Why I'm Not an Atheist: The Case for Agnosticism

[LostOne4Ever]

240. Definitions

To say that those of us that want to distinguish ourselves as being agnostic and questioning whether we know anything of what the afterlife (if there is one or not) holds for us from those who believe there is no such thing, or those who believe that is structured a certain way, is putting us in to a box that I don't think fits our beliefs.

Can you define for me what you mean by the word belief? Further would you mind defining for me what you mean when you say atheist or agnostic?

According to wikipedia belief is holding a position to be true. By that, belief is rather binary. If you think a statement is mostly true, part true, mostly false, or false you would not be able to define your position as belief.

Similarly according to Merriam-Webster I see no middle ground. By the first definition do you put trust in the existence of god? If you are unsure then you obviously do not. By definition 2, do you hold it to be true that god exists? Again if you are uncertain that means you accept it could be false...so again, you do not hold it to be true. Definition 3 goes even further and adds the word conviction to the mix which only further makes it binary.

The free dictionary and dictionary.reference.com all make similar definitions.

By definition, atheism is the lack of belief in any god or gods. It includes the middle position in the question of whether you belief or actively disbelieve. The definition of someone who actively believes there are no god or gods is strong atheist, explicit atheist or positive atheist. I get the impression that is what you mean when you say atheist.

I sometimes wish the word intheist existed as a way of describing the position that no gods exist so as to avoid confusion. I find a lot of people solely mean explicit atheist when they use the word atheist, and that implicit atheism gets incorrectly labeled as agnosticism.

So by its definition, agnosticism is not a middle ground between atheism and theism. You can be an agnostic and an atheist or a theist at the same time. So maybe the problem is that im not understanding what you mean by belief. Dictionaries only contain popular usages for words and the meaning of words can change in a language if enough people use it that way.

That said, the basic ideas remain the same. No matter how much an isosceles triangle might dislike or disagree with being called a triangle...it is still a triangle. The word used to define a triangle might become farfitnoogin, but anything with only three sides would still be a farfitnoogin.

So, what is your definition of the words belief, agnostic, and atheist? What is the thought you are trying to get across? Because I can not understand that position based on my understanding of the meaning of those words.

If labeling is your issue and you simply don't want to be labeled or put into a box, you are free to decline to answer on whether or not you have any belief in any deities. But it does not change the meaning of the words.

I'm quite comfortable acknowledging that the person next to me is an atheist and feels confident of their own personal feelings beliefs of not having a god and consider them a valuable part of society and having valuable perspectives to look at.

Again, not understanding what you are trying to say here based on my understanding and usage of the word atheist. Implicit atheists such as myself have no beliefs one way or the other. Are you talking about explicit atheists?

But I don't want them projecting their beliefs of atheism (the need to say there is no god), or another religion (the need to say to me I need to accept Christ) on to me. That I have a problem with. I like to consider myself an open book, until I have a personal revelation one way or the other if that comes at some point. I think it is a highly personal thing, that is shaped by our lives we live in. I hear others, and at some point might accept someone else's beliefs if it at some point I see the reality of those beliefs. But I haven't to this point, and value that I'm open to all different points of view. It allows me to look at all of the common belief systems and atheist beliefs and those values people have when having such beliefs, and seeing what I see as common good personal moral values of all of them, and that structures my beliefs that there MIGHT Be something out there that is god like that influences all of those different religious beliefs in the same way to help society be good to each other.

That is not the definition of the word atheism. Atheism, itself, expresses no beliefs. It is simply a lack of belief in any god or gods. The prefix a means without so all that atheism means is without theism or belief in any god or gods. Believing there is no god (explicit atheism) is a subset of atheism but not its full definition. Its similar to how the words moral, amoral, and immoral all have subtle shades of meaning.

"I don't believe myself "superior" as an agnostic to others, and am not trying to dismiss everyone else, that some here say that agnostics are trying to do. I just want to have my own space for my own beliefs or my own questioning of my own beliefs and not to be judged or lumped in to some other belief category that I don't really belong to. It's just a personal thing. Nothing more! I think, though don't know, that I probably share the same viewpoint with a lot of agnostics out there."

That is fine, but the statement that Blue Marble made originally was very insulting to atheists and does come off as feeling superior for the reasons that were outlined. And, again, I think there is some issue here in how people are defining the word atheist and agnostic. Thus why I am asking you to define what you mean by those words.

I do not mean to try and label you (though tbh the word agnostic is also a label). But I get the distinct impression that you are using the terms to mean something different from my understanding of the words.