It is understandable why atheists would combine the label of atheism with the argumentative convenience of agnosticism.
First, if you say you are agnostic, an evangelist will mistakenly assume you are lost and open to listening to their incoherent theism and maybe believing in their ridiculous God, while “atheist” slams the door in their face more. (It should be noted that the incoherency of religions is also used by theists to reject other religions they don’t believe in.)
Secondly, re-defining atheism as being functionally indistinguishable from agnosticism conveniently allows one to sidestep the burden of proof of potentially unprovable affirmative statements like “there is No God”, “everything emerged from pure chaos and chance”, “science will prove everything”, “theism is wrong”, “prophets were all delusional or liars.” Such affirmative stances will take away the convenience of the negative stance, opening the door for theists to claim hypocrisy in any further attempts you make to criticize claims that can’t be definitively proven with overwhelming evidence.
Avoiding claims that assume the burden of proof because you have no ability to actually disprove the existence of God or a historical occurrence, and then stating “I don’t know” when asked to explain what you affirmatively believe answers the unexplained — that’s just agnosticism. You can’t jump from “I don’t know” to “but there is no evidence for God, therefore there is no God”, which is an argument from ignorance.
If atheism is by definition “not theism” then agnostics are all technically “atheist.” The issue here the technical “atheism” of agnosticism is not remotely meaningful.
It’s like saying a baby is atheist because they lack capacity to grasp words and concepts like “God” and “theism” – yes, technically they are. Babies also can’t grasp astrophysics, microbiology and chemistry, but that doesn’t mean their “ascientificism” of their undeveloped minds has any relevance to our knowledge of the state of existence.
To agnostics, we are all still basically babies and the underlying reasons for our existence are beyond our comprehension. Was it chaos and forces of nature and a pattern of probabilistically impossible coincidences and survival luck to result our current existence alone? Was it an eternal creator God from another dimension? Science doesn’t really know the “true answer” to that question, and although science is making great progress at unlocking the universe’s mysteries, what is natural may not be able to prove or disprove the potential supernatural. Agnosticism is fundamentally the basis for demanding evidence in order to construct a definitive statement of belief, not atheism, and it is distinct from “atheism” because it expects evidence for claims of positive atheism as well in order to rule out all possibilities and to be able to definitively label the anecdotes of theists as untrue.
To use another metaphor to highlight how irrelevant the “atheism” of agnosticism is, if you are a writer writing a newspaper article about a trial, unless you are asserting the defendant’s actual innocence based on the evidence, labeling the defendant “an innocent man” based on the *technical* presumption of innocence until proven guilty would make no sense and would be confusing to your readers. The law’s presumption of a defendant’s innocence until proven guilty is completely irrelevant to the defendant’s actual guilt or innocence of the crime or how overwhelming the evidence may be (and in fact somewhat incoherent because clearly the law is prosecuting and possibly incarcerating this “innocent” person).
Like “innocent vs. guilty” in legal terms, the “atheism” of agnosticism is just a technicality of the binary definition of the a- in atheism, not because agnostics ascribe any meaning or conclusion to that technicality. An agnostic still actively processing the massive question of “theism” in the context of our limited knowledge may conclude that they are theist once they are finally clear on the definitions in the debate and have weighed the evidence enough to be able to take an actual stance on the topic of theism.
In fact, we may all be theists or atheists depending on how the word “God” is defined in the argument – if “God is natural law” or “God is everything” is the basis, then most atheists will agree that “natural” and “everything” exists, even if they think the concept of calling it God is meaningless.
Unlike atheists, agnostics are unwilling to reject the *possibility* of theisms that don’t contradict known science, as well as theisms that can offer actual evidence for their claims of deities contradicting the laws of known science. Even an agnostic tilting towards disbelief based on the weight of lack of evidence has not actually rejected the theism question as long as they accept the potential of a God existing somewhere in the gaps of our current knowledge.
Note, this is not the “God of the Gaps” argument, because agnosticism doesn’t actually claim God exists in those gaps, merely says because of those gaps we can not dismiss a possibility that hasn’t been disproven and the cause of things has not otherwise definitively explained by natural causes. Likewise, agnostics are free to dismiss or devalue unproven claims they see as impossible, incoherent or unproven.
While one is welcome to dismiss possibilities without evidence, philosophical and scientific discovery often starts with someone’s baseless speculation, open contemplation of the unknown without contradicting the known. We’re all just trying to find whatever explanation makes the most sense to us, even if we are aware it may not be a perfect explanation. Affirmations without evidence are the problem, not philosophical speculation that may eventually merit a hypothesis because of evidence that may turn into a belief through rigorous testing. Agnostics expect the claims of either positive theism or positive atheism to be backed by evidence before they “believe” them.
