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Your "hardcore" atheism is more correctly known as gnostic atheism. You will be hard pressed to find philosophically educated gnostic atheists.
by gamegoblin 14y ago
Your "hardcore" atheism is more correctly known as gnostic atheism. You will be hard pressed to find philosophically educated gnostic atheists.
- SapphireSun 14y agoCan you elaborate? What sort of things would a philosophically educated person know that is so convincing? I'm genuinely curious.
- gamegoblin 14y agoThe fact that in all of the history of philosophy nobody has provided a firm argument that the existence of a god is impossible? There are plenty of kids on the internet who claim gnostic atheism with their "proofs" which usually involve various simple paradoxes that have been resolved by more serious philosophers plenty of times. By your question, it seems like you may have misinterpreted what I said.
- gojomo 14y agoThe phrase "gnostic atheism" does not have a Wikipedia article (or even be referenced in other articles), so can you be more clear about what you mean?
- gamegoblin 14y agohttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gnostic http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gnostic (specifically definition 2) http://actok.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Agnostic+v+Gnostic+v+Atheist+v+Theist.png http://actok.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Agnostic+v+Gnost...
- sofal 14y agoUsing the label "agnostic" as a philosophical weasel word to give a nod to solipsism every time it is politically convenient is a form of lopsided pedantry. Unless you think a specific religious god is more likely to be real than, say, vampires or Harry Potter, the distinction does not actually add any useful information. People normally just use "agnostic" as a device to try to frame a debate in a precise way in order to put the burden of proof squarely on the positive claim.
- gamegoblin 14y agoI used the word "gnostic", not "agnostic".
- sofal 14y agoI'm not sure you understand what I said. Let me explicitly state what I tried to imply about your use of the word "gnostic": people who call themselves gnostic atheists are not generally being philosophically ignorant or dishonest.
- gamegoblin 14y agoI just didn't see how your comment applied. I never said that gnostic atheists were philosophically ignorant or dishonest. I just said that they would be harder to find.
- sofal 14y agoOkay. I took your statement "You will be hard pressed to find philosophically educated gnostic atheists" to imply that most people who go by that label are likely not philosophically educated, presumably because realizing that true certainty about anything is impossible invalidates the "gnostic" part. If that's not what you meant, then I apologize. I often see this line of thinking, so I patterned matched incorrectly.
- gamegoblin 14y agoNo worries. In my experience, the majority of gnostic atheists are like some of the kids on /r/atheism. There exist educated gnostic atheists, but in my experience, they are more rare than educated agnostic atheists.