Posted: May 14, 2014 6:12 pm
the mouse wrote:Who are these agnostics? I am an agnostic atheist, as are many of the members of this forum. So your claim that those who identify as agnostics don't consider themselves to be atheists is wrong
Uhm, all the agnostics that classifies themselves as agnostics, but distinct from atheists, such as those who self-identify on surveys as such.
People can self identify all they want, but self identifying as simply agnostic is wrong. Agnostic is not a category unto itself. It's more an adjective than a noun.
Huxley who coined the term agnostic, didn't consider himself an agnostic atheist.
That's exactly what Huxley considered himself.
I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the relation of a Father [who] loves us and cares for us as Christianity asserts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, immortality of soul and future state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection can I—who am compelled perforce to believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force, and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and punishments for our deeds—have to these doctrines? Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.
This whole trend of defining agnostics as in one camp or the other, is also recent, popularized by the God delusion. Prior to that the common understanding, self-identficiation, was that the two were distinct terms.
Not really. Not if you use the term in its true sense. Agnostic does not imply not having decided, or I don't know. It means I can't know.
Are you not aware of this shifting in understanding of these terms, that occurred more recently than you think?
What I am aware of is that the term atheist until recently was defined by theists who wanted to define atheism in the worst possible terms. Someone that believes that God does not exist, someone that hates God. But neither of these are true. Does not believe in God is very different from believing that God not exist. And it's asinine to think that someone that hates God is an atheist but, it's done all the time.
The shifting of understanding with regards to agnostic is the real problem here. Huxley's use of the term implied atheism on his part, and since he invented the term I think we should respect his usage. Huxley wasn't simply agnostic, he didn't believe, making him an atheist, as he admitted. And a true skeptic in that he said, "Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them."