Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 09, 2015, 21:14 (3396 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: I think we are playing a definition game here.-You may be right. I don't know Paul Davies personally, but I think most people who call themselves agnostics (the noun - see below) mean that they neither believe nor disbelieve in god(s).-ROMANSH: For me agnosticism is primarily about how we handle knowledge and NOT belief. If we assume this is the case then it is perfectly possible to a theist and an agnostic at the same time; Mark Vernon is a case in point.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Vernon-If we reduce agnosticism to how we handle belief, then if we agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in god this is fair enough and personally I hold it to be a logical position.
Of course weak atheists also neither believe nor disbelieve in god. = By definition!
So are you a weak atheist dhw ... by definition?-We have had this discussion before, but I haven't got time to trawl back through all the threads to find it. I remember setting out my definitions, and I vaguely remember your attempts to distinguish between “atheist” and “atheistic”, and the convoluted arguments which eventually led to it being possible for someone to be a theist, an atheist and an agnostic all at the same time. There is absolutely no need for such confusion if we define our terms clearly, which I have tried to do many times on this forum:-A theist is someone who believes there is a god or gods, an atheist is someone who believes there is/are no god or gods, and an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a god or gods. Some people may tend to lean in one direction or the other, without actually committing themselves, and so you might be an agnostic tending towards theism or atheism.
 
These definitions do away with the apparent anomaly arising from the Mark Vernon case. The problem here is that the adjective “agnostic” can be used to refer to issues other than the existence of God, as is clear from the link article:
 
“Agnostic theism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes in the existence of at least one deity, but regards the basis of this proposition as unknown or inherently unknowable. It can also mean that there is one high ruler, but it is unknowable or unknown who or what it is. [1] The agnostic theist may also or alternatively be agnostic regarding the properties of the God or the gods he or she believes in.”-You can be agnostic about any subject, and here the reference is not to the existence of god(s) but the proof, nature and knowability of god(s). There is no need for these apparent paradoxes if we accept that the noun refers to a person who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of god(s). Categories like agnostic theist and weak atheist have to be explained anyway, so if we stick with three basic, clearly distinguishable definitions, we can qualify the terms with whatever additional information we wish to give. (He's a theist who believes God is unknowable /can't be proved /can't be characterized). But of course this won't stop people from playing definition games, and after all, what is life without fun and games?