Religion Atheist

[brimstoneSalad]

Ahh, semantics, this is more complicated than you know.

The term Agnostic is and has been for some time (almost since its coining) in flux. It's also one of the flags along the rope in this cultural tug-of-war.

Are you a descriptivist? Are you a prescriptivist? By what metrics to you prescribe the meanings of words?

These are important questions if you want to know what agnostic means, because the definitions are quite radically different.

The most correct definition of Agnostic has little to do with Atheism/Theism at all, and merely means the rejection of spiritual gnosis as a kind of knowledge. In this sense, it's the closest to "PEARL" (Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic) which popular youtube user Thundref00t advocates.
In this sense, an Agnostic could be a positive, certain Atheist as well, or Theist (having made a mistake in logic); a theist who is Agnostic simply can not appeal to faith or any kind of magically intuitionistic deep knowledge of god as evidence.

This comes from Huxley's original usage and the historical context of its coining, where people claimed to know god existed due to spiritual "gnosis". Huxley didn't want to own up to being an Atheist, because he thought that was irrelevant, but did assert rejection of this idea that "gnosis" was any kind of evidence.

Now, today hardly anybody knows that or uses that definition, although they should because it is:

1. Most authentic to its coining
2. Most intellectually useful, since it does deal with uncertainty which is natural to all empirical evidence, but doesn't irrationally reject simple logic either- only rejecting absolutely "gnosis". It makes people claiming this term NOT idiots.
3. Avoids the topic of Atheism/Theism entirely, and addresses instead what one considers to be knowledge, which was the social function of the world - to change the topic of the conversation and avoid the question.


The second most legitimate definition is the use of "agnostic" as a qualifier for degree of certainty.

E.g. Agnostic Atheist, Agnostic Theist, vs. Gnostic Atheist, Gnostic Theist

This jumps back a few semantic generations to the meaning of the word "gnostic" minus the spiritual connotations (which really can't be avoided, but oh well), which just deals with knowledge.
That is to say whether somebody knows or does not know, aside from what they believe or not.

This is easier for people to understand, and it's relatively popular in the Atheist community

It's not better than the prior definition, but at least it can be compounded with atheist/theist to provide additional information (just not the same kind of information- and less intellectually or philosophically useful information).


The last definition I'll cover here, which is absurd and largely useless to understanding anything, is using "agnostic" as a third term, a middle ground between Atheism and Theism.
This comes from decades of people answering the question "do you believe in god?" With No, Yes, or Agnostic.

It's a false trichotomy, because either you have a positive belief in a particular god, or you don't. If you don't know if something exists or not, then you don't believe it does -- you have yet to be convinced to the extent of leaning in the direction of belief.
It's an easy question to answer, and you can change your mind every five minutes if you want depending on how you feel, but the only reason people would have trouble with the concept is due to fear of being judged (something that results in a state of analysis paralysis, which is not an answer).

If you want to dodge the question, great, then dodge the question. But don't go on to pretend that your dodge is an answer to the question in philosophical circles, because that just confuses everybody.

Ignostic is a more valid response (since it says "I don't know what you're asking").
You can also answer "which god?", "what is god?"
Or even "That's private".

There are plenty of ways to dodge the question. Creating a new special category for people who are too afraid of judgement to come out with what their general inclinations are is not particularly useful to understanding the issues at hand.

But it's also what people have done, because they'll do what they want. So, if you're a strict descriptivist, you might favor the third definition since it's probably the most popular right now.

Something being popular, of course, doesn't make it true or coherent. Just because people may define it as perfect 50-50 uncertainty/belief doesn't mean that state of being actually exists.

[EquALLity]

Are you a descriptivist? Are you a prescriptivist? By what metrics to you prescribe the meanings of words?

I looked these things up, and this is something cool that I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jxC3zqkEE
Hm. I don't know where I stand.
I'm guessing you're a prescriptivist?

I actually hear people advocate for the second definition you wrote more, and often that the third definition is a misconception.
Cool info.

[brimstoneSalad]

I looked these things up, and this is something cool that I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jxC3zqkEE
Hm. I don't know where I stand.
I'm guessing you're a prescriptivist?

Good video, although that talks about grammar (that is, order and structure of words), there are also descriptive and prescriptive definitions that deal with what the word means.

I go with what is useful to the purpose of language; that is, understanding and communicating concepts.

99% of the time, that means I'm a descriptivist because for most words, they are useful based on how the majority uses them.
Within the fields of philosophy, and more technical words, I tend to be more prescriptivistic, because the majority using a word incorrectly would defeat the purpose of that word if we adopted it (and in niche fields, that can happen easily).

If the majority of people, being theists, decided to define Atheist as "evil person who worships the devil", would that make it true?
Under descriptivism, yes. Of course, then we would all cease to be atheists, and there would no longer be an appropriate word to describe us -- and because there are very few people who worship the devil, and there's already a word for that (theistic satanist), redefining atheism like that would make the word useless, and make it harder for language to do its job.

I actually hear people advocate for the second definition you wrote more, and often that the third definition is a misconception.
Cool info.

Yes, this is kind of a case where saying something makes it true. And it's important that they do that, because the third definition is terrible.

If we said "Christianity is a kind of mental illness, it's a misconception that it's a religion". and convinced enough people of that, it would in some sense become true (in the descriptive sense).
Semantics is a part of rhetoric where very often the person who shouts louder, or convinces more people becomes right by mere virtue of the number of people who believe it and use it in that way.

Prescriptivism is a little more complicated, and requires a better argument, but it's also how you get most people to agree with you, causing the word to mean that in descriptive fact as well.

Either if you have a very good argument for WHY a word should mean X, OR if the vast majority of people agree that it means X, in both cases you are right in the respective sense (prescriptive and descriptive).