Bravo! Great breakdown.

Ignostic is a term I hadn't heard before. Time to do some research! ?

I'm also ignostic / igtheist.
I describe myself as an atheist mainly because it coveys my lack of belief without a long explanation.
Most people haven't heard the term and I've explained it more times than I care to anymore.
Hell, the Oxford Dictionary doesn't even have a definition for it. You need to Google it.

I'm sorry, your response is great, but I don't see anywhere in it an explanation of how the post is "a failure to grasp the difference between Philosophical reality and Practical reality," as you said at the beginning?

@DaystarEld The term A-Theist is addressing a belief in that Philosophical/Conceptual reality, that it is in fact a PRACTICAL Reality.
The Term Agnostic is an acknowledgement that you do not think there is evidence enough to make a conclusion, Lacking Gnosis (knowledge , often divine revealed knowledge) of God.
The One is addressing a Belief in a Concept (Philosophical reality)
The other is addressing the practical knowledge which you lack of that concept (Practical Reality)

Sure, but nothing in my original post refutes either of those assertions. You seem to be critiquing some statements I never made, unless you can point to some part of my OP where I said something that contradicts what you're saying?

@DaystarEld Your looking for EMPIRICAL (Practical Reality) proof of a CONCEPTUAL (Philosophical Reality) idea (God)

".In summation, due to social stigma, "atheism" is seen as an extreme view rather than the rational starting point (disbelief) of any unverifiable claim."
You are conflating inherent Atheism, like that of an infant (uninformed), with either weak or strong Atheism, and in either case it does not need to be active. That is you do not need to DIS believe, to unbeleive what you accept as real and true. Rather you fail to believe the tale without evidence and leave it in Philosophical reality instead of asserting it belongs in Practical reality as a fact.

"And so, many people consider themselves agnostics, despite having just as little reason to believe in God as anything else they have no evidence of."
Being Agnostic is not about belief in God, it is about Knowledge of God.
Theism is about belief in God.
A-theism is the lack of said belief.

You sound like Both.

Religious theologians actually teach a false narrative about Atheism and Agnosticism. Your opening statement tells me you are still laboring under that.

This tells me you are viewing agnosticism and Atheism as points on a linear line, on the left, Theism, In the middle Agnosticism, and on the right Atheism, this is FALSE and INTENTIONAL by theologians.

A-Theism is a response to Theism, the a prefix denotes "lack of"
This is a position on belief, you have a belief in a God, or you lack a belief in God

A-Gnosticism is a response to Gnosticism, the A-prefix denotes lack of
This is a position on Knowledge, you claim to have knowledge of a God, or you claim to lack such knowledge of a God

Religion does not want to even acknowledge Gnosticism, because by doing so they have to admit Atheism (a lack of belief) has weight.

With the FALSE linear model, they teach followers that Atheists are COUNTERCLAIMING, claiming that Theists claim there is a God, Agnostics do not know, and Atheists claim there is no God. That is wrong both on linguistics and basic honesty.

Oh, I see, you're caught up in the semantics of "athiest" and "agnostic." I thought I made it clear in my final paragraph that I'm using Atheist and Agnostic in their noun forms, and not addressing the topic along the agnostic-gnostic spectrum of the position of knowledge, but I guess you missed that paragraph.

@DaystarEld NO, THAT IS my point.
In any communication TERMS must be agreed upon at the outset, or we are bound to miscommunicate.
The religion has purposely propagated a flase narrative about the terms themselves for hundreds of years for thier profit.

In its noun form the terms describe me or you, we become the object (not Atheism)
NOUN
A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.--Oxford

To me it looks like a form of black and white reasoning, when the reality is far more nuanced, and individualized and often unexamined by the person holding the beliefs as they grew up entrenched in them by the overarching society or traditions.

It is not caught up in, it is your oversimplification of them.
You seem to desire Atheism to mean not only your lack of belief, but your fervent denial of the claims of each and every religion (even those for which you are utterly ignorant and hence unable to speak intelligently, like some polyponesian tribal religion)
I do not have any reason to believe in any such things
But it looks arrogant and egotistical to me to go about declaring things false, when you are in fact ignorant of them.
To me the better thig to do in those cases would be simply to asert your lack of belief.

You seem to want Atheist to be a political position, a FIXED position, when Atheism is NOT a positon at all. It is t=not accepting the OTHERS position as valid.
Anything beyond that, disagreements with specific religions, dogmas and so on, would be other things like forms of anti-theism.

SO, when people like yourself propagate this view (which your entitled to), it makes this very conversation rather eternal
Because I land on the other side of it, I see it as a faliure to grasp philosophic ideas and understandings and hence a miscommunication.