In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just *not* believe in theism, but consider *all potential supernatural theisms as impossible* \- including those that don’t inherently contradict what we currently know about the universe – not on the basis of their lack of evidence or personal experience (a deficiency of knowledge, aka agnosticism), but on an affirmative belief that science will continue to find naturalistic explanations for existence, and thus will dismiss the basis for any possible theism that can be posited.
If atheists are unwilling to actually affirm what they actually believe in, they need to admit to themselves that they are agnostics who don’t know enough about the unexplained to make any definitive counterclaims they are willing to defend. Agnostics also defer to current scientific standards of proof for belief when it comes to theistic claims, without jumping to the positive atheist conclusion that the trajectory of science will eventually be able to definitively disprove the possibility of all things supernatural when we’ve barely even started to accurately understand the natural.
(As a final word, I’m assuming someone will roll out the four square chart showing gnostic theism, agnostic theism, agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism. I think the concept is nice but misleading because without some basis for knowledge it is virtually impossible to formulate any actual belief. If you hold any overt theistic or atheistic belief worth mentioning, you are still inherently presuming some level of knowledge based on the evidence you have. So if you lean towards or against the existence of a God, you have already automatically left the agnostic axis towards some level of gnosis. Likewise if you are completely agnostic, leaning hard atheist or hard theist makes no sense since you don’t actually believe you know anything. And finally, theism vs. atheism is binary by atheists’ own definition, so a “range” of theism makes no sense. The square political compass makes sense in politics because the Left vs Right axis and Libertarian vs Authoritarian axis are not each not necessarily mutually exclusive to each other, but you can’t remove knowledge from belief when it comes religion.)
> how irrelevant the “atheism” of agnosticism is
If it’s irrelevant, why is it living rent-free in your head? Words just point to ideas. the words themselves don’t really mean anything. There needs to be a word for just “a lack of belief in god”. Some people use strong atheism and weak atheism to avoid these sorts of problems. Or they just use the word “non religious” instead. Agnosticism is not a dirty word either, and it could be used instead. The fact is is that some people use the word atheism as well, does it really matter?
> conveniently allows one to sidestep the burden of proof of potentially unprovable affirmative statements like “there is No God”
Atheism is just a philosophical stance to a philosophical question. Atheists are under no more of a burden of proof than any other individual, that has any other stance on the question. If atheists choose to engage with the god-question, and start making claims, then (and only then) do they have any kind of burden of proof. A burden of proof is only needed when trying to convince someone of something. I can certainly believe and claim “there is no God”, if that’s my position on the matter. Whether or not I can justify it is a separate issue. It doesn’t change the fact that that’s an atheists philosophical position. I can openly assert that there is no God. I can also openly admit that I can’t prove it. Just like many religious people make assertions that they can’t prove.
> In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just not believe in theism, but consider all potential supernatural theisms as impossible
They just reject supernatural theisms, atheists don’t have to believe that they are hypothetically impossible
> not on the basis of their lack of evidence or personal experience (a deficiency of knowledge, aka agnosticism), but on an affirmative belief
Sure, why not? Nietzsche, Camus, Satre all had atheism as an affirmative belief.
> an affirmative belief that science will continue to find naturalistic explanations for existence, and thus will dismiss the basis for any possible theism that can be posited.
Says who? Atheists don’t have to find every single naturalistic explanation. whether they are strong atheists or not. Atheism is just a philosophical stance to a philosophical question, that’s all.
Atheist here. Let’s first do some housekeeping / clean up of strawmen:
>”there is No God”
There is a subtle but important difference between
(A) “There are no god(s), ever, in any plane of existence, shape or form or definition of what god means”
and claims like
(B) “All specific, concrete theistic claims are false” (C) “We have insufficient evidence to conclude a god or the supernatural exist” (D) “No gods or entities beyond the natural have contacted us or revealed knowledge to us”
I can happily sustain and take the burden of proof for B, C and D. What the agnostic atheist is doing is merely qualifying their epistemic state on A. Especially because it is such an ill-formed, unfalsifiable proposition.
>”everything emerged from pure chaos and chance”
Not something I would claim. This sounds like a theist’s strawman due to a false dichotomy.
>”science will prove everything”
Not something I would claim. This sounds like the typical “scientism” caricature of theists who dislike their epistemic frameworks being criticized.
