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Using 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. Unl
by sofal 13y ago
Using 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 13y agoI used the word "gnostic", not "agnostic".
- sofal 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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.