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Lack of evidence and willingness to change sounds more like "agnostic" than atheist to me. I'm not trying to split hairs - I am much more OK with declaring mys
by trey-jones 8y ago
Lack of evidence and willingness to change sounds more like "agnostic" than atheist to me. I'm not trying to split hairs - I am much more OK with declaring myself to be agnostic than athiest (I'm an American and southern to boot, Grandfather was a preacher).
The best way I've heard it put is that Athiests believe there is no God. Agnostics believe that it is unknown and unknowable whether there is a god.
- ykevinator 8y agoBut defaulting to god being possible is itself religious. There is equal proof of the existence of 2 gods as there is one. And equal proof of 100. Throw god away and start with a clean slate, ask what happened and you will come up with big bang and evolution. No modern adult would start with a god. The fact that its an option is a legacy and one that I think pollutes agnostics' thinking.
- ceejayoz 8y agoThe counterpoint to this is Russell's teapot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot Yes, technically, I'm agnostic about a teapot orbiting Mars, or an invisible unicorn living on the Moon... but it's a reasonable statement to just say flatly "there's no such thing" until someone presents some pretty solid evidence that's incorrect. I've also heard folks make a distinction between "weak" and "strong" atheism; weak being "I don't believe there's a God, but I could be convinced with good enough evidence" and strong being "nothing would convince me of a God".