Atheist vs. Agnostic; Moran mulls (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, November 25, 2011, 15:41 (4725 days ago) @ David Turell

There have been a couple of what George might call “fluffy” articles on agnosticism – one of which suggests we should go and build our own baby universe! Just to set the record straight, T.H. Huxley coined the expression in 1869 to denote the impossibility of knowing whether or not God exists. In an epistemological context, many of us would argue that it’s impossible to “know” such things anyway, which would make all theists and atheists agnostics. I prefer the more modern usage, still frowned on by purists, to indicate neither belief nor disbelief. I myself frown on the creeping tendency to use the word in relation to such things as fairies at the bottom of the garden, whose existence or non-existence cannot be “known”. This is a cheap device aimed to discredit the noble race of genuine agnostics, who will only apply the term to God’s existence, the latter in my view being a unique case, just as the creation of life and the universe is a unique case. There are, however, varying degrees of agnosticism, as people may lean one way or another without actually toppling over.

The article I’m responding to starts out with the problem of defining atheism, and gets itself bogged down in philosophical yammerings about “proof”. Totally unnecessary if you just use the word “belief”, which is what it all boils down to. My definition of an atheist would be someone who believes there are no gods. A theist believes in the existence of a god or gods. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a god or gods. That’s it. (Yawn.)