No Agnostic (A)Theists
There is a really strange view that one can be an agnostic and an atheist or theist. This is obviously wrong.
Theism is the proposition that there exists (at least) a God. Some might say it is the belief that there is a God, but that isn't quite right. If there were no persons alive, but God existed, we would say theism were still true.
Now, what is atheism? It is a denial of theism. It is theism with the tilde preceding it. ~Theism. But when one adds the tilde (that's the "~" symbol), we are to infer the opposite truth value of the proposition. So the opposite truth value of the proposition "there is a God" is "there is no God."
To understand agnosticism, it might be better to look at gnosticism first. Gnosis, just meaning knowledge, simply means that, one has knowledge of something. Agnosticism then means one does not have knowledge of something.
So, let's apply gnosticism and agnosticism to some cases. Take the proposition "My shirt is white." This is either true or false. Call the truth Whitism, and the opposite truth value Awhitism. One or the other is the case. If one is true, the other is false. Now, there is no middle. Construed the way I did, there is an excluded middle. Either W or ~W is true.
The one who has gnosis, or knowledge, will fit into one of these two categories. He will say he has knowledge that either W is true or ~W is true. This is nothing profound. People take sides all the time on propositions. Those who adhere to the proposition W are Whitists. Those who adhere to ~W are Awhitists. In the same way, we have Theists and Atheists.
But, the agnostic says he doesn't have knowledge on whether or not W is true or whether ~W is true. He hasn't created some new proposition concerning W and ~W. He hasn't proved the Law of Excluded middle false. Metaphysically, either W or ~W is the case. All the agnostic says is he has no knowledge as to which is the case. So, we are no dealing with a different category, from metaphysics to epistemology.
Now then, can it be said one is a an agnostic Whiteist or Awhiteist (being equivalent to an agnostic theist or atheist)? To say one is an agnostic atheist is to say, "There is no God, but I don't know that there is no God" and to say one is an agnostic theist is to say "There is a God, but I don't know that there is a God." We see clearly now the contradiction.
As usual, you have a basic misunderstanding of atheism. Very few atheists say, "there are definitely no gods." The vast majority say, "I have no belief in gods." We generally leave the closed-minded absolutist crap to theists, who seem to need it in order to shore up their indefensible position.
ReplyDeleteWe're not dealing with epistemic positions of persons, but the metaphysical truth of the propositions. Thus, you clearly commit a category error.
DeleteAlso, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, ‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.
Deletehttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
And here is a philosophical atheist agreeing with me.
http://philosophersgroan.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/is-a-lack-of-belief-the-best-we-can-do/
You can historically trace your understanding (or rather, misunderstanding) of atheism to the Logical Positivists of the 1920's. In fact, you can pinpoint it to Antony Flew who understood the position I and other atheists take were correct historically, but due to his positivist metaphysics, demanded a change. He says, "the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. - (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew)
So the vast majority of atheists agree with me, disagree with you, up until 1920, and that period ended quickly when we all realized positivism was garbage, and almost everybody went back. Only for a few decades was your position popular. You still comfortable claiming "the vast majority"?