-credible holy text, I would then re-examine my beliefs and ponder on the existence of this deity.
Id like to take up that challenge!

lets take a credible theory.. evolution.

ok evolution dictates that whatever is fit enough to survive will do so, and that through mutation new species will come into being.

I there fore propose that given sufficient time, and a sufficiently varied environment - both of which our universe (which mathematicly is said to be aproaching infinity) provides that a species will evolve that is capable of perceiving time correctly.

please bear in mind that the human perception of time and space is a simple method but it is 'sufficient' for our survival.

To take this species further along its evolutionary tree it is entirely feasable that a species could arrise that not only percives time and space for what it realy is but is capable of moving through it in a fashion other than simple mamalian life does.

HERE IS THE CRITICAL POINT.

once a species moves outside of the limited scope of movement we have through time it will cease to evolve - it has removed itself from this universe and become an observer (see heisenbergs principles)

For this species to continue to learn, adapt, grow, evolve it will need to reintergrate itself - it has in effect become a god through the process of evolution. An observer outside of time NEEDING to cojoin other species (that exist within the universe space time)in a parasitic or symbiotic relationship in order to further evolve.

I hope what ive said here can open some minds to a few posibillities - time is not a simple thing, it is entirely possible that 'god' made the universe that 'god's' species evolved in.
Quite a strange/interesting argument there.

Problem is it's entirely dependant on time-travel (and existing outside the universe) being possible. That happening is an equally huge 'leap of faith' argument as gods existing in my opinion.

Anyways back on topic a bit:

I always have a bit of trouble with the whole athiest/agnostic differences argument.
For it is never possible to know anything with 100% certainty, you can be extremely sure about something (99.99recurring percent), but i have issues with those that say they 100% know gods do or don't exist.

I'd put myself in the extremely strong athiest catagory myself, due to the fact there is no credible evidence for gods at all and plenty of evidence to suggest they don't exist. So until evidence does turn up, i'm as close to certain as is possible that gods don't exist.
 

Semitendon

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My two cents.

1.An Athiest does not believe in the existence of God. This is not something you are born as, I know the technicality of the term implies that we are, but Athiesm is a choice. A person who has been exposed to one or several concepts on the idea of God and has chosen to believe that a God does not exist.

My opinion: Athiests are no more moral or immoral than any other human being. They have chosen to believe that there is no God, and live life accordingly. They are people who simply have a different philosophy starting point on life than their religious counter-parts do.An Athiest must attempt to better themselves based on personal philosophy.

2.An Agnostic has not come to a clear decision on the concept of God. They believe that God could exist, but aren't entirely sure that he does.

My opinion: The Agnostic is uncertain, recognize's the value or merit in the concept of God, but cannot integrate this view, do to a lack of capacity for "faith". Again, they are no more moral or immoral than any other human being.

3. The Religious person is one who believes in a higher power, and is strongly associated with a known religious group. Buddists, Hindu, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Taoists, and various tribal religions qualify. They live their life according to the religious principles that they believe in.

My opinion: The Religious person can see the value or merit in the concept of God, and can accept this view largely due to "faith". While some religions set a standard of living which is impossible to reach, most religious people will try to better themselves by attempting to reach this standard. They may encourage others to live by the same philosophy that they have chosen. They are no more moral or immoral than any other human being.

4. The Religious Extremist is a person who has taken the ideas of a given religion and twisted them to the extreme. Hence the name. The abortion-clinic bomber's, suicide pilots, and various other violent offenders would qualify. Unlike the typical religious person, these people do not attempt to live by the standards of life that a religion has accepted. They attempt to destroy all people who do not share their skewed belief system, this usually is directed at people of another belief, or those without belief, and may include members of the orginating religion.

My opinion: These people are severely disturbed. They are some of the worst offenders possible, due to their ability to combine "faith" and serious violent action. They are in a constant state of attack torward the rest of the world, and have less morals than most other people.

5. The Anti-thiest or Extremeist Athiest is a person who is not content with not believing in a God. They are on a mission to rid the world of belief and values systems associated with religion.

My opinion: The Extremist Athiest is a destructive person, who disregards other people's values, beliefs, ideas, and philosophies. They bare striking similarities to the Religious Extremist in that they are both on a mission to destroy other people, the only significant difference between them is that the majority of Religious Extremist's often turn to violent acts, while fewer Extremist Athiests use violence, usually being content with being insulting, arrogant, and attempting to infringe on the rights of others.

