Reply #161: some comments [View All]

[ulysses]

Atheist. Derived from the word theist combined with the prefix 'a' meaning 'without'. Thus an atheist is simply someone that is without a belief in god or gods.

Is there room here for the two kinds of atheism that lazarus mentions? Particularly, is the lack of belief in god or gods the same thing as an active belief that there is no god or gods?

Gnostic. Meaning to know something. In an absolute sense. This is not about belief. It is about knowledge. A gnostic is someone that has direct knowledge of a matter.

In an absolute, but not necessarily *scientific* sense. From Merriam-Webster:

Etymology: Greek gnOsis, literally, knowledge, from gignOskein
: esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation

(emphasis added)

My Liddel & Scott has this for :

a judicial inquiry / a knowing, knowledge / acquaintance with a person / a knowing, recognizing / a being known, fame, credit

I don't necessarily get the sense of knowledge as a result of direct observation in the use of the word.

Agnostic. From the word gnostic with the prefix 'a' meaning without. An agnostic is someone without direct knowledge of a matter. On its own we cannot fathom what it is they are lacking knowledge of. It can be applied to either side of the matter as it applies to what a person knows and not what they believe.

This cuts to the heart of the thing. I think you're separating belief and knowledge too strictly. Belief very often follows knowledge - I believe that black holes exist, although I cannot experience them directly, because I have knowledge of their effects, to give an example.

Black holes are natural phenomena. To the extent that I have a statable belief concerning god, it is that the word does not represent a corporal concept - therefore, knowledge of god via evidence is neither present nor absent. It's impossible. Thus faith.

Belief and knowledge are two different things.

I don't think they are, entirely.

A person at any given moment can either believe in a thing or not believe in a thing. There is no capacity for the brain to posess both qualities. There may be a very low level of certainty concerning the degree of belief. But at any given moment the mind is going to be of one position or the other. You either do or do not believe a thing.

But if, as you say, belief and knowledge are completely different things, I don't at all know that belief is binary in this way. I've found that my mind, anyway, is quite capable of simultaneously holding competing ideas, and I suspect we all have that capacity when abstract ideas such as "god" are concerned.

If you are without a belief in god then you are an atheist. If you do believe there is a god then you are a theist.

And if you believe that it is impossible to know one way or the other, then you are an agnostic. :)

If you have direct knowledge that there is a god then you are a gnostic theist. If you do not have direct knowledge or maintain some skepticism about the matter then you are an agnostic theist. If you have direct knowledge that there is no god then you are a gnostic atheist. If you do not have direct knowledge that there is no god then you are an agnostic atheist.

Again, this doesn't seem to hold unless you define knowledge and belief as polar opposites.

Would "faith" be a better word here than "belief"?