Science will not and cannot “prove” everything. It is in fact likely that humans have no access to ontology and to the set of all truths, and that there is, like Kant suggests, a boundary between phenomena and noumena.
The scientific method is, however, one of the few reliable methods we have to approximate objective reality and create maps to navigate it. It will continue being one of our best methods to find things out.
I am open to other methods that achieve the same or superior degree of reliably and verifiably approximating objective truth. These methods, however, have to pass muster. And I am sorry to say most if not all religious methods (e.g. revelation) have not met this burden.
>”theism is wrong”
I am happy to discuss why concrete theistic claims are wrong. I have not, as of now, found a concrete theistic claim that was even remotely likely to be correct.
>”prophets were all delusional or liars.”
Well… yeah, they likely are. We can talk about it. I don’t think “delusional” is as inflammatory as you think it is. We can all be honestly mistaken about the experiences we’ve had, and before the advent of modern science, honestly thinking a vivid dream, a drug-induced state, a mirage, etc is the “real deal” is probably something that happened often.
Honestly: the main reason all these qualifiers (like agnostic atheist or igtheist) exist is because theists often take refuge in vague deistic claims and / or equivocations like “God is love”, “God is the universe”, “God is whatever caused the universe”, “God is consciousness”, “God is existence”. These are, functionally, equivalent to me saying “I redefine my pet dog to be God, and so God exists and he likes wet food”.
I am pretty sure most of us, if you make a *SPECIFIC AND CONCRETE* claim like “Jesus is God and at the same time the son of God and he violated the laws of physics and he came back from the dead”, will be more than happy to say “yeah… no, that didn’t happen. That god doesn’t exist.”
Thanks for the post.
Can you define “god” in a way all theists can agree on? I doubt it–some mean “Jesus,” and I doubt that’s what you mean. I’m fairly sure Jesus is bullshit–calling myself Agnostic will lead most in my country to think “maybe who knows” if Jesus is real, when I am fairly sure he isn’t, and I can carry my burden. Deist god–who knows.
Saying an athiest must assert that “all potential supernatural theisms impossible”–supernatural isn’t defined, and many theists define “god” as “pure existence”. So …atheists have to deny pure existence?
Until you can provide a universal definition of the word “god,” expect the responses to “does god exist” to not universally apply.
An atheist is simply a person who if you ask them “do you believe in God” they will answer “NO”.
Whether you like that definition or not is besides the point. You don’t get to pick someone else’s “brand”.
> First, if you say you are agnostic, an evangelist will mistakenly assume you are lost and open to listening to their incoherent theism and maybe believing in their ridiculous God…
But as an agnostic atheist, I am open to listening to their theism and maybe believing in their God.
> … conveniently allows one to sidestep the burden of proof of potentially unprovable affirmative statements like “there is No God”, “everything emerged from pure chaos and chance”, “science will prove everything”, “theism is wrong”, “prophets were all delusional or liars.”
it’s not the definition of agnosticism that allows me to sidestep the burden of proof for such statements. It’s the fact that *I don’t make such claims* that allows me to sidestep the burden.
> You can’t jump from “I don’t know” to “but there is no evidence for God, therefore there is no God”
So don’t make that jump. Simple.
> In fact, we may all be theists or atheists depending on how the word “God” is defined in the argument…
All the more reason to focus on the argument for the existence of “God” and not on definitions of “atheism.”
> Unlike atheists, agnostics are unwilling to reject the possibility of theisms that don’t contradict known science…
False by counter-example: I am an atheist who is unwilling to reject the possibility of theisms that don’t contradict known science.
> has not actually rejected the theism question as long as they accept the potential of a God existing somewhere…
Sounds like you and I have a very different idea of what “rejection” means. Is it possible there is a huge conspiracy hiding the flat Earth from the public, yes; is the Earth flat, no. I call that rejection while allowing for the possibility.
> In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just not believe in theism, but consider all potential supernatural theisms as impossible…
Then I don’t want to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnostics.
> If atheists are unwilling to actually affirm what they actually believe in…
There is a huge difference between *unwilling to affirm* what we actually believe, and *only willing to affirm* what we actually believe. Why would anyone affirm to something they don’t actually believe?
> admit to themselves that they are agnostics who don’t know enough about the unexplained to make any definitive counterclaims they are willing to defend…
Hence the term “agnostic atheism.”