The Extremist athiest does not care about the idea of God as much as they care about religion. Usually this person has experienced or witnessed a hienous or immoral act by a religious person, and has decided that ALL religious people should be condemed because of this. This person does not rationalize the situation by realizing that religious people are human, and thusly capable of immoral acts. Rather, they take extremeist views of opposition, most of the time this reaction is due to a personal experience with religion that was distasteful at best. While they are ( in general) no more moral or immoral than any other human being, they ( like their Religious Extremeist counter-part) will often make grandious claims of being more moral than their percieved enemy.
 

obex

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Jun 18, 2009
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Agnostics are not baptised into a religion but do not claim it to be false, the undecided voters if you will.
 

FightThePower

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Easy - Agnostics don't know if God exists or not, Atheists are convinced God does not exist.
 

Silva

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YellowBrickRoad said:
No that is not correct.

Atheism = A-theism. i.e. NOT a theist.
Agnostism = A term developed by Thomas Huxley to describe the belief that God cannot be known. (A rather bold and unsubstantiated claim.)

In other words, agnostics are a subset of atheists.
Nonsense. Atheism is about saying God doesn't exist. Agnosticism says that God cannot be known (proven) - it doesn't follow that an agnostic will believe that there is no God. The whole point is that agnostics believe that they don't know, and we don't know. So there's absolutely no connection. Agnosticism is totally separate.
 

Bigeyez

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a⋅the⋅ist ?noun a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

ag⋅nos⋅tic ?noun 1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
?adjective 3. of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
4. asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.

An atheist doesn't believe a God or Gods exist. An agnostic isn't sure whether a God or Gods exist or believes that we can never know whether a God or Gods exist.

Glefistus said:
Well, I am all those things you described, but I am anti-religion(therefore, anti-theist) because of all the terrible things it has been responsible for in human history and in the present. It does far, far more harm than good. It is in my belief that to remove religion would be to better society.
I didn't really want to jump into this conversation but I just have to say that if you removed religion it would simply be substituted by something else. The removal of religion wouldn't stop wars or violence form happening, it would simply mean that people would find another reason to "justify" their actions. In fact look back at just about any "religious" war and you'll see that religion was just used a a means to justify the war to the common everyday folk but the real motivations behind the war(s) is always some sort of beneficial gain for those in power. Furthermore, I'll even go as far to say that there has never been a war that was waged solely because of religious reasons or that religion was even the largest reason to go to war.

This is all a moot point anyways because you cannot "remove" religion. Religion is a concept developed by human minds, just like say Time. It is how humans explain the unexplainable and religion has been part of the human pysche for as long as humanity has existed on this planet. Even if you killed off anyone who was not an atheist on the planet, religion would eventually spring up again from their children and childrens, children.
 

Nannernade

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Ziadaine said:
DrunkWithPower said:
Athesist says "There is no god" and a Agnostic says "There might be a god, not sure". Fairly easy.
This pretty much sums it all up, Though Agnostic also might say "I dont believe in a god" but doesn't oppress it around to everyone like an Atheist might. (Basically they mind their own business)
I'm an athiest but I mind my own business, if I didn't I'd be one of those crazy Christian people (All Christian people) "BELIEVE IN GOD OR ELSE!!!" "HELL!!!"

Don't judge man.
 

NBSRDan

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An agnostic is one who is unsure as to the veracity of the various religions. "Atheist" is a blanket term for all those who do not believe any religion, but is more commonly used to refer to "strong" atheists, who disbelieve all religions.

Buddhist/Christian/Jew/etc. - believes a specific religion
Deist - believes in a creator but nothing more
Atheist - any of the below
Agnostic - is unsure
Apatheist - doesn't care
"Strong" atheist - reasonably certain all religions are false
 

ChaosTheory3133

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Bigeyez said:
Furthermore, I'll even go as far to say that there has never been a war that was waged solely because of religious reasons or that religion was even the largest reason to go to war.
Right for the most part but I can think of a few, the Crusades, the "Conflict" in Israel has some religious aspects to it, Thirty Years War, French Wars of Religion (The classic Protestant and Catholic hatred) just to name of a few. There are several examples of people who are so convinced that their god has a bigger *Happy Sunshine Fun Words underneath Here* than someone else's god that they are going to kill the other people until they accepted said god.
If you look at the history, god is mankind's leading cause of death.
 

