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GameOver22 on 18 December 2012
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Rath said:
GameOver22 said:
Rath said:


Then I suggest you look up academic works and find what definition they use. You will find it is the same as the definition in the Oxford dictionary. As I said, I'm not going to debate on this issue as there aren't any shades of grey - you've simply got the wrong definition of the word.

Actually, it isn't. Granted, I'm not an expert. I've read two books. Atheism and Theism and The God Dialogues, and both define agnosticism as a lack of belief and atheism as the belief that God does not exist. You can also just peruse The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and you'll find the same thing.

 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-huxley.html

In all of these (including in the last one from the person who coined the word) agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is unknowable. This will be my last post though, there isn't much more for me to say.

No, all those references don't really show anything to prove your point. The second link does not support your claim.

"‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God." This is not a lack of belief.

"Agnostic’ is more contextual than is ‘atheist’, as it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it." This is the way I have always seen the term used.

Actually, the first link doesn't really support your claim either. They provide seven different definiitons, among them....

"Agnosticism, as a general term in philosophy, is frequently employed to express any conscious attitude of doubt, denial, or disbelief, towards some, or even all, of man's powers of knowing or objects of knowledge."

The problem is, people use the term differently. Its not really right or wrong as you say. It seems there are shades of grey, and philosophers (who are the academics debating these issues) use one definition so they can actually communicate with each other.