Agnostics: Get Off the Fence

[Revoltingest]

Do you consider yourself to be an atheist? Why?

Agnosticism is on the atheist spectrum.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I've not tried ****-water.
What's it like?

Tom

Go to your local convenience store and buy a can of Miller Lite and taste it.

Then pour the rest into the toilet, if for nothing more than to eliminate the middle-man.

 

[Polymath257]

Go to your local convenience store and buy a can of Miller Lite and taste it.

Then pour the rest into the toilet, if for nothing more than to eliminate the middle-man.

I grew up in Kansas at a time when restaurants and bars could only serve 3.2% beer. The local favorite was Coors.

I never saw the point of drinking diluted donkey ****.

 

[columbus]

Agnosticism is on the atheist spectrum.

Why do you say that?
I don't think it's true. I think that the problem is a person could be very agnostic, but if they belong to a church or identify as a member of some religious community, they get lumped into the theistic category.
Tom

 

[exchemist]

So what do you say to those that claim that these are the only two positions?

That they are trying to force a simplistic view on people. This is quite common among ignorant people - and among bullies.

 

[Revoltingest]

Why do you say that?
I don't think it's true. I think that the problem is a person could be very agnostic, but if they belong to a church or identify as a member of some religious community, they get lumped into the theistic category.
Tom

It's the commonly accepted definition of "atheism".
Ref...
Atheism - Wikipedia
Excerpted....
Atheism is, in the broadest sense, an absence of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2][3][4]

 

[exchemist]

I grew up in Kansas at a time when restaurants and bars could only serve 3.2% beer. The local favorite was Coors.

I never saw the point of drinking diluted donkey ****.

In fact 3-3.5% beer was fairly standard in England when I was a student. Many of them were and are, they have not all died out - very tasty. I have a case of Marston's 3.6% EPA in the cellar at the moment.

But certainly, American mass-produced beer is donkey****, even if it is now 5% alcohol. That fake "Budweiser", made with rice, is about the worst. Nothing like real Budweiser at all. Waste of time (and liver) to drink the stuff. When I was in Houston I used to keep some bottles of St. Arnold in the fridge. That was rather good, I thought.

 

[columbus]

It's the commonly accepted definition of "atheism".
Ref...
Atheism - Wikipedia
Excerpted....
Atheism is, in the broadest sense, an absence of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2][3][4]

I don't find dictionaries to be Holy Writ, but whatever.

Tom

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't find dictionaries to be Holy Writ, but whatever.

Tom

Language itself isn't holy....it's just what people
use, & it even evolves over time.
Dictionaries are all about common use of words.
If one uses a definition that's not used by others,
one can expect to create confusion.'

 

[columbus]

Language itself isn't holy....it's just what people
use, & it even evolves over time.
Dictionaries are all about common use of words.
If one uses a definition that's not used by others,
one can expect to create confusion.'

The flip side of that argument is

If you insist that a concept doesn't exist because the dictionary doesn't include it you haven't done anything important. Only demonstrated fealty to the authorities who published your dictionary.
Tom

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

It is not the case. I have been on this forum for many years and have kept the same signature that you see below.

I don’t know, and neither do you.​

I am not a theist. To be a theist means that you have faith that God exists. I do not have faith that God exists.

I am not an atheist. The be an atheist you have to have concluded (have faith) that no God exists. I cannot exclude the possibility (and you cannot either).

And before any twits here start labelling me with “strong atheist”, or “atheistic agnostic”, or “weak theist” garbage. Just know that all that blubbering is just garbage. Get over yourselves and your claims of knowledge. You. Don’t. KNOW.
You have faith. I am faithless in this regard.

I’m very comfortable “on the fence” as you say. The rest of you live with your beliefs.
I will keep watching what is, because I don’t think that we’ve learned everything that the multiverse has to show us yet.

There’s plenty of room up here, and all are welcome.

This. Thank you for making a much more clear and succinct explanation of the position of fence-sitting on this particular topic.

 

[Revoltingest]

The flip side of that argument is

If you insist that a concept doesn't exist because the dictionary doesn't include it you haven't done anything important. Only demonstrated fealty to the authorities who published your dictionary.
Tom

If you claim that agnostics aren't atheists,
then you're in a tiny lonely minority.
And you make God cry.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm right there with you, but I don't consider myself an atheist.

Why not?

Or rather: what do you think makes a person an atheist?