> If you hold any overt theistic or atheistic belief worth mentioning, you are still inherently presuming some level of knowledge based on the evidence you have. So if you lean towards or against the existence of a God, you have already automatically left the agnostic axis towards some level of gnosis.
Why? I am presuming some level of knowledge based on the evidence I have that justify leaning towards atheism, yet I have not left the agnostic axis because none of that knowledge is on the existence of God.
> you can’t remove knowledge from belief when it comes religion.
You can if you are separate knowledge on God from knowledge on things other than God. I have none of the former, but plenty of the latter to be an atheist.
>In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just not believe in theism, but consider all potential supernatural theisms as impossible
So, if I udnderstand you correctly, there are no atheists alive by that definition, right? No living human could consider the infinity of all potential supernatural systems
The problem lies with theism here, not atheism.
All of this could be avoided, if there was such a thing as a theistic position, but there isn’t. Claim “There is a God” becomes apparently unclear with a simple question: “Which God?”, because for the purpose of theism the answer is: “Any”. If there is a white bearded dude named Zeus sitting on top of the mount Olympus, throwing lightnings – theism is true. If there is a magical sky daddy, sending his sons and/or prophets to Earth – theism is true, if there is a sentient first cause – theism is true, etc ,etc…
And no intellectually honest person would ever demand from another to make a single claim with the same level of certainty and the same justification in regards to all those different entities. The only claim we can make, is that we don’t accept any claims of existence in regards to any Deities made by any theist. That’s it. Grounds for rejection, and degree of rejection, naturally depend on what is the specific claim made by a theist. No agnostic will tell you that they believe that we can’t know whether Zeus sits atop mount Olympus. And no hard atheist will tell you that they have definitive empirical proof against existence of Deistic God.
Some previously worshipped Gods are now known not to exist, some Gods are defined in such a way we can’t know whether they exist, and some are defined in such a convoluted way, that we can’t even understand what would it mean for them to exist. And, of course, some definitions of God, atheists hadn’t even heard yet. So, unless you have created a singular world religion that makes a single coherent claim in regards to existence of a single coherently and meaningfully defined God, you don’t get to criticize categorization of atheism. It’s the result of your mess. Fix it, and let us worry about fixing our side of it.
>The technical “atheism” of agnosticism is irrelevant because the agnostic stance on the theism question is indeterminate. Atheists who avoid affirmatively asserting non-existence are fundamentally agnostics, and the atheism itself is not meaningful.
Your major conceptual error appears to be conflating belief with knowledge. If you are not going to draw a distinction between the two as the people using those labels are then of course it is not going to be “meaningful” to you.
>In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just not believe in theism…
Millions of people understand the distinction between not believing something and not knowing something. Why do you think this is not a meaningful distinction?
Theism= Belief in God
Atheism= Not Theism/ No belief in God/Without belief in God
Agnosticism= Does not know whether God exists and claims neither belief nor disbelief in God. But, by refusing to claim belief in God (regardless of whether the person asserts disbelief), an Agnostic is not a Theist/claims no belief in God and is thus a subset of Atheist.
This is just the classic atheist vs agnostic definition game. It’s why we have the 4-part agnostic/gnostic atheist/theist system that a lot of people like to use here.
> Avoiding claims that assume the burden of proof because you have no ability to actually disprove the existence of God or a historical occurrence, and then stating “I don’t know” when asked to explain what you affirmatively believe answers the unexplained — that’s just agnosticism. You can’t jump from “I don’t know” to “but there is no evidence for God, therefore there is no God”, which is an argument from ignorance.
This is not the agnostic atheist position. It is explicitly not making the claim there is no god. It is saying they don’t know if there is or isn’t one and they aren’t convinced there is one and they aren’t convinced there isn’t one. This is a strawman of the position.
It would also seem you are operating under a different idea of agnosticism than is traditionally used. It is about how we can’t know or can’t properly justify the belief. It doesn’t mean you can’t still believe. Knowledge is, at least in this kind of sense and traditionally used in philosophy, a subset of beliefs. Everything you know you believe but not everything you believe do you know.
> Unlike atheists, agnostics are unwilling to reject the possibility of theisms that don’t contradict known science, as well as theisms that can offer actual evidence for their claims of deities contradicting the laws of known science.
Plenty of atheists are willing to entertain that it is possible.
> And finally, theism vs. atheism is binary by atheists’ own definition, so a “range” of theism makes no sense.
Because you don’t understand how the terms are being used. A theist believes there is a god and then there is everyone else. This is foundational logic using the law of the excluded middle. A or not-A. Theist and atheist in this sense is binary and forms a proper dichotomy. Now that you have separated out the two groups those two groups can themselves have further divisions.
