Literally nobody. This is confusing atheism with agnosticism.
Or, if I’m being charitable, they’re confusing the starting position and the conclusion. If you start from a position of neutrality and follow evidence-based reasoning, the conclusion is either atheism or agnosticism.
Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive terms. The first refers to belief and the second one refers to knowledge. It’s perfectly possible not to believe in the existence a given god (belief) and at the same time not know with certainty whether it exists (knowledge).
I’ve always understood the colloquial meanings in practice today to be that atheism is active disbelief where agnosticism is essentially choosing not to choose (for lack of information).
I understand your point, linguistically and philosophically, but I don’t really think that’s how most people - even atheists and agnostics - use the terms today.
Through not choosing, agnostics are atheists. Agnosticism is just a subcategory of atheism, and since it derives from the binary of knowing or not knowing, the only other alternative is gnostic atheism.
Which itself is pretty irrelevant since it implies knowledge of the nonexistence of divinity, which implies it’s possible to empirically disprove divinity, and since it’s not possible to actually prove a negative, gnostic atheism is impossible. Therefore all atheists are agnostic (and all agnostics are atheists).
Whether you identify as atheist or agnostic is irrelevant then, since both are shorthands for “agnostic atheist”
Who is saying this?
Literally nobody. This is confusing atheism with agnosticism.
Or, if I’m being charitable, they’re confusing the starting position and the conclusion. If you start from a position of neutrality and follow evidence-based reasoning, the conclusion is either atheism or agnosticism.
Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive terms. The first refers to belief and the second one refers to knowledge. It’s perfectly possible not to believe in the existence a given god (belief) and at the same time not know with certainty whether it exists (knowledge).
I’ve always understood the colloquial meanings in practice today to be that atheism is active disbelief where agnosticism is essentially choosing not to choose (for lack of information).
I understand your point, linguistically and philosophically, but I don’t really think that’s how most people - even atheists and agnostics - use the terms today.
Through not choosing, agnostics are atheists. Agnosticism is just a subcategory of atheism, and since it derives from the binary of knowing or not knowing, the only other alternative is gnostic atheism.
Which itself is pretty irrelevant since it implies knowledge of the nonexistence of divinity, which implies it’s possible to empirically disprove divinity, and since it’s not possible to actually prove a negative, gnostic atheism is impossible. Therefore all atheists are agnostic (and all agnostics are atheists).
Whether you identify as atheist or agnostic is irrelevant then, since both are shorthands for “agnostic atheist”
Nah there are a lot of agnostic theists. It’s even relatively mainstream.