/atheism/ - Atheism

People equate "I don't believe in God" with a positive claim. That implies certainty. Then with a bunch of people going around trying to not get involved in these sorts of questions by saying they're "agnostic" and just don't know if there's a God or not, the less intelligent of people would assume those positions are mutually exclusive.

Even smart people fall for that.

It's useful to have this misunderstanding for those who live in dangerous Christian communities where saying you're agnostic doesn't summon the pitchforks as often as saying you are atheist. In the Christian mind the agnostic is more open and might still be savable, while the atheist has rejected god and refuses to listen, and is possibly a Satanist. It helps our cause because Agnostics can teach Christians there doesn't have to be only two choices for everything in the universe, like good and evil. And one can question their beliefs without being fully opposed to the notion.

Your understanding of (a)gnosticism and (a)theism is correct, OP.

The other posters make good points. Here's two more.

1. It's easier to think of people as fitting in a box instead of having a bunch of descriptors attached to them. 3 different boxes is easier to conceptualize than 4 descriptors arranged in a 2x2 grid with 4 possible states, where any given person has 2 descriptors. This isn't to say the people who think this are stupid; humans by nature try to be as efficient as possible with our thought processes. Unless you've actively engaged with any particular subject, you are probably operating under some kind of simple impression-based rule of thumb relating to it.

2. There's confusion about where the burden of proof lies. The burden of proof lies with whoever makes a positive claim, i.e. a claim that deviates from the logical default assumption. In the case of whether something exists, the default assumption is that it doesn't - until the evidence for that thing shows that it usually exists or that its existence is more probably than not. A positive case can be effectively made for existence if you have evidence for existence. E.g. I don't think there's a stray cat in my yard unless I look outside and see one or see evidence it left behind, like prints. To say "there's no cat in my yard" is a negative claim, which does not have the burden of proof, because it's simply stating the default assumption (you could describe it as the negation of a positive claim about cats in my yard). As for the existence of God, most people believe in some kind of higher power or god, so this distorts most people's perception about what the logical default assumption is. If you live in a suburban area in the West, you most likely have a grass lawn. You can easily find evidence for a grass lawn if you have one. If I say "my yard is covered in a lawn" that's not a positive claim, because I'm an American living in the 'burbs. It's a verifiable fact that I have a lawn, as it's a verifiable fact that most people of that description do. In other words, it's normal. It is normal to believe in God or a god, but whether someone believes something doesn't constitute evidence for it. People tend to think it does because "trust other people" is a heuristic built into us as a social species, which is one of the major flaws in human thinking that religion exploits. Most people are religious so a person being an atheist does constitute a deviation from the logical default assumption, which is that they believe in at least one god - something like ~90% of people. Aside from a person's level of interest in the subject having an effect of how granular their understanding is, most people are in general not rigorous when they use logic. It's quite common for a person to conflate the default assumption of people's belief in a god with the default assumption of the existence of god. This is also usually implicit in the way they argue rather than something they will state outright. And it's already hard enough to argue against because you're essentially arguing against an aspect of their perception, and most people don't bother discerning between perception and reality.

>Why do many people seem to think that agnosticism is an intermediate point between theism and atheism?

Because people are too stupid to understand the difference between belief and knowledge.

>It is my understanding that everybody is either atheist or theist,

Generally yes. There are Apatheists and Ignostics, and such but as is the case with Agnostics, they are still atheists.

>>6098
To clarify this further:

Apatheists are atheists by default and take no position on the question of (a)gnosticism. They just don't care.

Ignostics are atheists by default because they assert that the question of (a)theism is nonsensical. They are gnostic in the sense that they assert God (or certain versions of a god) are logically incongruent.

Most people who would say "I'm an atheist" are agnostic atheists because they recognize 1 it's not really possible to know for sure if there is a god and 2 the gods they've heard of are unconvincing.

An agnostic theist would be someone going by Pascal's Wager.

>>6074
>Why do many people seem to think that agnosticism is an intermediate point between theism and atheism?

>This kind of implies that atheists claim to be absolutely certain and even dogmatic about the impossibility of the existence deities.
That's why. Because that's exactly how religious people and organizations portray atheists.

People don't understand that by saying "I don't believe in god" you are not saying "it's absolutely impossible for any god to exist", you are actually saying "I don't have enough evidence to believe in made up stories".

>>6189
>I like leaving the following exercise to genuinely interested questioners who don't seem to get the drill:
>"I do not believe deities exist"
>"I believe deities do not exist"

Nope, you got it very wrong

Take a look at these:

"Deities are cannot exist, it's impossible."
"I believe deities don't exist."

When you are an atheist you don't believe in god, if you state that no god can ever exist, well that's your problem and opinion. But it is logical to not believe in everything until presented with credible evidence, especially for such a massive claim as the creator of everything.

"I have two apples at home"
—
"I believe that apples cannot ever exist."
"I do not believe you have two apples, and I have never seen apples until now. I do not believe this."

See?

>>6191
what? you are just confirming what >>6189 said. nice reading comprehension m8

>"I do not believe deities exist"
>"I believe deities do not exist"

these aren't to be understood as premise and conclusion, cause and effect. The point is that the first one is enough to call yourself and atheist, regardless of whether you think the other is true or not; but if you believe the second one then it logically follows that you must believe the first one too, which also makes you an atheist.

Well at this point it is clear that the thread converges towards a single opinion.
It has been already noted that the lack of proper justification in favor of the existence of any kind of god is reason enough to not believe in them regardless of the existence of proper justification against their existence, just as that is reason enough to not believe in Zeus, fairies, Russell's orbiting teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you know, the burden of proof. Moreover, I would say it is ethically imperative to reject the belief in their existence under that situation.

However, even though I also consider myself an agnostic (that is, agnostic atheist) under strict epistemology; I would say that I am way more gnostic about the nonexistence of the monotheistic kind of gods than about the nonexistence of a magical unicorn which hides from us or any of the beings I mentioned earlier, even the deities of dead ancient mythologies. Why? Becuase the existence of a chinese teapot orbiting the sun even if just by mere chance, and the existence of magical beings we thought didn't exist don't contradict logic nor the observed phenomena. This is unlike the god of Christianity, for which no given description goes without being shown logically inconsistent.

Post-aristotelian monotheisms think that just by attributing desirable properties to their god and taking them to the maximum imaginable magnitude they are actually coming up with a better kind of god, when in fact they are just making it more stupidly implausible. The random positive claim is to be rejected simply by lack of proof, whereas the theological rambling attempts at justifying a possibly culturally and unconsciously constructed god is to be rejected for rampant reductio ad absurdum.

I'm strictly agnostic about the currently popular claimed gods because I don't take their nonexistence dogmatically: I am more than willing to change my mind if shown a logically sound argument plus compelling, verifiable evidence that I was wrong; whereas a logically sound argument without empirical evidence (a motherfucking God theorem taught in my math class) would probably move my position to the middle of Dawkins' classification, just because I don't think mathematical objects correspond to metaphysical objects other than constructs inside our brains. But as far as I'm concerned I think one should be even more certain about the nonexistence of monotheistic gods than people like Russell and Dawkins use to express when explaining the burden of proof bla bla….

>>6189
I know what you mean, people like De Grasse Tyson or Bill Maher which confuse atheism with positive atheism in public, and denounce it like dogma they don't want to associate with, even though they are atheists themselves by definition.

Or even worse, people like Alvin Plantinga who are outright sympathetic with religious myths but call themselves "agnostic" to look fucking snobbish