I think most of the responses in this thread come down to semantics: how someone personally defines "atheist" will determine how they answer the OP.

 

[icehorse]

Some here appear to have concluded that one is either a theist or an atheist; that there is no other option. If this is, indeed, the case, in which camp do you fall if you're agnostic?

Agnostics:

Do you consider yourself to be a theist? Why?
Do you consider yourself to be an atheist? Why?

Like most of the atheists I know, I'm 99.99999% sure there is no god. But I allow for that slim chance.

I guess that puts me in the atheist camp.

 

[Polymath257]

In fact 3-3.5% beer was fairly standard in England when I was a student. Many of them were and are, they have not all died out - very tasty. I have a case of Marston's 3.6% EPA in the cellar at the moment.

But certainly, American mass-produced beer is donkey****, even if it is now 5% alcohol. That fake "Budweiser", made with rice, is about the worst. Nothing like real Budweiser at all. Waste of time (and liver) to drink the stuff. When I was in Houston I used to keep some bottles of St. Arnold in the fridge. That was rather good, I thought.

I don't drink a lot of beer. I like Guiness, but that is about it (a few coffee stouts).

I prefer whisk(e)y.

 

[exchemist]

I don't drink a lot of beer. I like Guiness, but that is about it (a few coffee stouts).

I prefer whisk(e)y.

Pity, I was hoping for a dissertation on US craft beers.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Pity, I was hoping for a dissertation on US craft beers.

Can't say I've tried a lot of craft beers, but compared to mass produced swill of Budweiser and Miller, they've all been much better. But even AB and Miller have acquired some lesser but higher quality (higher quality than Bud, Bush, Miller, Miller Light, etc.) lines.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Some here appear to have concluded that one is either a theist or an atheist; that there is no other option. If this is, indeed, the case, in which camp do you fall if you're agnostic?

Agnostics:

Do you consider yourself to be a theist? Why?
Do you consider yourself to be an atheist? Why?

That is just a matter of semantics and definition. If you say that an atheist is somebody who claims to know that there are no gods, then there is a middle ground between theist and atheist, traditionally called agnostic. This was (and may still be) the dominant way of defining these issues, but many atheists find it insufficient, since they contend that the question of the existence of gods has never been rigorously determined, and thus are agnostic, but also consider themselves atheists, which they define as anybody that answers "No" to the question, "Do you believe in a god or gods."

Notice that in the original formulation, everybody is either an atheist, agnostic, or theist, and nobody is more than one of these. This is illustrated in the top stripe.

This is a better graphic representation of the more modern way of defining and organizing these terms:

By this method of reckoning, everybody is either an atheist or a theist, and nobody is both, and also, everybody is either agnostic or gnostic, but nobody is both, leading to four combinations.

But as I said, whether you conceptualize this matter as a line with three positions or a 2x2 matrix with two sets of two positions is definitional. There is no right or wrong here. I find the latter more useful, since the phrase agnostic atheist suits me and most other atheists better than having to choose only one of those descriptions.

I believe this answers all of your questions above.

 

[exchemist]

Can't say I've tried a lot of craft beers, but compared to mass produced swill of Budweiser and Miller, they've all been much better. But even AB and Miller have acquired some lesser but higher quality (higher quality than Bud, Bush, Miller, Miller Light, etc.) lines.

Have you ever tried real Budweiser, i.e. made in Budweis? (It is also called Budvar, to avoid confusion.)

But I was pleased to find there were a lot of excellent craft beers in the States when I was there in about 2000. My only gripe about beer in the UK is the trend to raise the alcohol content. This makes everyone terribly drunk. I used to drink 3 or even 4 pints in an evening quite comfortably, but that was when they were 3-3.5%. I couldn't do that with a beer that was 4.5% or stronger - I'd get serious roomspin and feel lousy.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Have you ever tried real Budweiser, i.e. made in Budweis? (It is also called Budvar, to avoid confusion.)

But I was pleased to find there were a lot of excellent craft beers in the States when I was there in about 2000. My only gripe about beer in the UK is the trend to raise the alcohol content. This makes everyone terribly drunk. I used to drink 3 or even 4 pints in an evening quite comfortably, but that was when they were 3-3.5%. I couldn't do that with a beer that was 4.5% or stronger - I'd get serious roomspin and feel lousy.

Never had the opportunity to try Budvar. I no longer drink enough to find out if the alcohol content is higher...at most anymore, it's one with dinner...I tend to not go places where drinking more would be appropriate...