There are after all as an example say Americans and non-Americans. Yet we can then divide the American group into other subgroups like say voters or non-voters. Then we could keep dividing and dividing. This is basic set theory.
However let us ignore that for the moment. We can surely agree at least theists exist. There are people who believe there is a god. What label would you use for everyone who wasn’t one?
>If atheism is by definition “not theism” then agnostics are all technically “atheist.”
[25% of Christians](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/belief-in-god/) in the US are agnostic theists.
>yes, technically they are.
So you admit that they are technically correct?
>Unlike atheists, agnostics are unwilling to reject the possibility of theisms that don’t contradict known science, as well as theisms that can offer actual evidence for their claims of deities contradicting the laws of known science.
What makes you think that atheists wouldn’t want to see that “actual evidence”?
>We’re all just trying to find whatever explanation makes the most sense to us, even if we are aware it may not be a perfect explanation.
We call that process “science”.
>atheists must not just not believe in theism, but consider all potential supernatural theisms as impossible
In other words, you can only be an atheist if you have falsified the unfalsifiable.
>If atheists are unwilling to actually affirm what they actually believe in, they need to admit to themselves that they are agnostics
Yep. Agnostic atheist here.
>who don’t know enough about the unexplained to make any definitive counterclaims they are willing to defend.
What is “the unexplained” that I need to make definitive counterclaims against?
>Agnostics also defer to current scientific standards of proof for belief when it comes to theistic claims, without jumping to the positive atheist conclusion that the trajectory of science will eventually be able to definitively disprove the possibility of all things supernatural when we’ve barely even started to accurately understand the natural.
I don’t know anyone who thinks that science can disprove all supernatural claims. If you claim that your cat tells you which lottery numbers to choose, there is nothing I can do to disprove it, but I still have no reason to believe it.
>theism vs. atheism is binary by atheists’ own definition, so a “range” of theism makes no sense.
There is no range. You either believe in a god or you do not.
No Gnostic is derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “to know.” And “a” means ‘without’ so agnostic is literally ‘without knowledge’
A/theism is about belief, a/Gnosticism is about knowledge everyone is one of 4 possible positions agnostic atheist, agnostic theist, gnostic theist, gnostic atheist, depending on the position one holds, if you believe in god and claim to know it’s real you are gnostic theist, if you believe in god and dont know it’s real you are agnostic theist, if you don’t believe in god and claim to know it you are gnostic atheist, if you don’t believe in god but don’t know if it’s real you are agnostic atheist
>To use another metaphor . . .
This metaphor doesn’t quite work- I can use it myself to explain the utility of the labels you’re arguing against.
In the case of the defendant, he is not treated as guilty (not given a prison sentence) and the judge remains agnostic until such time as the defendant is determined to be guilty. Similarly, agnostic atheists do not behave as though there is a god until such time as they are convinced one exists. They don’t need to be convinced that one doesn’t exist, just like the man does not need to be labeled innocent, in order to functionally live the same way as someone who believes that a god doesn’t exist.
In both cases, the demonstration of the positive claim (guilt, god’s existence) would lead to change in behavior (prison sentence, adjusted worldview/lifestyle), whereas the negative claim’s demonstration (innocence, god’s nonexistence) would yield no change to the agnostic’s behavior (consideration of the defendant’s innocence, non-consideration of a god) from the time prior to the positive claim being made.
​
>If atheists are unwilling to actually affirm what they actually believe in, they need to admit to themselves that they are agnostics who don’t know enough about the unexplained to make any definitive counterclaims they are willing to defend
Your metaphor as you used it works for this- you said it yourself that we don’t need to declare the defendant innocent prematurely. Why would anyone not convinced of a god claim that one doesn’t exist if they don’t feel they can make that claim yet? Agnostics are not required to make a counterclaim- rather, if they aren’t convinced by a claim, they can point out why the claim doesn’t make sense.
Atheist synonymously used with nontheist is a good socio- political identifier. thats about it really.
If you dont believe in god, then youre a nontheist AKA atheist. this effectively subsumes positions like agnostic, ignostic, and strong atheist all in one broad category. logically, it even subsumes anything thats not theist like innocent babies, uncontacted peoples, my toe, the moon, rocks etc. philosophically, its a less granular and less specific use of the label for it doesnt express the holder’s belief and actual position when asked whether god exist or not exist. it also leads to absurdities ive mentioned like rock atheism.
