Andrew Seidel

[RussBLib]

I've noticed that Andrew Seidel, one of the attorneys that works for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, is getting a lot more active on Facebook these days. I find myself agreeing with practically everything he posts, and that's unusual.

He said something the other day that crystallized the distinction between agnostic and atheist for me. You may already have the two terms comfortably defined, but I've still struggled a little with them, and Andrew made sense. It's quite simple, actually:

Atheism is about BELIEF
Agnosticism is about KNOWLEDGE

We truly cannot KNOW there is no God, but based on the preponderance (and lack) of evidence, I BELIEVE there is no God.

So I am both atheist and agnostic, which somehow reminds me of Jerry DeWitt's "motto" (ex-preacher turned atheist):

[PeaceNikki]

1. He's WONDERFUL!!!

And dreamy!!

[Cartoonist]

2. My Analogy

There is an ark tied up to the dock. All the believers are on board. All the atheists are on dry land. The agnostics are standing at the rails trying to make up their minds as to whether or not to come ashore.

[OriginalGeek]

4. well that does not accurately portray how I see the two terms.

Belief that it's gonna rain is one thing. They do, I don't. But knowledge that it's gonna rain is another thing. If you have evidence to prove it's gonna rain, I'll happily hop on the ark.

[Cartoonist]

8. No rain

I used the word ark to denote a sailing vessel, not as a flood story. The analogy was of a ship floating on a sea of make-believe vs standing on solid facts.

[OriginalGeek]

10. Ok but still, agnosticism isn't a fence-riding position in the middle

it's a statement of knowledge (or lack thereof). Atheism is my lack of belief. Agnostic atheist is perfectly acceptable and how I see myself. I don't know and I also don't believe.

[Tobin S.]

5. That's not agnosticism for me.

I don't believe in any religion. Just like atheists, I think it's all a sham. I think we will be far better off as a global society as religion is slowly relinquishing it's hold on a lot of people. The thing that makes me agnostic is that I can't tell you what happens after you die. There's no evidence that any part of us survives death, but the only way anyone can find out for certain is to die. The afterlife appears highly unlikely. Nobody is reporting back to us. But I really don't know for certain.

It's a fine distinction. Many atheists would probably consider me an atheist. I call myself an agnostic.

[Cartoonist]

9. You die, that is all.

You are still on board with the religious notion of a soul. Can you be certain there are no unicorns?

[Tobin S.]

14. No, I'm not. I just don't know. Nobody does.

[Goblinmonger]

11. I think that is how a lot of people use the word. But that isn't what it is definitionally

Atheist and agnostic are NOT mutually exclusive terms.

[Brainstormy]

12. Of course they're not!

The word games really piss me off.

[OriginalGeek]

3. lol, he's in a twitter war with Adam Baldwin

and winning handily. (No relation to Alec or them Baldwins, BTW). It's a shame when a beloved character turns out to be an overly religious nutjob in real life. (he was on Firefly and Chuck and I loved those shows.)

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. Adam Baldwin is fucking nuts.

How the rest of the Firefly cast could stand being in the same room with him for hours on end amazes me to this day.

[Yorktown]

6. Andrew Seidel expressed it well, but..

..to some degree, it's just a detail of semantics and/or of word usage.

What you really have in the atheist/agnostic crowd is a bunch of peole who say they have no evidence there is a god (in Andrew Seidel's words, don't know if there is one)

Then, among that population, you have a repartition curve of people according to their degree of belief in the likelihood of existence of some supernatural thingies (god, whatever)

I notice in people preferring to call themselves 'agnostics' a sizable proportion of people expressing thoughts like: i don't know if there is a god, but there might be forces out there that we don't know (as in supernatural forces)

People calling themselves atheists say they are agnostics, but also express a low expectation to ever see evidence of something supernatural ever being presented (that covers rather well the more eloquent ways in which Dawkins or Dillahunty express their 'beliefs')

My two cents.

[Lordquinton]

13. Agnostics are still atheists

Without a belief in God.

The only reason to claim you aren't an atheist is because of the negative connotations theists have forced on the word.