Thinking critical wrote: ↑June 8th, 2018, 5:59 pmSo yes, neither atheists or agnostics share the same belief in gods as a theist, however agnostics go on to say they have a degree of uncertainty or they are unsure, and are open to the possibility that gods may exist.
As an atheist myself my position is this - "I see no reason to even contemplate the possibility that gods exist".
The term
"agnostic" is used by many to refer to those who
neither believe nor disbelieve in the existence of God or gods. This usage is contrary to its etymological meaning (relating to
knowledge rather than belief), but its current meaning may certainly deviate from its etymological meaning.
"What I am referring to as the etymological fallacy is the assumption that the original form or meaning of a word is, necessarily and by virtue of that very fact, its correct form or meaning. This assumption is widely held. How often do we meet the argument that because such and such a word comes from Greek, Latin, Arabic, or whatever language it might be in the particular instance, the correct meaning of the word must be what it was in the language of origin! The argument is fallacious, because the tacit assumption of an originally true or appropriate correspondence between form and meaning, upon which the argument rests, cannot be substantiated."
(Lyons, John.
Language and Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. p. 55)
Unfortunately,
"agnostic(ism)" is currently used both etymologically and non-etymologically, which circumstance has created a good deal of confusion and misunderstanding. One possible solution is to disambiguate the term through introducing another one such as
"apistic(ism)", whose etymological meaning relates to
belief rather than knowledge.
"Let the adherents of this phase of irreligion call themselves, not agnostics, signifying their lack of knowledge, but apistics, signifying their lack of belief; and let them call their system, not agnosticism, but apisticism."
(Rishell, Charles Wesley.
The Foundations of the Christian Faith. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1899. p. 62)
Another possibility is to disambiguate the term by adding the adjectives
"doxastic" ("belief-related") and
"epistemic" ("knowledge-related"). Then we can use the respectively non-ambiguous terms
"doxastic agnosticism" (= "apisticism") and
"epistemic agnosticism".
(Note that the latter is compatible both with positive atheism/antitheism and with theism, whereas the former is not, since "doxastically agnostic anti-/theist" is a contradiction in terms.)
Then we finally get the following trinary classification:
1. atheism/nontheism (defined as the absence of the belief in the existence of God or gods, or that theism is true)
1.1 purely negative atheism = apisticism (doxastic agnosticism) = neutral atheism (neutralism)
1.2 positive atheism/antitheism (defined as the belief in the non-existence of God or gods, or that theism is false)
As for 1.2, note that
belief doesn't entail certainty! So you don't have to be certain that theism is false in order to be a positive atheist. Nor do you have to
claim to know that theism is false in order to be a positive atheist, because positive atheism is compatible with
epistemic agnosticism. Nor do you have to believe that theism is
necessarily false, i.e. that God is/gods are
necessarily nonexistent. This view can be called
superpositive atheism: Theism isn't only false in the actual world but in all possible worlds.