Atheism and a path forwards

Atheism is a reaction to the religious climate in the world. I’m not talking about religiophilosophies like Buddhism that are atheistic, but rather what is normally understood in the West with the label ‘atheist’, both positive and negative. As a reaction to extreme Christianity (and, to a lesser extent, Islam), it promises to be useful in breaking the shackles that these repressive systems represent.

But history has shown us many times that people break their shackles only to restore them in a new way. The French revolted against their Monarch, then suffered the Terror, and before you know it, they had an Emperor. The German monarchy was stripped away, so they elected a fascist dictator in its place. The Russians rose up and expelled the Czars but before you know it, the Party’s yolk is as repressive as ever.

History has shown this cycle again and again. Why should atheism be immune to it? Indeed, we can already see hints of this reaction in ‘atheists’ who accept things like orgonite, or astral projections, or fall prey to movements like ‘New Age’. I’ve seen a lot of people who go from being a Christian to being absolutely nuts in this regard. Spirituality, it would seem, is rooted in very many people’s psyches.

So where does one go from there? It is good enough for us, but clearly not for other people. Again, where to next? For a moment, let’s take the structuralists at their word and say that religion serves as social glue. Now, clearly this isn’t the only social glue present, but it has clearly shown itself to be an enduring one, and an effective one. What cultural glue is powerful enough to take the place of the dominant religion without itself being religious? A quick glance at some of the monuments in East Germany shows that while they took the idea that ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses’ quite seriously, to circumvent this problem, they created a highly ritualized pseudo-religion around Communism. Is that any better than what we are seeking to replace? Especially since in the US, the obvious replacement would seem to be some form of New Age. I have to question whether this system is superior to the paradigm that reactionary atheism is trying to fight against.

As a corollary to this, many secular warriors focus on the personal position: that they don’t need religion. I understand that completely, indeed, I was raised that way and I still very much find that system works for me. However, that invites the Zhuangzian-type relativism where what is good for one isn’t good for another. After all, if you care about what is good for you (from your perspective), you should also want to protect what is good for others (from their perspective) lest you to fall into the same sort of absolutist trap that causes many people to dislike Fundamentalist Christians so much.

But if we are making allowance for individual choice, what to do about those who find that radical theism represents the best choice for them? Well, we can quibble over the idea of ‘best’ but certainly the easiest and one that offers a satisfactory solution. Moreso, this type of thought exists on a sliding scale. While the easy answer of ‘God’ is appealing to many people, that answer can exist without the clusterfuck that is the Religious Right in America right now. So, rather than attack theism in general through atheism (which might not fit all people), wouldn’t it be better to encourage moderate theism?

Perhaps this is just the Daoist influence on my thinking, but to me trying to promote the antithesis of something only causes a reaction in the original movement that both strengthens it and radicalizes it. The example I always like to compare and contrast England and Germany with America and Turkey. Both England and Germany are Christian nations according to their national charters, whereas America and Turkey are secular according to their constitutions. But, if you look at the political rhetoric in those countries you would think it was the other way 'round! By trying to remove it from the national dialogue, religion has to force itself back in, and in a major way!

So, if atheism is to be used as a hammer to shatter the present Christian climate (especially in the US) what will rise in its place? Nothing is unsatisfactory on both a societal level as well as on a personal level for many people. It is the old Don Quixote stueck about a man with moonlight in his hands.

Humanism represents a tempting answer to this situation, but from the humanist groups I have seen IRL, it seems like it is a mish-mosh of whatever the individual wants it to be. That isn’t a community in any meaningful sense. Continuing in that vein, humanist groups don’t really meet that often. Unitarians sometimes manage to fix this, but in my experience (so, purely anecdotal), the more often a Unitarian group meets, the more likely it is to be taken over by mystic Christians or some other heretical group that doesn’t really offer anything better than the traditional group. Avoiding what one considers to be an irrational form of majority Christianity to embrace an irrational form of minority Christianity hardly represents a satisfactory solution.

When there is that shared element between people (like religion, nationality, local-sports-team-fandom, or whatever else you want) there is a common ground that has already been created between those people that doesn’t exist in something like, say, a bookclub. People come together with these things and produce a society. While the individual perspective shouldn’t be lost, I don’t think I am saying anything too radical when I say that the Apollonian is overemphasized in the modern world and the Dionysian has been all-but forgotten. This is especially troublesome since, after all, Apollo is the lord of dreams, whereas Dionysus represents social reality. So, basically what I am asking is: how, in the individualized world that many atheists promote, does one fight anomie? What is the future that they are striving towards?

