| richardhutnik said: There is also an agnostic, agnostic, who hasn't form an opnion and their stand is they don't know. My view allows for there to be someone who isn't a theist, but also isn't an atheist. It would be the fifth category. In short, the person doesn't have an opinion on the subject. If one wanted to define everything as just theism or atheism, then you can do that, but I do believe there is a quantifiable category for the person who flat out just doesn't know, and won't say one way or the other. I was just preferring to have it so that everything wasn't defined via whether or not the person is a theist, which is what your four categories do. And I will do this, because knowing and believing are nearly inseparately connected, because under all systems of knowing is beliefs about things, or certain levels of trust. It is just a matter of what one accepts as a valid measure for things. I know there is a longing to have such a strong piece of information or facts or "truth" that anyone who said to care to accept truth will be forced to do it, but one would be hard pressed to find anything like this. Under what I describe, you have belief and non-belief towards a lot of things, based upon the degree of confidence you have in that thing being true, real, existing etc... This can happen with not just God, but anything else, like UFOs, ghosts and other paranormal. Some people can end up deciding they have no decision, and remain neutral. They can say, flat out, they do not know either way, and claim to be without knowledge (agnostic) in that area. |
Exactly, based on the definition of atheism, if you remain neutral (for no belief either way), then you are an atheist. But, there is no universally agreed upon definition of atheism, so I can't really say you're right or wrong. Just know that if someone says they are an atheist, then that doesn't necessarily mean they believe in the nonexistance of a higher being.
As for this:
because knowing and believing are nearly inseparately connected
I disagree. People believe things without knowing all the time. For example, let's say you have a roommate. One day, when you're at the market buying grocerries (sp?), your room-mate calls and says, "Dude, don't buy any milk; I already have some." Most people would believe their roommate in this scenario. And so, they probably wouldn't buy any milk, becuase they believe they would be wasting money. But at the same time, they have no way of knowing if their roommate actually has any milk, at least until they got to the house and saw it with their eyes. They are plenty of scenarios like this where people make actions based on beliefs rather than knowledge.
