Agnostic?

[Twoyboy]

Is there a word for this belief that I should be using other than agnostic? (Richard Dawkins defines it as a weak atheist.)

The most appropriate term is "irrational", since Occam's Razor is a principle of logic and you're ignoring it. But that's an excessively general term.

Ignoring it how? I'm saying that because there's no evidence of a God, I should default to non-belief and hence am an atheist. I would have thought this was in line with Occam's Razor, since I don't use a useless "Sky Fairy" figure to explain anything.

I always thought this line of reasoning was the pure definition of agnosticism, not the prior bit you menitoned:

according to agnostics, it is impossible to have knowledge of whether there is or isn't a god.

I'm wondering if there's an accurate descriptor for only the bit about defaulting to non-belief?

[General Zod]

Ignoring it how? I'm saying that because there's no evidence of a God, I should default to non-belief and hence am an atheist. I would have thought this was in line with Occam's Razor, since I don't use a useless "Sky Fairy" figure to explain anything.

With your earlier term, "Agnostic Atheist" is somewhat silly and redundant. Atheists do what you describe, they don't believe in a magic sky pixie due to insufficient evidence. Agnostics waffle on the issue and use semantics to claim that it's impossible to know for sure one way or the other, either because they refuse to give up the safety net of having a religious belief, or because they're incapable of following the reasoning to its logical conclusion even though they might have significant doubt otherwise.

[Twoyboy]

With your earlier term, "Agnostic Atheist" is somewhat silly and redundant. Atheists do what you describe, they don't believe in a magic sky pixie due to insufficient evidence. Agnostics waffle on the issue and use semantics to claim that it's impossible to know for sure one way or the other, either because they refuse to give up the safety net of having a religious belief, or because they're incapable of following the reasoning to its logical conclusion even though they might have significant doubt otherwise.

My confusion is some people, such as Richard Dawkins, define "strong" and "weak" atheists. As I understand, a weak atheist says there's no evidence so there's no reason to believe, where as a strong atheist says there's no evidence, which in itself is evidence that God does not exist. As a weak atheist, I used the term "agnostic atheist", which I didn't invent, but found on this site which Mike himself links to from his Creation Theory site saying:

This site contains numerous excellent discussions of Christianity in general. Its questionnaire for proselytizers is downright brilliant. Note that unlike most agnostics who hasten to explain that they are agnostic rather than atheist, he understands the correct definition of the terms and declares himself both agnostic and atheist.

However, now you've clarified the definition, I was wondering if there's another succinct term I can use to say I'm an atheist without people coming back with the silly argument "But how can you know there's no God?"

[General Zod]

However, now you've clarified the definition, I was wondering if there's another succinct term I can use to say I'm an atheist without people coming back with the silly argument "But how can you know there's no God?"

Why bother with another term? They're shifting the burden of proof and expecting you to prove a negative. The onus is on them to show that their invisible purple unicorn is real, although there's a huge variety of ways to counter this claim. If you want to point out how foolish they're being though, I would recommend reading up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarianism.

[Twoyboy]

Why bother with another term? They're shifting the burden of proof and expecting you to prove a negative. The onus is on them to show that their invisible purple unicorn is real, although there's a huge variety of ways to counter this claim. If you want to point out how foolish they're being though, I would recommend reading up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarianism.

Fair enough. Yes, I actually listed my religion on the last census as Pastafarian. But the best example I've found to convince people of the burden of proof is Carl Sagan's "dragon in my garage" from "Demon Haunted World".

I just don't like having to do it every time someone trots out the argument. Just me being lazy I guess. But I guess it's better I don't confuse people too much with a plethora of new terms.

[PainRack]

Why the fuck should god get an exemption when virtually everything else can logically be assumed to not exist if it is impossible to prove they are real? The fact that god magically gets an exemption vs. everything else is what makes agnostics fence-sitters.

Except that agnostic theists are in no doubt whatsoever that God exists. How could they be described as fence sitters in that sense?

If they weren't willing to admit even the possibility that the logical conclusion is correct then they wouldn't be agnostic, they'd be a fundie.

And what makes you think that an agnostic theist can't be a fundie?

[Rye]

However, now you've clarified the definition, I was wondering if there's another succinct term I can use to say I'm an atheist without people coming back with the silly argument "But how can you know there's no God?"

