People such as Ray Comfort say that there is no such thing as an atheist —that people who call themselves atheists are in fact agnostics because they can’t know for certain that there’s no god. How do you answer this?
Posted: May 31st 2007
George Ricker www
Although there may be some that do, most atheists do not claim to know for certain there is no god. As has been noted, atheism is not a knowledge claim. Atheism is the opposite of theism. Theists belive in a god or gods. Atheists do not.
Actually, many atheists also describe themselves as agnostics. That’s because agnosticism does have to do with knowledge claims. The gnostic claims to know. The agnostic does not.
Taken at face value, Ray Comfort’s claim there are no atheists could also be applied to theists. There is no more basis for theists to claim certain knowledge about the existence of gods than there is for atheists to claim certainty about their non-existence.
The truth of the matter is there are very few gnostics (i.e., people who claim certain knowledge) in either camp. Most people are either agnostic atheists or agnostic theists.
Posted: March 6th 2009
Eric_PK
Agnosticism – at least as originally coined – was a statement about the possibility of knowing whether god existed or didn’t exist with certainty. It is not a statement about belief, but rather one of knowledge.
That means you can have both agnostic theists and agnostic atheists.
Over time, “agnostic” became a label used by people who had doubts.
As for how can I be sure?
Well, I’m not sure that the christian god doesn’t exist, any more than I’m sure that Thor doesn’t exist, or Apollo doesn’t exist, or Loki doesn’t exist.
I just don’t see any reason to think that the question of their existence matters to me in any way. To borrow a phrase, god is just something some people believe in.
Though I can think of some occurences that might happen that would lead me to think that an entity had god-like powers, and if that happened, then I would be a believer, if not a worshiper.
But those industrial-strength miracles – the raising of the dead, the parting of seas, the walking on water, the turning water into wine – you don’t see those, so I’m not holding my breath for those to happen. But yeah, I could be proven wrong.
Theists, however, don’t tend to be agnostic – they tend to be sure that they are right, and there’s usually no evidence that they can mention that would lead them to change their view.
Comfort, for his part, is confused. He defines atheism the way I would – “A person who doesn’t believe in the existence of god” – but then goes on to compare him to someone who is saying there is no gold in China. That is not an equivalent statement – the equivalent statement would be “I don’t believe there is any gold in China”.
That christian apologetics regularly make this sort of error – so they can make the argument that they want to make rather than the one that is warranted – does not reflect well on their cause.
Posted: February 25th 2008
SmartLX www
Ray Comfort is right in a way. Atheism as most now define it is technically a form of agnosticism, because you can’t quite claim certainty. It’s still atheism, in the way a square is a square even though it’s a rectangle.
The main difference for me is that I pay more attention to probability than Comfort. All possibilities are not equally likely. I think it’s unlikely enough that any god exists at all that I feel confident in saying that none do. Not certain, but confident enough.
To give an analogy for this level of conviction, you go about your daily life planning events days and weeks in advance when there’s a tiny possibility you’ll be killed in a freak Final Destination-style accident today. You might have a will drawn up, but have you really prepared your family and friends for your possible death today? Of course not, because you’re confident enough in the odds to think you will go to bed alive tonight. You’re not certain, but you act as if you are.
That’s how confident I am in my atheism.
Posted: November 13th 2007
bitbutter www
Most atheists, myself included, are agnostic atheists—also known as 'weak atheists’. This means that we don’t have a positive belief in any god, but we don’t know for certain that gods don’t exist.
Most of us (atheist or theist) have the same stance towards fairies and “Russell’s Celestial Teapot”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot —we don’t have a positive belief in them but we can’t know for certain that they don’t exist.
When describing my outlook, I prefer to emphasize the atheist part of 'agnostic atheist’ because 'agnostic’ on its own can imply that the person is simply undecided about the existence of god(s). This is not the case for agnostic atheists.
See also why the teapot?
Posted: May 31st 2007