However, people are free to use the label whichever way they want. Its the concepts that matter. Policing language is not a good route to take.
>Re-defining atheism as being functionally indistinguishable from agnosticism conveniently allows one to sidestep the burden of proof of potentially unprovable affirmative statements.
No, what allows one to sidestep the burden of proof is not making affirmative statements. The definitions of words are irrelevant. However we define words, people who make affirmative statements have a burden of proof, and people who do not, do not.
Debates over the definitions of words can be fun, but we should be careful to not get distracted from real issues. In particular, when debating religion try to not get side-tracked into debating the definitions of words instead.
>In order to be meaningfully distinguishable from agnosticism, atheists must not just not believe in theism, but consider all potential supernatural theisms as impossible.
No one is going to change their beliefs just for the sake of being distinguishable from agnosticism. People believe whatever they believe for actual reasons, and if we want to change their beliefs we need to give them better reasons.
>If atheists are unwilling to actually affirm what they actually believe in, they need to admit to themselves that they are agnostics who don’t know enough about the unexplained to make any definitive counterclaims they are willing to defend.
The only reason why someone would be unwilling to affirm what they believe would be if they are living in some place without freedom of speech or without freedom of religion, like Saudi Arabia where they supposedly have the death penalty for atheism. What does that have to do with admitting to themselves that they are agnostic?
>If you hold any overt theistic or atheistic belief worth mentioning, you are still inherently presuming some level of knowledge based on the evidence you have.
That seems to be ignoring the concept of faith. Many theists have noticed the sparse evidence for their various religions and decided to solve this problem by concluding that knowledge should not be required. So long as they have faith and believe, they do not need to know. Belief without knowledge can be a point of pride, like overcoming a test to prove themselves. Jesus famously said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Belief is purely emotional as it is built up on tenuous premises at best. The limited amount of information we have to project whether or not a deity exists is akin to seeing a red rubber dodge ball and trying to decide if unicorns exist.
That’s why the term agnostic atheist is used. It is one of the four ways to say “I do or don’t know, but I do or don’t think”. They are acknowledging that there are no reasonable facts or proof, but they maintain an opinion regardless.
I’m agnostic about a lot of things, do you only care when I use it to describe my knowledge around god(s)?
I absolutely do not believe in god, due to the lack of compelling evidence, so I could not call myself a theist. Since atheist is someone who is not a theist, I choose that label.
Wonderful exposition on the fluidity of words. Is it meant to change or challenge my position? Posts like these that talk about others’ positions seem pointless. Do you want to deal with people’s actual beliefs?
Trying to digest all your saying here, but you are basically arguing atheists that don’t stand by their non-theist convictions are cowardly and actually agnostic? Was that it or am I missing something?
Do you not consider “I don’t *know*, but I *think…*” a valid option? Someone can’t say “I don’t know for certain there’s no god, but I don’t think there is” (or for that matter, “I don’t know for certain there’s a god, but I think there is”)?
I think your court analogy is a good example- to rule the victim guilty isn’t to say that I consider all potential possibility of mistake or future exonerating evidence impossible, just that I have seen enough to close the case. Likewise, the fact that I don’t have enough evidence to convince a court doesn’t prevent me *forming a belief* on whether the person is guilty or not, even if epistemically I should hedge my bets.
Same principle here. A gnostic atheist considers the case closed. An agnostic athiest doesn’t. Neither of these require the extreme epistemic claims of “I can firmly say every possible theistic claim conceivable will never get any evidence” or “this is a topic where it’s impossible for a human to ever draw any conclusions”- they’re simply statements on whether the person thinks there’s enough evidence to give a firm answer or just an educated guess.
Atheist = I don’t believe in a god/gods
Agnostic = I don’t think it’s possible to know wither god does or does not exist
The problem I have with this is that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Theism is about what someone believes while Gnosticism is about what you claim to know. A gnostics atheist would claim there is no god while a agnostic atheist would make no positive claim they’d simply lack belief. Just like a theist can be agnostic because they can believe without claiming to know.
And as for re-defining the word what is wrong with that? We change meanings of words all the time to better suit how we use them. If we didn’t then atheist would still mean Christian like how the Roman’s used it.
I don’t consider myself Theist or Atheist. I prefer to use the term “Neutral”, but agnostic is easier for people to grasp.
Theism vs Atheism is an answer to the question “Do you *believe* in a god”, I don’t like that question, it’s irrelevant.
What you do or don’t believe make no difference to the real question “Does a god *actually exist*?” To which I can only answer: I don’t know.