Excellent post. I think there’s some really solid and interesting ideas here. I have only two points that I would personally contest:

You’re not an atheist? My feelings are that, if you were, there’s no way you’d view new-agers, people who think crystals have powers, people who watch/read The Secret, etc, are fellow atheists. Either you believe that the world is powered by hidden supernatural forces or you don’t - and these people clearly do. To me, they’re also sheep, just with a different name for their god.

I can see where you’re going with the sociological angle, but I’m not sure that Atheism is that politicised. Ok, so most of us have political sensitivities about our position, but that’s because people with an essentially scientific world view are copping a bit of a bashing out there (ever hear of an atheist President? Statistically there’d have to be at least one, but they must be in the closet. Same for all politicians, for that matter. Susperstitious people run the world).

For most of us, our lack of believe in a supernatural onmiscient and omnipotent creator we can have a personal relationship with isn’t a reaction to anything, and neither is it a social position. Most of the time, we hide in the closet with it.

I know that I, personally, never believed this stuff - even as a five year old. I was a shocked to find that other people did (I Thought they just sat in church to please their grandparents, like I did). At 5, I wasn’t rebelling against Christianity. It just never occurred to me that these fairy stories are any more real than the cartoons on TV.

The political backlash, etc, is valid. But it’s more driven by science, etc. I think that, for the most part one’s belief or non-belief about supernatural creators is instinctive and/or the product of early conditioning

Oh, I am an atheist, and I don’t consider those people to be atheists. However, a quick glance through the posts here on ILP will show the cycle of ‘religious believer’ to ‘religious skeptic’ to ‘atheist’ to ‘New Age’. I think that this trend is very present and real . . . and I think it presents a problem for atheism because, as I said elsewhere, trading a majority religious belief for a minority one isn’t really a trade up.

As for atheism being politicized, I think it clearly has been. People like Dawkins are out there trying, very consciously, to politicize the issue! I don’t see anything wrong with that; however, these people aren’t proposing a step forwards. All Dawkins wants is to eliminate ‘God’ from the discussion, but there isn’t any replacement going on. Not just on a spiritual level, and I think as long as that angle is ignored atheism won’t be able to make major headway, but also sociologically since people do need something constant in their lives. Given the impermanence of things like family, job, and even locality in the modern world, many people are turning to the Church for stability – and not without good reason!

The problem with Atheism today, is that it is not integrated, logically into a greater philosophic system.

Atheism is a metaphysical viewpoint, that states there is no god. Of course to be truely consistent with that belief, one would also logically reject other supernatural or unproven phenomena, but people are seldom that consistent.

Given that atheism says what a person doesnt believe in a certain field, he still has a human need for an integrated view of existence that philosophy provides. The problem is that until recently, there was not philosophy that is consistent with Atheism. Now, there is, but it is still little known.

Atheists more than anyone else are in need of moral guidance; but it has been said that morality is the province of religion and faith; that no rational, scientific morality is possible. But that is certainly not true. Such a philosophy has been developed. It is scientific, and it is based on reason. It is fully consistent, no part contradicts the other. the fundamentals of the philosophy, called Objectivism, can be found at importanceofphilosophy.com

Coming from the perspective of a theist, I think a lot of this has to do with motivations, and the nature of reason. Reason, is a very hard thing to respect or desire in itself, and I’m slowly becoming convinced that it’s impossible to do. But, this is such a common thing held by the atheist- that they are an atheist because they respect reason as opposed to some other thing, faith, belief, whatever you want to call it. The idea that there could be faculties present in some people and not in others like that is strange to me, but that aside, the real problem here is that the atheist is not recognizing their own motivations correctly.
Reason in itself does not present us a solution. If you are an honest intellectual of any stripe, you have to acknowledge that there are better and brighter thinkers out there who have disagreed with essentially everything you’ve ever claimed or argued for. Too often in these situations, ‘reason’ amounts to criticism of one’s native beliefs, and is promptly abandoned to make way for the acceptance of something more desirable. Anybody experienced in this thing we do here should easily see that being able to poke holes in a theory really doesn’t mean that much at the end of the day. You will never in your life have a philosophy that somebody half as smart as you can’t find a dozen problems with at first glance. So to say that you are an atheist because you are reasonable is at best a half answer - your reason could have taken you elsewhere if things were different. Now, I’m no relativist, but what I’m saying is, if a person doesn’t understand their own motivations, they will use reason to carry them away from a stifling theism, and eventually give up on reason when it starts to get in the way of whatever it is that’s really driving them. I think that’s why so many atheists progress into New-Age foolishness- their motivations run riot once they are out of a structured belief system, and they don’t even know what those motivations are that are blowing them about.