When you propagate this view of Atheist, and I label as Atheist, but do not define Atheist
AND someone who heard and accepts yur definition encounters me, there is instant miscommunication, becauuse they assume your definition
(AND VICE VERSA) that is why this damn conversation is endlesss (and how language evolves)

I await the day that theists are so few the term Atheist is not needed

@Davesnothere You're taking this way past what I would consider the reasonable conclusion of the word's meaning. There is indeed a difference between an atheist and an anti-theist, but to claim that atheism is a "fervent denial" is you rather strongly missing the point of my original post, which is that skepticism does not require a conscious rejection of a claim: only the insufficient evidence for it.

I'm not trying to turn atheism into a political point, I'm simply saying that skepticism as the default is rational, and we should acknowledge this. We agree that theists have been setting the tone of conversation for too long, and yes, it would be great if atheism as a word no longer needed to exist, but to say that disagreements with specific religions and dogmas must necessarily be anti-theism instead seems to be trying too hard to seek neutrality.

And if you're too afraid of being arrogant to recognize the strength of your own rational epistemology, you're kind of proving my point: that religious culture has warped our attitudes on what it is reasonable to believe and disbelieve, to the point where even people like yourself seem to shy away from your own ability to say "I don't have to know what is true as an absolute to assert what is probably false." I bet you do it all the time with non-religious things, by the way you live your life, because you haven't been conditioned to fear offense or labels of "arrogance" for things like belief in astrology.

@DaystarEld With respect, Theism/Atheism are on a spectrum, but Gnosticism/Agnosticism are not. You either know something or you don't, so it's simply Yes or No, whether the notion that you possess that knowledge is True or False, Gnostic or Agnostic (No spectrum).

@DarrellBurnett I do not see much of a spectrum for a belief question like theism either, you either believe or you do not believe.
If you have tweaked the belief because you do not like parts of its dogma, it is nonetheless a belief to which you either subscribe or do not subscribe to.

@DarrellBurnett, @DaystarEld Not claiming that Atheism is a fervent denial, but that seems to be how your using the term.

You seem to fall into that old paradigm from theology.

Religious theologians actually teach a false narrative about Atheism and Agnosticism. Your opening statement tells me you are still laboring under that.

This tells me you are viewing agnosticism and Atheism as points on a linear line, on the left, Theism, In the middle Agnosticism, and on the right Atheism, this is FALSE and INTENTIONAL by theologians.

A-Theism is a response to Theism, the a prefix denotes "lack of"
This is a position on belief, you have a belief in a God, or you lack a belief in God

A-Gnosticism is a response to Gnosticism, the A-prefix denotes lack of
This is a position on Knowledge, you claim to have knowledge of a God, or you claim to lack such knowledge of a God

Religion does not want to even acknowledge Gnosticism, because by doing so they have to admit Atheism (a lack of belief) has weight.

With the FALSE linear model, they teach followers that Atheists are COUNTERCLAIMING, claiming that Theists claim there is a God, Agnostics do not know, and Atheists claim there is no God. That is wrong both on linguistics and basic honesty.

I think we are in agreement on principals, and just hung up on linguistics.

@Davesnothere No, I'm not saying they are points on a line, in fact I'm saying that Theism/Atheism and Gnosticism/Agnosticism are two separate 'lines'. I'm fairly certain I was clear that was what I was saying.

@DarrellBurnett At some points you are quite clear, but in others you were not, at least to me.

Like this
"And if you're too afraid of being arrogant to recognize the strength of your own rational epistemology, you're kind of proving my point: that religious culture has warped our attitudes on what it is reasonable to believe and disbelieve, to the point where even people like yourself seem to shy away from your own ability to say "I don't have to know what is true as an absolute to assert what is probably false."

This, to me, is a very clear conflation between the conceptual Philosophical idea of God, which is both unfalsifiable and never proven (hence not worthy of belief)
As an insitance it is FALSE (which cannot be proven Philosophicaly) because it lacks any evidence in practical reality.

Which makes it overall seem like you think that many people calling themselves Agnostic are in error and NEED to declare not only Atheism but Gnostic Atheism (which is also a faith based position as the claim itself is unfalsifiable)

@Davesnothere That is NOT a quote from me that you have included as one of your examples of me not being clear. I have never typed the word 'Epistemology' in my whole life. Well, until just then, obviously!

@Davesnothere I did specifically state in my last paragraph of the post that I am not speaking of the agnostic/gnostic paradigm for atheism/theism, but rather the use of "agnostic" to mean "I can't decide one way or the other, so I will refrain from taking a stand in either sense."

