First off, the definition of atheist basically refers to someone who believes there is no god or gods, while the definition of agnostic refers to someone who believes that questions about the existence of god or anything metaphysical are unknowable or unanswerable. To me this says that an atheist really only denies the existence of god or an afterlife, while an agnostic denies the existence of anything or even the knowledge of anything that isn't part of reality.
Now I'm gonna steal a quote from a friend of mine that was part of a facebook debate.
"For what it's worth, agnosticism, in my view, consists in rejecting the question "is there a creator" as, not just unanswerable, but unimportant. If there is a creator, then the universe exists just as it does right now. If, going back through time, there is a literally endless chain of evens - and no creator - then the universe exists just as it does right now. There is no explanatory or predictive difference; the question results in pure speculation with no possible answer in principle. "
I like this because not only does an agnostic view these questions as unknowable, they view them as irrelevant because it doesn't apply to the future or even change anything about the present.
So doesn't the agnostic view seem less like a moderate atheist, and more like the hardcore view, it does to me.
I'd like to make a correction to this statement:
ReplyDeleteTo me this says that an atheist really only denies the existence of god or an afterlife, while an agnostic denies the existence of anything or even the knowledge of anything that isn't part of reality.
As an agnostic, I don't deny the existence of anything, but I don't affirm it either. I choose not to take a side until such a time as definitive evidence either way comes to light. As an agnostic, however, I also don't believe that definitive proof exists to prove either case. I'm not sure that you'd call this "more hardcore" than an atheist though, but then again, maybe I don't wanna be called "hardcore". ;)