The answer is humility, which in this case is exemplified through discipline. That is to say, if you are a 14 year old stuck in a strict religious order (that isn't threatening your life), then those religious system is far better than anything you are likely to stumble into on your own, even if it's dead wrong. An unread 24 or 34-year-old isn't any better off.  Someone who moves from traditional religion, to atheism, to crap-ism probably did not sufficiently understand that which they were leaving behind, and did not pay proper respect to the wise people that shaped their culture.

A real interesting post

This reminds me of some thoughts I have been having recently with regards to atheistic countries and the way to remove theist control of the US.

It strikes me that the countries (I.m thinking of northern Europe here) that are atheistic are also socialist.

By socialist I mean democratic rather than communistic. Counties with good social saftey nets and strong labour movements. This certainly applies to the UK. Interestingly as the UK has been removing the safety net in recent years it has also seen a rise in evengelicals!

Maybe socialism, which of course is a political form of humanism, fills the void within us that is filled with religion. Maybe a country, such as the US, where individualism is promoted with such fervour there is a gap created that another form of group identity, ie religion, fills. Socialist countries provide a moral and group conscience already so religion is not so needed, or only needed by a particulaly needy part of the population.

Democratic socialism also has the advantage of allowing individualism as well.

I know that the US is not going to become a socialist nation any time soon, in fact anybody who suggests “universal healthcare” gets laughed of the podium. So, if I’m right, it looks like we are stuck with the theocracy for the forseeable future :slight_smile:

I realise that the US already has a huge group identity of “being American”, but this does not imply a moral dimension as well, perhaps this is what is missing from American nationalism (BTW “might is right” does not constitute moral guidance :slight_smile:)

I really like this thread… a constructive and thoughtful aproach to the problem of atheism vs. theism.

what will we do once religion is gone?

what strikes me first is the scientific fields such as psychology and sociology taking over and dictating ritual and morality. the purpose being honestly shared… to unite people… to serve as “the social glue”… the importance of a united effort for a united benifit does not need religion to do it’s PR work… such things can be shown to be true scientifically and historically…

science could fill the void left by religion… but it would be filled by fields such as psychology and socialogy which still to this day are treated with a kind of mistrust by the general public… making those fields more accepted and respected could yield an alternative to religion…

Hi Xunzian,

How do you avoid a breakdown or absence of social norms and values? The examples you used in history, the French or German Monarchy or the Russian Czar, were examples of corrupt systems that were overthrown by libertarian movements that had only existed underground until they used their chance to do away with what they saw as the evil in their midst. I think that the real reasons for the backlash was that they hadn’t any experience of what it takes to rule a country and couldn’t install the security that people wanted without using the weapons of those they had removed from power – and, as you pointed out, install a reign of terror that forgot what the Monarchs were thrown out for.

The jump then, from Monarchy to Christianity, which may be fitting as far as Roman Catholicism goes, but otherwise seems to me to push a point too far, forgets the fact that in the modern states, a religion only has the power you give it. The bourgeois conventions that are often sold as religious morality are in fact far removed from the source of any religion. It is this that is often forgotten by self-proclaimed “Atheists”, who seem to think that theism is the root of all evil. What they are in fact fighting is only the camouflage of hypocritical bourgeois conventions which, behind their pseudo-religious behaviour, are as equally materialist as the atheists themselves.