@DarrellBurnett Sorry, I conflated Darrell and Daystar
Probably how I got so confused on your positions, got lost in the thread.

THIS is what I am talking about.
""I can't decide one way or the other, so I will refrain from taking a stand in either sense."
Exactly what is there to take a stand on?
A theist makes a fantastic claim which I do not believe because of its fantastic nature.
Non belief is the null stance, the default of which is not denial of the claim of the Theist.
Once a person denies the unfalsifiable claim of the theist they assume the impossible burden of proof no theist has ever met.
Why do that?
Why take an inferior position, based on faith (belief your conclusions are absolutely, 100% correct) with an unfalsifiable claim which was never proven by the claimant?

To make it sound like your "taking a Stand", is to make a claim.
What is it that you are claiming?
That there is not a God?
Is your idea of the God any better formed or defined that the theists undefined or undefinable God which the fail to prove?

Why assume the Theists burden of proof for them?

@Davesnothere Because that's not how skepticism works. Being an atheist does not mean stating with 100% certainty that God doesn't exist. It just means that you don't believe in them. It just means you're skeptical of them, just like you're skeptical of a thousand other kinds of God or supernatural being.

There's no reason to shy away from the claim that there is insufficient evidence to believe in God, or that Jesus or Yahweh don't exist as deities, or whatever specific religious claim is made probably isn't true. The idea that it's claiming too much or is arrogant to say is an idea that religious people propagate so that they can discourage people from feeling confident in their skepticism.

@DaystarEld T
I agree with this.
"Being an atheist does not mean stating with 100% certainty that God doesn't exist."
and this
"There's no reason to shy away from the claim that there is insufficient evidence to believe in God"
BUT
THIS is a counter claim based on an unfalsifiable position. It is philosophically unsound.
" or that Jesus or Yahweh don't exist as deities"

You or I can point out a thousand inconsistencies, contradictions of text, dogma and so forth, but that will never rise to some proof that the claim is outright false.
You second point on that
"or whatever specific religious claim is made probably isn't true" is about PRACTICAL REALITY, the inability of any theist to prove the assertion as evidence of the reality it probably is not true and therefore not worth believing.

ie, the NULL position. I do not believe the claim, and have no reason or impetus to actively claim it false. All I have are my own rationales, which make their claim unbelieveable.
To claim it probably is NOT TRUE, is a statement of belief, not fact.

Which makes it just as faith based as the theist position.

To me the only proper sound position is "There is no evidence for the assertion, therefore no reason to believe it." NOTHING more is needed.

Nor is this an idea religious people proagate, it is basic Philosophical thought.

"because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line. ”

Bertrand Russell

LET ME REPRASE because I think we agree but are miscommunicating.
For shorthand I will use C for concetptual philosophical claims, and P for Practical/ real world claims

A theist is claiming that their <C> God is in fact Real<P>.
As an Atheist I do not believe this God <C> is in fact in existence <P>.
I can give a lot of reason why (So can you)
I cannot however disprove the God <C> in which that theist believes (C&P utterly conflated)
I also cannot disprove, Aliens, Bigfoot, Nessie, Moby Dick, Spiderman, and so on, because they are <C>concepts.
I can prove they are VERY unlikely, so improbable as to be impossible in my own mind ( Tacic belief via faith, meaning TRUST in the utter lack of any evidence)

HOWEVER, I can NEVER prove that the Concept of God <C> is false. Both because it is purely conceptual and unfalsifiable.

Thusly, if you say to any believer that "God does not exist", all you get is a hostile reaction, because for them C&P are ONE in that regaurd, via Faith.
It is a dead end communicatively. They shut down.
Secondarily, if you do that you are also making a claim, that the concept of God <C>, which is Unknown, incredibly individual and cultural, often undefined or undefinable, is in all cases, false.
Which is a claim no one can honestly make without some kind of certain evidence of the mind of every person ever, philosophically.
So, why make that claim if it is unfalsifiable itself and you cannot prove it, and in fact are relying upon the failure of the theist to prove their claim as the evidence of your own claim?

Because theists conflate the Conceptual world and the Practical world via faith, challanging their concepts directly is most often a dead end, that is why debats rarely go anywhere.
Debates have value for people watching them, because many of the people who are watching them are actually fence sitters, they are weighing these weighty issue for themselves.

I do not think that tactic is valid, that is the David Silverman appraoch, and I think it causes more harm than good because of how most people think. It has its place as a civil rights issue, ie "we are here and have a right to exist, get used to us" value, all on its own.

