• HerbSolo@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    An agnostic doesn’t believe it’s possible to know if god exists. A gnostic thinks it’s possible.

    Agnosticism is about knowing, atheism about beleiving. So if you don’t know if god exists but firmly believe the idea is a load of crap you’re an agnostic and an atheist.

    • kronisk @lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      To be pedantic, gnosticism is a christian sect from the first centuries BC. γνῶσῐς means “knowledge”, which is where the word agnostic comes from, but the term “gnostic” was already spoken for so to speak.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      4 hours ago

      For anybody having trouble following…

      Nobody knows if God exists. It is not a proven fact.

      Some people believe that they know. Some of them really, really believe it.

      If you believe something that did not arrive at through hard fact, that is faith. Strong faith is religion.

      So what is being said here is that many atheists are in fact quite religious—they just do not believe in God.

      A good test is to explain the difference between agnostic and atheist. Anybody that insists on calling themself an atheist after that has is acting on faith ( not fact ) and has religion.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Prove that the Jersey devil doesn’t exist. Do that, and you will have made me into a religious atheist and we’ll all point and laugh at me.

        Or, is it only reasonable to give these special privileges to some hypotheses, and not others?

        A better test of whether someone’s religious is this: do they try to convince you that atheism is a religion?

      • IceFoxX@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        I am an atheist but I believe in science and CERN would be my church.My belief goes with the Higgs boson aka God particle. I don’t talk others out of their beliefs as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on me.

      • ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz
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        4 hours ago

        I’m agnostic about other gods but my religion is not believing in the Abrahamic god as described in the bible.