Shalom

The comparisson between the UK and the US (I focus on these two nations because I know significantly more about them) is a little misleading. The conclusion is often drawn that the exclusion of religion from American legislation has caused a reactionary extremism, and that is questionable. An alternate conclusion is that such extremism is a natural tendency, but that in the UK, where religion is centralized and institutionalized, religion is kept in check by a generally moderate government, thereby minimizing the trend towards extremism. Afterall, in the US the justification used for the separation of church in state was not to keep religion out of government, but to keep the government out of religion.
Another consideration is the size of the populace. The population of the US is about 5 times that of the UK. One would expect a larger extreme on both sides of the bell curve in the US, and if one extreme is more vocal than the other (and it sure seems that way), one would expect it to pull the center towards it.
Granted, that is in large part due to the fact that the secular extreme was mostly satisfied with the country as it was set up: religion was supposed to be kept from politics, and decisions were made within what functioned as a secular framework. The religious extreme, on the other hand, was very dissatisfied with the trend in which the country was heading. As often as politicians name-dropped “god”, the laws that were passed reflected a secular decision-making process, and so ran counter to much religious doctrine and dogma. The resultant resurgence of religiosity is in some part due to the actual secularity of the US. Still, it doesn’t seem that the issue is quite as simple as that secular politics encourage religious extremism.
More important than that the politics were functionally secular was that they were only functionally secular: there was no actual allegience to secularism except in practice. Religion is completely ignored rather than being ridiculed. In the US, it is still considered sacred, both socially and legislatively inviolate. It is the absence of a system of belief, more than the espousal of one that rejects religious beliefs.
And that, I think, is where the future of atheism must lie. Athiesm, defined as a negative, is bound to fail, because if it were ever to successfully eliminate the belief in god, it would lose it’s meaning. What replaces atheism must be a system which expouses positive values independent of whatever it is trying to reject. And Humanism is trying to do that, and with all due respect, I think you’re wrong, Xunz: Humanism is doing what atheism needs to do. It is internationalizing and defining itself positively. It’s trying to create communities, hosting summer camps and other similar gatherings that bring people together under some positive banner. Atheism doesn’t get mentioned, because instead it espouses rights and responsibilities, reason and exploration. It embraces science as a way to discover the world. It may be somewhat disorganized, but it is a nascent movement, and it is becoming much more centralized and unified. That is the future for atheism.

Absolutely, but mysticism isn’t necessarily. While some would be persuaded by astral projections, deism, etc., when being weened from religion, is it necessary? Is it beneficial? Is it true?

Moderate theism is inarguably better than extreme or fundamentalist theism; however, I agree with Dawkins that this too presents a danger. Moderate theism provides a shield to fundamentalist beliefs. If anybody can believe whatever they’d like, without question and without scrutiny, the underground has been set for breeding extremism.

Education, education, education. Christianity, and religious beliefs in general, leave our population ignorant. In reality, I don’t think Christianity contributes at all to individuals or society, other than being that “binding glue” you speak of, and at the expense of segregating and dividing our race. Racism provide a social glue as well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need it, nor do we need something to replace it if we abolish it.

I think changing the paradigm linking morality to religion would be a very important step. Changing the paradigm linking religion with life’s meaning and purpose would be another important step.

The future I strive for is one soaked with reason, logic, facts, and open discussion. I couldn’t imagine the pitfalls of a society that focused all of its time and energy on developing these factors, and developing a society based on them.

I can’t imagine any problem becoming more exasperated with the addition of logic, reason, facts, and open discussion, or any nation with this as the foundation being much worse than a theocratic society.

We are at a point in our species development when we are no longer bound by evolution’s blindness. We can move faster than anything on the planet, we can kill more efficiently, we can create and destroy. With this power, why not focus our attention on using reason, logic, tolerance, compassion, and education to become our new social glue?

Being agnostic, I can’t find any particular polarity that resonates. There is no religion or system of philosophy that is unflawed. I find the atheistic dependence on science and reason to be more in keeping with common sense knowledge, but it in no way is the perfect answer. I too feel that education is probably the only workable answer, and that is a slow evolving process. Teaching how to think, not what to think, without discounting our emotional and spiritual life would be an ideal reached with great difficulty. Still, it is what is needed as our populations grow larger and the resource base smaller. I have no particular form of social organization that I think would work, but rather allow such organization to evolve. I’m reasonably certain that any of the issues we could possibly raise today will be solved in some fashion by our great grandchildren. The extremism we see today, whether religious or secular, will only become more extreme as these factions sense themselves losing power. Ideally, the pendulum serves most at dead center, but it has swung to the extreme right, and it swings slowly.

At this point, it seems that the person who would exercise both heart and mind must look inwardly, and perhaps that is what needs to be learned first. Until we have answers for ourselves, social cohesiveness is mythical at best.

