Upon further reflection, I have known people who were both religious and agnostic at the same time; people who had belief/faith but admitted they couldn’t possibly know the truth. I guess that does make a good argument for the additional qualification of ‘agnostic atheist’. I guess I just too regularly encounter people who assume that all atheists actively believe there is no god, so I’ve become a bit defensive as to what the word actually means. I have acquaintances who are atheists who say “there’s no god” with absolute metaphysical certainty, and erroneously consider me a like-minded person, which I have always found odd because atheism doesn’t require an active belief in the absence of any higher power.
Agnostic is the opposite of gnostic. The terms have to do with whether you see evidence for the position or not.
Which is all not to be confused with capital-G Gnostic, which is a totally different thing. Unfortunately, the history of philosophy is messy that way.
Sounds like agnosticism
Upon further reflection, I have known people who were both religious and agnostic at the same time; people who had belief/faith but admitted they couldn’t possibly know the truth. I guess that does make a good argument for the additional qualification of ‘agnostic atheist’. I guess I just too regularly encounter people who assume that all atheists actively believe there is no god, so I’ve become a bit defensive as to what the word actually means. I have acquaintances who are atheists who say “there’s no god” with absolute metaphysical certainty, and erroneously consider me a like-minded person, which I have always found odd because atheism doesn’t require an active belief in the absence of any higher power.
Agnostic is the opposite of gnostic. The terms have to do with whether you see evidence for the position or not.
Which is all not to be confused with capital-G Gnostic, which is a totally different thing. Unfortunately, the history of philosophy is messy that way.