I get that you're annoyed at the butchery of terminology and ideas that these people have perpetrated but even if you use these words correctly there are grey areas and overlap, at least insofar as I can tell. If you would like to explain why you disagree, go ahead, but please don't treat me like I'm stupid or massively ignorant.
Nobody was talking to you. Baldanders and Tachyon were having a conversation in which no one appeared to be particularly upset in any way, you were the one that came in yelling.
You need to chill out dude, you have been massively, obviously on edge recently and it is not fun or pleasant to be around.
I literally said a single not-at-all inflammatory sentence but OK.
i was not having a go at you
i was just saying that, like, the thing you said was the exact thing i had been disputing
no that was a reply to Sredni.
I have, but that doesn't invalidate the complaint. However, could I have used a more politic tone? Yes. I probably should have just said what I just said first. I am sorry that my tone bothered you.
I didn't. I actually assumed that most people didn't feel strongly about it. I just found the attitudes that Baldanders and you expressed irritating for the reasons I expressed in the post at the end of the last page.
if you are agnostic with respect to a bunch of not-omnipotent beings which are termed "gods", i think that is quite a different position from being agnostic with respect to "God", proper noun
however this discussion was mostly about the latter, and i don't think i'd have a lot to say about the former since i'm not at all familiar with the debate as pertains to polytheistic belief systems
The problem, I feel, is we're assuming agnosticism is exclusively relative to theistic religions. One can be agnostic within a Buddhist paradigm, which is often atheistic, or agnostic within an animist or Shinto paradigm wherein gods do not assume the same role and thus even "atheist" has a different meaning entirely. And I find that a very narrow point of view, and the implicit equation of certainty in the non-existence of God or gods with the more total use of "atheism"—which is to say materialist or positivist atheism—to be troubling.
There are my issues. I get disliking the rhetorical construction—"agnostic atheist" is generally a dodge and it sounds stupid—but I dislike the use of absolutes and cultural tunnel vision. And yeah, that probably sounds weird, but it genuinely bothers me when people act like Christianity is the default mode of theistic or religious belief.
i get that annoyance, but i think there really are a lot of commonalities between many or most different atheisms. like, carvaka verse from wikipedia:
Or agnostic with respect to non-theistic aspects of dogma.
I think this is the thing that really makes so many New Atheists so tiresome, and the reaction against them exasperating in its own right: Their entire worldview is constructed in opposition to Western Christian mores and then applied broadly to all religious and cultural paradigms, and the response tends to assume the same defaults. It's all so, *so* ethnocentric and whitebread and, ugh, now I know why people turn to Marxism, but they're all smarmy white middle-class cultural Christians, too.
^ See, if someone brought stuff like that into the discussion, I would sit up and pay attention. And while you are right that elements of positivism and materialism are part of most schools of atheism—and empiricism is practically a given—to what degree they define the type varies.
i mean certainly atheism of the kind of new atheism and, well, me, is super white and christianity based. reactionary and tied up with scientism in complicated ways. no argument there
frankly it's not a label i'm all that interested in propping up, despite that post thing. describing yourself by negation is kinda sad, you know?
I just feel like this whole framework of argument treats atheism and agnosticism like things invented in Europe during the Age of Reason and as entirely exclusive categories with no overlap or ambiguity rather than broad, abstract ideas that will be understood differently within different religious, cultural and philosophical contexts.
But see, my problem is, when the definition of these two ideas is so broad, acting like they're 100% mutually exclusive when there are a multitude of contexts in which they share a lot of ground is just stupid to me. Admitting the lines get blurry doesn't make a word meaningless.
i suppose myrmidon's complaint could be phrased in a more politically correct fashion as something like: Almost all of the time in Reddit and related environs, 'atheist' does not imply the level of conviction that, analogously, a Christian in the scholastic tradition would have in God, so 'agnostic atheist' can only be read as a confused use of analogy rather than the epistemological point it is perhaps meant to be.
I agree that raytheists are bad at... everything, but there are better ways to frame one's displeasure with the attitudes implied in the use of that rather odd, tortured construction.
The problem, I feel, is we're assuming agnosticism is exclusively relative to theistic religions. One can be agnostic within a Buddhist paradigm, which is often atheistic, or agnostic within an animist or Shinto paradigm wherein gods do not assume the same role and thus even "atheist" has a different meaning entirely. And I find that a very narrow point of view, and the implicit equation of certainty in the non-existence of God or gods with the more total use of "atheism"—which is to say materialist or positivist atheism—to be troubling.
There are my issues. I get disliking the rhetorical construction—"agnostic atheist" is generally a dodge and it sounds stupid—but I dislike the use of absolutes and cultural tunnel vision. And yeah, that probably sounds weird, but it genuinely bothers me when people act like Christianity is the default mode of theistic or religious belief.
The thing is that I wouldn't characterize myself as an "agnostic atheist" at all. I'm a theistic nontheist. As a theist, I believe in the divine, in devas and other deities as human beings in higher rebirths and thus worthy of my respect. As a nontheist, I recognize my belief to be utterly superfluous to my practice. As a nontheist, the divine isn't important.
I just feel like this whole framework of argument treats atheism and agnosticism like things invented in Europe during the Age of Reason and as entirely exclusive categories with no overlap or ambiguity rather than broad, abstract ideas that will be understood differently within different religious, cultural and philosophical contexts.
Oh yeah, atheism and agnosticism is totally old as shit. There have been old Vedic and Chinese atheists and agnostics living alongside what we call Hinduism.
But none of them matter today. The "practice" of atheism is very defined in European terms because that's who we listen to, read from, and bother to understand. It's like...China may have invented gunpowder, but it's America that is the biggest arms industry.
The other reason I'm annoyed is that gnostic already means something in a religious context.
It'd be like naming a new sect Catholic Christianity, because you want to make use of the sense of catholic that means "universal".
You CAN, but it's going to get confusing.
Oh, no, I got that and I'm with you. I'm just saying that one can be both agnostic and atheistic by their actual definitions. The misuse of "gnosticism" is a completely different matter, and I do think that people who use the term "gnostic atheist" without a sense of irony are not exactly sensible individuals, nor are those who use "agnostic atheist" as a contrast being terribly sensible by buying into the dichotomy.
gnostic atheism is where you think the demiurge made reality around your soul and you're trapped in fleshy torment, but your soul isn't divine and nobody can help you
Comments
however this discussion was mostly about the latter, and i don't think i'd have a lot to say about the former since i'm not at all familiar with the debate as pertains to polytheistic belief systems
and, really, i'm not sure how much atheism there is that doesn't have some kind of empirical or positivist bent.
this post makes less sense to me now then when i started it. something something pramāṇa choices
well like, it's not that i'm not open to learning about other beliefs, but like, this is my culture
i would not be comfortable arguing about terminology as pertains to a belief system i am not especially acquainted with
frankly it's not a label i'm all that interested in propping up, despite that post thing. describing yourself by negation is kinda sad, you know?
but at the same time, we were talking about a Western context and about responses to a Western notion of "God"
so like if you want to bring in other perspectives then please do, by all means, but i don't understand why you're being insulting about this
Or not.
i feel 'mutually exclusive' is going a bit far
'gnostic atheist' is a silly term