I much prefer the Bertrand Russel, Michalel Shermer approach, instead of just saying "Hey, your God idea is false." and causing instant conflict and an end to communication, a defensive reation in the theist.
I ask them questions, usually "What is God?" because they do not know, God is a mystery and it OPENS doors.

Every sinlge Atheist I know , or have read, or seen who is not simply implicit, but who is considered. Any Atheist who REASONED their way into that position did so by asking themselves those same questions.

It seems much more productive to me to stand in that Null position and ask pointed questions than to shift to that hard claim "There is no God" and cause an instant defensive reaction in my fellow human, when my own hope is for that same human to actually ask themselves those same damn questions.

@Davesnothere I think we agree more than we disagree. I don't know if I just wrote it poorly or you misread me, but my whole point is not that you can PROVE that any given gods don't exist, but that you don't NEED to in order to be skeptical of them.

As for semantics of how that's presented to other people, I would never say "Your god doesn't exist." I would say "There's no empirical evidence that your god exists" or "There's no logic that leads me to believe your god exists" or so on. But in reality I would actually just go into Socratic Questioning of "What do you mean by God?" and "What convinced you that that concept of God exists and not this other one that X people believe?" and so on.

@DaystarEld When it comes to semantics for talking to believers, I simply stick to the Socratic and use questions for which they oft have no aswer or an answer they thmselves do not fee much confidence in, and then ask why that is.

I thought so too! I can read a book in hand or an essay in print but on the screen it is just harder to focus

Are you aware what "TL;DR" means? It stands for "Too long, didn't read".. He gives a TL;DR summary in his last couple paragraphs..

@Loud_Love....... Okay....for me it's still too long.

@marga - Lol, kk.. Understood

I think you may have misunderstood the post It's not about what labels people use, but rather the reason for being an atheist over an agnostic in terms of the epistemic difference between the two positions.

Thank you!

@TheMiddleWay Well you're probably not going to like this but I wasn't arguing that atheists are, generally, soft agnostics. They are hard agnostics for the most part. I also am.

Atheism is the belief position; agnosticism is the knowledge position.

My knowledge position is that I can't support a knowledge claim that there are or are not any gods. My belief position is that there's no reason to believe that there are any gods. The reason for the lack of knowledge claim either way is non-falsifiability of the god hypothesis; the reason for the lack of belief is the lack of any substantiation for theism's asserted central truth.

I've always considered myself a 6.9 on that scale.

Disagree I think the two labels reflect very different perspectives on the question of God. Even if you dislike the labels themselves, we can still distinguish between someone who feels confident in saying that God probably doesn't exist, and someone who is unsure one way or other.

Another way to say it is that agnosticism is about what we know atheism is about what we believe. We can be both an atheist and an agnostic, we believe there is no doG, but we can't know there is no doG (dyslexic here). On the other hand believers can be agnostic too, they can't know there is a God, but they believe there is a God.

@DaystarEld I don't like or dislike either of them. I'm pretty indifferent to both. I don't particularly care about the different perspectives or whatever. FOR ME, the two labels are irrelevant, because I just don't care. You obviously care about any differences in the labels. We are on different pages.

@Shethatb Ah, so at risk of adding yet another label on, you sound more like an apatheist than anything ;P

@DaystarEld I've never heard of that but just looking at the base word, and the definition I'm guessing indifferent to god/gods. That would be me. Thanks...

Exactly! What she said.

I'm an agnostic atheist.

YES!!!

If you aren't interested in the debate, no one is forcing you to take part. But calling people "fucking fence sitters" is gratuitous rudeness. Why say something bad about someone else when there is no need to?

@citronella I think this is the most pointless argument Atheists debate. It mostly just creates division and confusion. I say “fucking fence sitters”, because I really don’t care to debate something almost no one cares about. Fucking fence sitters..

@Marz And I think looking for reasons to insult someone else is a fucking rude action. Being a bully is a shitty thing to do, and it's not like you are defending yourself or are in psychological or actual danger. You just want to say something nasty. Knock yourself out, there's nothing I can do to stop you.

@citronella “fence sitter” is insulting, nasty, shitty and rude? Okay.

and I am not ajar

@btroje Brilliant... you almost make me 'wish to be an ajar jar... Excellent!!!

you ride agnostic unicorns or are only agnostic when on a unicorn?

@jacpod does to say that one is one thing at some time mean one is not other times, also?
are you really from derry, Ballymoney.

@CallMeDave originally from Lee green London but lived all over the place since I left home at 15 y.o. now 70 y.o - .No I live in Ballycastle County Antrim four minutes from the sea in sheltered accommodation.(there wasn't that option on the form I filled in to sign up here)I have been here over 25 years - I used to be a member of Foyle Advocates in Derry so know the places quite well - Do you have connections here?