I agree that education is important. As I mentioned in my post, I think the inability to critically discuss religion has allowed it to continue beyond its usefulness.
But I agree with Uccisore that trying to establish a system founded on ‘logic’ or ‘reason’ is sort of condescending, and misses the point besides. Reason and logic only require that a system be self-consistent, and many religions can be. We need to embrace more than just logic, because logic by itself doesn’t do anyting. It only works when premises are fed into it, and it is the choice of premises that is at issue.
That’s why I endorsed Humanism: It offers what could easily be adopted as universal premises, and upon which a secular society could be based. The premises for any secular system have to included the fact that we are human, and that that entails such-and-such and so-and-so rights, responsibilities, and conclusion.
Perhaps logic is a better idea that atheism, because while atheism is a negative system, logic has taken the middle ground of a non-system. But there must still be a positive system in order to replace religious beliefs.

This is why athiests like Dawkins are arguing that we should stop giving religion a “free ride” with regards to taboos about questioning it. It also segues into the moderate religion giving shelter to extermism

The problem with this of course is that we are conditioned to expect “causes” of our moralities. Simply “choosing” humanism may not be sufficient reason for most people to regard it as a valid moral code.

I don’t really see that atheism claims to be a belief system unto itself. As you (and others) point out it is more of a reaction to theism, and will disappear as theism does. Eg Nobody declares themselves to be atheist with regards to Zeus, there is no need. Also I don’t feel that atheism, per se, implies any particular morality. While most, it seems, choose humanism to go with the atheism you are quite welcome to choose nihilism instead :slight_smile:

To change the subject slightly I have been thinking in the last few days about the mechanism is theism. Nowadays the christian taliban are so adept at using the mechanics of marketing and brainwashing that to fight it is going to take a serious effort. For me the battlefield has to be the children. We have to prevent the “mind virus” of religion from being transmitted to the young, who have no defense againt it. Religion must be removed from school curriculums and children cannot be allowed to be walled off from the wider world, where free enquiry is the process whereby we advance ourselves.

Kids who are home schooled or go to religios schools, are forced to watch religious TV, get sent to “jesus camp” have little or no chance of having a free choice whe it comes to matters spiritual. It would take someone of great personal intropection and skeptisism to free themselves from the meme of religion after experiencing this all their life.

LukeRazor

This is exactly the problem that modern atheism faces- not all the garbage about brainwashing, no no no.  The problem is the underlying assumption that religion is [i]so[/i] evil, such a horrendous thing in society, that people who advocate it are essentially enemies of the state who don't deserve rights to do things like raise their children or teach their values.   This attitude comes, I think, from precisely the problem I was talking about- a tendency to idolize logic and reason without actually employing it further than to justify one's prejudices. 

It's also interesting to note that when an atheist talks about the importance of 'questioning' religion, what they really mean, is getting a bunch of people with PhD's together to intellectually harass common church goers who obviously don't have the education to compete.  Dawkins earns no points from me for bravely challenging my grandfather, or some shrill lady on the T.V., meanwhile in the world of actual philosophers, he's merely...there, and no more or less competent than many theistic philosophers I've read. 

 In other words, if 'challenging' religion means taking your best and brightest and matching their wits against Joe Churchpew, then a more appropriate term for it would be 'bullying'.  If you actually mean to match wits with people who have the wits to match you, then humanism has as many problems as any religion, and as many critics eager to point them out to you.

That’s not like an out-of-the-frying-pan, into-the-fire situation…

Exploring “spiritual” concepts of subtle energies and other dimensions is TOTALLY different than a break away from the dogmas of orthadox christendom.

Many atheists actually are the avangelitical sort whom want a left-brain labotamy to supposedly save the world’s problems. They think religion is the source of all sorts of evil and irrationality. They think you’re insane as soon as you believe in something which is invisible and unaccepted by their own reduced material faiths.

The flip-flop you speak of is truly this:
Theistic dogma,
To atheist dogma…
[size=200]Both are shit.[/size]

The question is not about religion being evil, it’s about not equiping children to enquire for themselves. It is brainwashing, and as such probably a form of child abuse. I really have to worry about things like “Jesus camp” and the hell houses. It makes me sick quite frankly. I realise it is the more fundemental housholds where this goes on and plenty of moderate people of faith are more than fair when it comes to this stuff.

This points to the sickness of (fundemental) religion where people who have spent their lives researching and thinking about a certain field of science are dismissed by someone with no idea about the subject they are espousing of. I feel Richard Dawkins frustration when he, yet again, gets confronted by some idiot who denies the fact of evolution, while knowing nothing more than what his fundemental peers/parents have said. The number of times the whole “The eye is too compex to have developed by evolution” thing comes up is really quite depressing. As for RD as a philisopher, he is not. He is a biologist, and scientist, and as such more than qualified to argue “creation” with fundemental types.

