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originally posted in:Secular Sevens
Edited by Ouch:
7/30/2013 5:13:09 AM
1
[quote]a theist is defined as someone who holds the belief (to some degree of certainty) that God exists.[/quote]
What's "some degree"? What's "belief"? If you're going to debate semantics, then you have to explain what you mean by these vague terms. I would hold that an agnostic deist/theist/polytheist is by definition admitting to having absolutely zero degree of certainty. The word agnostic itself screams at everyone who hears it that the person is admitted to a complete lack of knowledge and proof.
You're still trying to lump all theistic belief into one category and you're simply not allowed to do that. Who cares what you or anyone else thinks is "meaningful"? This is not an insult or an attack but rather me pointing out that it's not up to any other person to decide whether one's beliefs or feelings are "meaningful". It's not "practical" to ponder whether or not the belief is consistent with reason for very long because there is no empirical proof for the negative or the positive.
[quote]To reiterate: when someone is a theist/desist/polytheist/etc., they are making some claim about reality.[/quote]
When someone is a gnostic theist/deist/polytheist/etc., they are making a claim about reality. When someone is an agnostic theist/deist/polytheist/etc., they are making a claim about their complete lack of certainty about the nature of reality. This is proven by the very nature and definition of the word "agnostic". I have no earthly clue how you can debate this.
English
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By ''belief'' I refer to the colloquial definition, that a person believes X if they hold that, by a correct epistemic standard, the proposition X is justified. By ''to some degree'' I'm referring to a level of certainty; a person can be certain of a belief, they can believe that all evidence points towards the belief but that it may still be wrong, etc. Do note that I'm simply trying to more rigorously speak of colloquial terms, so I could easily be wrong about my definitions. I agree with the agnostic position (as I'd consider myself an agnostic atheist), but I don't quite understand agnostic theism/deism/polytheism (and I'd like to stress that I'm not saying it's invalid, but that I personally do not yet understand it). Perhaps you can help me here. As you said, an agnostic is defined as someone who holds zero certainty as to the existence of god(s). It should follow from this that an agnostic does not explicitly hold the belief that God exists. An atheist is then defined as someone who does not hold the belief that God exists. Shouldn't agnostics then be atheists? Or is an agnostic theist/deist/polytheist someone who is agnostic, but has the intuition/feeling that god(s) exist? Thanks. I apologize that I didn't know you were referring to agnosticism, which is likely the source of a lot of our disagreement and my misconception here.
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[quote] It should follow from this that an agnostic does not explicitly hold the belief that God exists.[/quote] Why? I could just as easily say that it should follow that an agnostic does not explicitly hold the belief that God doesn't exist.
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Well, because, an agnostic doesn't explicitly hold any position due to lack of evidence. [quote]I could just as easily say that it should follow that an agnostic does not explicitly hold the belief that God doesn't exist.[/quote]And I would completely agree with that statement. But this person could still be considered an atheist, since an atheist is someone who does not believe that God exists, not someone who believes God doesn't exist.
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[quote]Well, because, an agnostic doesn't explicitly hold any position due to lack of evidence. [/quote] That's not the case with an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist/etc. though. They do hold a position. They either lean towards god(s) existing or not. Evidence is not important. [quote]But this person could still be considered an atheist, since an atheist is someone who does not believe that God exists, not someone who believes God doesn't exist.[/quote] That's another huge semantic debate that in the grand scheme of things means very little. It's far more convenient to just define an atheist as someone with the position that God does not exist.
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Okay, so let me see if I understand you correctly. Now, there's the proposition ''/at least one God exists.'' It could be true or false. As for my belief about its truth value, we could represent it with any number from -1 to 1; -1 means I believe with certainty it's false, 1 means I believe with certainty that it's true, 0 means I'm completely uncertain and I don't lean either way. Then, there's everything in between. What you're saying is that an agnostic is someone who is 0 or very close to 0. An agnostic atheist is someone with a negative value who is still very close to 0, and an agnostic theist is someone who is positive but close to 0. Do I understand you correctly?
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More or less, although you're still implying that the agnostics of all types would even be subject to being put on the same scale as hard atheists or hard theists by giving them -1 and +1 values respectively.