Jaywebbs

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Well basically look at the Root words, Atheism it the opposite of Theism which is broadly defined as the belief in one or more deity/deities, So an Atheist by definition does not believe in a deity, that is to say they do not believe in God or a number of Gods.

Agnostic, how ever, comes from the Greek gnosis meaning knowledge or knowing, so an agnostic is one who does not know.

Basically the difference is Semantics, Atheists believe there are no Deities, while Agnostics do not know whether or not there are Deities.
 

Bigeyez

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ChaosTheory3133 said:
Bigeyez said:
Furthermore, I'll even go as far to say that there has never been a war that was waged solely because of religious reasons or that religion was even the largest reason to go to war.
Right for the most part but I can think of a few, the Crusades, the "Conflict" in Israel has some religious aspects to it, Thirty Years War, French Wars of Religion (The classic Protestant and Catholic hatred) just to name of a few. There are several examples of people who are so convinced that their god has a bigger *Happy Sunshine Fun Words underneath Here* than someone else's god that they are going to kill the other people until they accepted said god.
If you look at the history, god is mankind's leading cause of death.
You need to actually research what you talk about you know...The Crusades are probably the pentuiltimate example of a set of wars "justified" by religion but were not really about religion at all. They were about land control and a grab for wealth. The conflict with Israel is again not so much about religion as it is about beneficial gain. It's about controlling land and wealth. Again religion is often used as the means for those in power to "justify" and draw commoners into a war but it is almost never the real reason for it.

And sure there are individuals so crazy and extreme that they are willing to kill others for their religion but thats because they are INSANE AND EXTREME. I could counter your point by saying that there are people out there so crazy and extreme that they would kill others because their skin is a slightly different color. There are others so crazy and extreme they would kill others because they were born two blocks in the wrong direction from their neighborhood. There are people so crazy and extreme they would kill others because they think it's fun. Religion isn't the common factor here, it's the being crazy part.
 

Ariosona

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heyheysg said:
DrunkWithPower said:
Athesist says "There is no god" and a Agnostic says "There might be a god, not sure". Fairly easy.
What if the scenario I've described occurs, one of the many religions has it's '2nd Coming'

Would an Atheist still be an Atheist and would an Agnostic immediately become a theist?

On top of that, if it was a Hindu pantheon that appeared, would Christians, Buddhists, Muslims all convert to Hinduism?
I'd guess they would all say something similar to "Well their 'god' has appeared, so maybe ours will aswell"
 

Uncompetative

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heyheysg said:
No Atheist would say, "meh, it's just a trick"
I am a devout Atheist. I choose to believe that there is no God.

Just as a Muslim, Jew, or Christian can believe in a God without any material evidence, I do the reverse and would stubbornly deny tap-dancing Angels if they were to be made manifest before me.

In all likelihood I would seek Psychiatric help.

I choose to live in Reality. I don't regard it as dull, or yearn for some metaphysical realm, but I do play videogames as an escape...

...but I know that they are a synthetic illusion. Belief in God is a delusion.
 
May 6, 2009
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Everybody seems to be wanting to define "atheism" as something that requires effort on the part of the atheist. "Disbelief" is something that can be expressed.

I honestly don't feel the need religious people seem to have for a God. The question is so separate from my thoughts and experience that I can't give it any serious consideration. It's simply unthinkable to me. I'm not agnostic by this thread's definition because the jury's not still out for me.

I'm atheist because I am truly godless and religionless by nature. Religious fanaticism or even mild religiosity injected into ridiculous inappropriate situations can cause me to react in a manner consistent with my being one of THOSE atheists, but I only do it because it's a means to an end. I just live a godless day where I don't think about religion or gods in any way and sleep a godless sleep at the end of it. People who try to tell me THAT is a religion despite the fact that it has no book, no name, no rituals, no place to congregate, and no code of conduct are ridiculous.
 

Hellenion

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whycantibelinus said:
Meado said:
Agnostic: Does it really matter?

I'd say that's more of a nhilist than an agnostic. That's just me though.
No, a nihilist (as I am) would say for definite that it doesn't matter, as we believe that everything is meaningless
 

tehweave

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Athiests are the crazy christian types except they don't believe in anything.
Agnostics don't give a shit. Apathy rules.
 

manicfoot

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Kelthurin said:
I..think I'm somewhere in between Agnostic and Atheist. I don't believe there's a god, and yet I don't care to think about all that nonsense either.

As a side note, religion can suck my right nut.
Y'know there's a name for what you believe - Deism. Here's a link if you want more info on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism