Cyclone Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 No-one knows, believer or atheist. Calling yourself an agnostic is just an admission of that. No-one can know for sure whether there are any gods or not. I disagree, if this argument were valid we'd have to conclude that no one can know whether Santa exists, or fairies and that we're all therefore agnostics regarding those possibilities. That's not the case though is it, it's impossible to prove a negative (in most cases) but that doesn't mean that we can never consider ourselves to have enough information to conclude something. An atheist is someone who believes that they have enough information to conclude that there is/are no god(s). Being an atheists means you are no longer an agnostic. Also, being an atheist does not mean 'coming to the conclusion' that god/s do not exist, it simply means that you don't believe that they do. I'm not sure what you think that sentence means. If you don't believe that something exists you have concluded that it does not. They are simply two ways of stating exactly the same thing. Having enough knowledge to formulate an opinion is not the same as knowing whether something is true or not. Forming an opinion requires that you think you have enough information to know whether it is true or not. I suppose you might want to qualify it with things like 'probably' or 99%, but if that's your belief then that's your conclusion and you have to act as if it were 100% stone cold fact. Otherwise you haven't really reached a conclusion and don't have a belief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 If that's your answer you are indeed an atheist. This is very much a binary situation either you have belief or you don't. If you believe, regardless of how unsure you are you're a theist. If you don't believe, regardless of how unsure you are you're an atheist. It's possible to be an angnostic follower of a religion who isn't 100% sure that their God exists. They might believe it's likely that their god exists, but can't prove it & sometimes have doubts. There is a whole range of probabilities, you can't call all agnostics athiests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 I disagree, if this argument were valid we'd have to conclude that no one can know whether Santa exists, or fairies and that we're all therefore agnostics regarding those possibilities. That's not the case though is it, it's impossible to prove a negative (in most cases) but that doesn't mean that we can never consider ourselves to have enough information to conclude something. An atheist is someone who believes that they have enough information to conclude that there is/are no god(s). Being an atheists means you are no longer an agnostic. I'm not sure what you think that sentence means. If you don't believe that something exists you have concluded that it does not. They are simply two ways of stating exactly the same thing. Forming an opinion requires that you think you have enough information to know whether it is true or not. I suppose you might want to qualify it with things like 'probably' or 99%, but if that's your belief then that's your conclusion and you have to act as if it were 100% stone cold fact. Otherwise you haven't really reached a conclusion and don't have a belief. You can fairly easily disprove Santa by staying up all night on Christmas Eve. You can't disprove a deity, by definition we don't have enough information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quisquose Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 It's possible to be an angnostic follower of a religion who isn't 100% sure that their God exists. They might believe it's likely that their god exists, but can't prove it & sometimes have doubts. There is a whole range of probabilities, you can't call all agnostics athiests. That's not what plekanhov, flamingjimmy or myself are saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 You can fairly easily disprove Santa by staying up all night on Christmas Eve. You can't disprove a deity, by definition we don't have enough information. You've only proven that he didn't visit your house or that you didn't spot him. You can't disprove anything, negative proof is (generally) impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 You can't prove or disprove a deity. The lack of any test for whether a deity exists or not does seem to prove that they don't matter. Even if a God exists they don't do anything that we can possibly notice. So we should all be apatheist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 You've only proven that he didn't visit your house or that you didn't spot him. You can't disprove anything, negative proof is (generally) impossible. All of science is based on disproving other people's theories. Some claims can be disproven, some can't. That's the line between scientific theories & religion, one can be disproven & the other can't. If I tell you the sky is purple with orange polka dots, you can easily disprove that. If I tell you there's an immortal supernatural being who operates outside our known universe that you can't percieve in any way... then you can't prove I'm lying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingjimmy Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 An atheist is someone who believes that they have enough information to conclude that there is/are no god(s).You are defining the word differently to the rest of us. To me (and etymologically speaking) being an atheist simply means not being a theist. The reason why doesn't come into the definition. I'm not sure what you think that sentence means. If you don't believe that something exists you have concluded that it does not. They are simply two ways of stating exactly the same thing. No they aren't. Not believing something is not the same as believing the opposite. I think we're at an impasse at this point. All I will say is that using my definition it describes every single person who's ever self-identified as an atheist, using yours it only describes about 5 people that I've ever come across. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmith Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 You can fairly easily disprove Santa by staying up all night on Christmas Eve. You can't disprove a deity, by definition we don't have enough information. You might be on the naughtier list so staying up would only prove Santa didn’t come to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 You might be on the naughtier list so staying wouldn’t prove Santa didn’t come to you. My point was that since Santa (according to the story) lives at the North Pole & visits children at Christmas to give them presents it would be possible to create an experiment to prove or disprove his existence. You could monitor every house in the world for fat men going down chimneys, use radar to detect flying reindeer, etc. The same isn't true for a deity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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