@jacpod why yes, I do now, but only the flimsiest.

I identify as freethinker, too.

You know that a lot of religious people also call themselves freethinkers. I've known them. Freethinkers and they believe their religion too. Whatever you or I might think about that, the term freethinker is open to interpretation. So, I can't accept the term as synonymous or relating to a non religious view, like atheist and agnostic.I just make this point. @marga

@David1955 However you want to believe is your choice.

btw, imo all terms are open to interpretation.

@Scoobs The god most religions describe will fix their problems or give them a beautiful reward when they croak.

Atheist is a belief claim and agnostic is a knowledge claim. Atheist is not a positive claim. Atheist is "I am not convinced by the available evidence". Agnostic broken down is, A, meaning without, and Gnostic being Greek for knowledge. Classically it means that a person believes that we cannot have knowledge about the supernatural or that we cannot know ultimate truth. The usage changed to a position between belief and denial which I argue doesn't exist. You are either convinced of the evidence or you aren't.

@BrightTyger979 I'm convinced this thread is about mostly men who want all of us to accept the "atheist" label because they can't bear to be wrong. It's trivial.

@AMNOTGOD My intellect is anything but "wee," and I don't blow fuses because I am a current model of a woman, plebe. When you can speak to a comment by or opinion of a woman without a derisive and misogynistic tone, perhaps you will be taken seriously on this board. The point of this "atheist boys club" is well understood by me, and it is trivial and argumentative for ego's sake.

You don't have to prove a negative. It's up to people proposing supernatural claims to prove them. Would you say that I cannot claim to be an a-leprechaunist because I can't prove they don't exist? Of course not. Same with God. Guess what, I'm not an agnostic about leprechauns either. The atheist position is consistent about all unproven claims.

@David1955 Okay...atheists believe their is no creator in the sky who made man. I agree. There is still no PROOF atheists are right. It is up to atheists to prove they are right, just as it believers to prove there is a Sky Captain forging their destinies. You cannot scientifically say, "I'm not the one who's wrong because I'm not a nutty believer." The burden of proof is just as much on you to prove there is no god, and that does not mean you are wrong because the evidence has not presented itself yet. It's not justified to declare only atheists are omniscient and correct, however. That is not science. When you refuse to make room for doubt, you lift your nonbelief above others, and that is simply obnoxious. A strong mark of intelligence is being able to hold two opposing opinions as POSSIBLE TRUTH when neither is proven.

Oh Granny, what a huge ego you have!

@hemingwaykitten no, no. It's a basic point of science and enquiry. Proposition forwarded, proposition fails or succeeds based on the evidence, if the evidence does not support the proposition then it fails. It is not up to nonbelievers of the proposition to prove it is wrong. What if I use the reverse the argument. Do you believe in witches? If you don't then please reply showing me your evidence why witches do NOT exist. It's up to you, according to you, to prove to those who do believe in them why they do not exist. I look forward to your answer. (unless of course you at an agnostic on witches too) .

@hemingwaykitten Seriously? You're going to play the sexism card? If your "go to" is attacking someone and name calling in a simple discussion then I guess I'm just going to have to put you on ignore. You don't just get to claim sexism when someone says something you don't agree with.

@BrightTyger979 @hemingwaykitten yes, there's no sexism here. Only arguments that do or don't stack up. I respect people's right to be agnostic, but not arguments against atheism that are not valid.

@David1955 I'm exhausted. You can't prove a god or gods do not exist, and I cannot grasp why you insist you don't need evidence to be an atheist. I don't understand your argument and find it suspect. Go be right and perfect with my good wishes. My curiosity has been sufficently squashed. Why do you bother to claim there is no sexism here? You did not address the instigator of the sexism or his comments. Once again I must assume I should be in agreement because "David1955 says so."

The copious amounts of sexism and misogyny I have experienced in just two weeks on this site, including negging and belittling, have made me feel ill just fathoming why they would occur from men on Agnostic.com. Not you personally at all, let me make that clear. I am in the grips of a migraine and can only take my interest and IQ and go home at the moment. However AMNOTGOD and dozens of others have dissipated the enthusiasm I initially felt on finding fellow my fellow heathens. Apparently for many of us the attraction here is not to enjoy each other's company so much as argue and insult. I can find that on Facebook.

@hemingwaykitten @Renickulous One cannot "prove" the non existence of any mythical fairy story, but one can apply the test of "reductio ad absurdum".

@Renickulous You jerks are STILL at this B.S.? For nonbelievers you sure can't shut up about labels.

<3