There's the short response which is "knowledge and not believing are not the same thing," which should appeal to agnostic/weak atheists, and there's the slightly longer strong atheist response which is, "the same way you know my arse didn't make you 4 seconds ago complete with memories."

[General Zod]

Except that agnostic theists are in no doubt whatsoever that God exists. How could they be described as fence sitters in that sense?

How about you actually address my point instead of dodging it? Why should god be an exception to Occam's razor?

And what makes you think that an agnostic theist can't be a fundie?

Then that would make them dishonest cuntrags. How is this supposed to refute my point?

[CaptainZoidberg]

Most of agnostics I know really have an atheist world view, but just say that they're agnostic so that they don't alienate Christians as much. I mean, if a Christian hears that you're an atheist, they'll probably have a very negative and disturbed reaction. Some might even go off on you. But if you say that you're an agnostic, they'll just think "Oh, he's just confused and not sure what everything means yet. In time he'll find God".

So I think agnosticism really works as a safe political angle: it doesn't totally alienate Christians and it doesn't totally alienate atheists, even if the position is completely indefensible.

[Darth Wong]

The most appropriate term is "irrational", since Occam's Razor is a principle of logic and you're ignoring it. But that's an excessively general term.

Ignoring it how? I'm saying that because there's no evidence of a God, I should default to non-belief and hence am an atheist. I would have thought this was in line with Occam's Razor, since I don't use a useless "Sky Fairy" figure to explain anything.

Yes, you would be an atheist. But by claiming agnosticism, you are saying that you cannot know whether God exists. This statement ignores Occam's Razor, or rejects it as a route to knowledge.

I always thought this line of reasoning was the pure definition of agnosticism, not the prior bit you menitoned:

according to agnostics, it is impossible to have knowledge of whether there is or isn't a god.

I'm wondering if there's an accurate descriptor for only the bit about defaulting to non-belief?

There is. It's called atheism. Agnosticism is an epistemological argument, concocted by Thomas Huxley. It is exactly as I described.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Any time someone corrects somebody about the true or correct meaning of the Bible, he's probably a Christian in some form or other. People who truly reject the faith usually come clean with themselves about how internally inconsistent it is.

There is a context when that is not true, and that is using the bible to sow doubt in it.

Actually, objective textual criticism isn't reliant on agenda (unless you count wanting to know the truth as an agenda).

For example, using the contradictions between christianity and judiasm to show that one is not really an outgrowth of the other, but a perversion and misrepresentation.

Uh, what? This assumes judaism has some sort of pure form, rather than a shifting morass of judaic species that christianity evolved from.

True. But christianity supposed premise is the jewish concept of the Messiah, if one can show for example that Jesus does not actually meet the requirements laid out in the Tanakh, or that, for example, the concept of sin only applies to Jews (in judiasm jews and gentiles are under different rule sets) then the basis for christianity falls apart.

If your argument is, as mine is, that the founders of christianity deliberately distorted the fundamental teachings of judiasm, like modern cultists do (jim jones cult for example) with christianity, the only difference being the lack of poisoned cool-aid, then it makes perfect sense to argue this way.

If you look at the (official) history of christianity, you see something consistent with this. The early christians initially started out with a few jews, none of them were priests, those who actively read their holy scriptures last I checked. Hell, one of the apostles was a heavily romanized tax collector.

After the initial founding members, they did not actually get many jewish covnerts. They started marketing the cult to gentiles. Who would not have actually read the tanakh and thus have little basis on which to criticize christianity. They make up post-hoc prophecies, they practically rewrite the ones they utilize to justify jesus as the messiah, etc. In fact they post-hoc rewrite the entire old testament.

If Judiasm represents the natural and adaptive (to its adherents) evolution of a religion, which if you look at its history and even the way it is written, it is with schools of thought changing over the course of thousands of years, books being re-written and edited over long periods of time by hundreds if not thousands of authors, interpreted in the oral torah and the various commentaries and responding to specific selective pressures; christianity represents what is essentially a collaborative meme engineering project. It was written in a relatively short period of time, by a few people (though still over the course of a couple centuries) with deliberate mechanisms in place to incorporate other religious faiths, and was even edited.

Whether this was all done intentionally or not I dont know. I doubt there was deliberate multi-century collaboration. But there was probably a sort of "hey, I like this idea, I want to build upon it" and subsequent stitching together.

Or at least that is the product of the past several months of musings, not sure if it will stand up to scrutiny or not.