I think this is really unfair. It is not like Dawkins, Hitchens et al go around guerilla filmaker/Borat/Micheal Moore style ambushing people as they come out of churches. Mainly they have moderated debates with theist thinkers who have agreed to participate.

Also I don’t think humanism does have the same problems as religion, because it is not coming from the point of view of “Truth”. Humanism is an expression of a “contract” that an individual makes with the society in which they live. I have not seen any humanist writing arguing from a position of the platonic “ideal” existence of “morals”.

I’m made speachless by these quotes…

I had come to expect a certain intellectual standard here on ILP… but it seems some people cannot wrap their minds around something as simple as atheism…

I think the problem human kind faces… whether they are religios or not… is stupidity… pure and simple… LACK of intelligence.

or perhaps i’m being a bit too harsh… perhaps it’s a lack of communication… but i doubt it.

Atheism, as many have pointed out so far, is the lack of belief… nothing more…

Atheists do not assume religion to be evil… but they see it as a means to dominate the minds of those less critical minded individuals. Having intellectuals like dawkins point that out to mr and mrs avrage chruch goers is not a BAD thing… if anything he forces them to learn to question their faith and come up with some arguments to sustain it… or give it up. forcing them to realize the weak basis of their faith and either strengthen it or remain fools.

Atheistic dogma does not exist… such rot

raising children to believe what you believe is fine… and acceptable… except if you believ that bombing innocents of the west gets you to heaven and awards you allot of virgin women… right? what on earth is the difference? we dictate acceptable and unacceptable “programing” for children all the time… religion is a baseless belief in a higher power who dictates right from wrong and the values by which you should live your life. it’s uncompromising and immutable… and has no place in a modern world where compromise is the BASIS for peace between nations as well as people.

I do not see the atheists wish to protect children from religious dogma until they are ready to understand it, as being unreasonable nor based on the assumption that religion is “evil”.

Hear hear =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

Fair enough. I just finished his “The God Delusion” book and watched his documentary. The first response to it I have is that he’s not selling atheism - he’s selling evolution. His biggest issue with religion seems to be that it attacks evolutionary theory. He assumes all atheists are evolutionists, etc.

Personally, I think he has politicised atheism (along with The Brights Movement, etc, etc) and while I support that (I think rational thinkers should have rights too!) I think that - while atheism might be an antecedent to a political stance - it’s nature in and of itself is apolitical.

I understand what you’re saying, and especially appreciate the point about logical consistency, but I don’t strictly agree.

Atheism doesn’t warrant a greater philosophical system by it’s nature. It integrates into other belief patterns (as does theism) but my main criticism of Dawkins is that he joins something I agree with to a whole lot of things I might not.

It’s a denial, pure and simple. You tell me you can fly. I say I believe that you can’t. Sure… you could extrapolate that out and say that it’s just a component of a whole logical world-view, but you’re making assumptions about the rest - and it’s hardly fair to jibe me about the assumptions you’ve incorrectly attributed to me.

Saying “I don’t believe in an invisible supernatural creator who judges me” is a simple statement that stands on it’s own. You may choose to integrate it into your science paradigm, your sceptics’ club, your existential philosophy or your nations’ constitution… but I’d detect a logical fallacy if someone told me that I can’t disbelieve in god without subscribing to science, existentialism, etc

Tentative echoes the same sentiment here:

Perhaps you’d have an easier time aligning yourself if people didn’t sneak their agendas in? If Atheism was Atheism, instead of the Weapon-Of-Choice for Angry Scientists, maybe more people might entertain the idea?

I have issues with agnosticism. It seems like a 50/50 bet, but assigning equal probability to the bizarre unsupported speculation is the sign of a believer.

I’d like to perhaps sidetrack this thread a bit with a quick question that¨s been bothering me…

What exactly is the difference between agnosticism and atheism?

to my understanding… agnosticism is a statement about the knowledge of god… where atheism is a statement about the belief in the existence of god (namely that there is no belief in the existence of god)

those two are not mutually exlusive as i understand it.

I consider myself an agnostic atheist… i believe that there is no proof of god… and stay atheistic because of it.

I suppose there could be an agnostic theist… who believes despite stating that there is no proof.

what are your thoughts?