Very cute, the facts are in though, atheists are the most pious people I've ever met.

what if the arguments concerning the subject were generally a priori?

if gnostic means "certain of x" then it's stupid, nobody is gnostic then. if it means "sufficient evidence to believe in x" then how does it differ from the view without any special labels?
why agnostic atheism instead of regular atheism? if you believe there to be sufficient evidence for something then naturally you'll believe it.

there is absolutely no (serious) discourse in which these distinctions are necessary or useful


"Unsere Atheisten sind fromme Leute!"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/sunday-assembly-atheist_n_5915830.html

This post was edited by Gastly on Jan 18 2015 06:50pm

Grats on being an agnostic A -unicorn in Viv's pocket-ist. I think that's a rationally justified position for sure.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 06:52pm

All right I'm done whisky-posting tonight, see you guys.

Unfortunately when it comes to the position of atheism people need these things spelt out for them. They say stupid shit like 'How do you know there is no god' and the answer is 'We don't know'. The distinction that someone is agnostic heads off these dumb assertions.

Christians are very invested in 'absolute truth'. There are many irrational apologist arguments based on this concept of 'absolute' or 'pure' truth and quite a majority would take the position that they are gnostic Theists, that they 'know' God exists because he has revealed himself to them.

Gnosticism on some subjects is not irrational in my opinion. When dealing with our reality, the only reality we can deal with with any degree of certainty, there are certain logical absolutes that I would say it is only rational to be gnostic in the belief in. Also I would say I'm 'gnostic' about my belief that evolution happens or that I have hands. I 'know' these things are true in the reality we live in.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 07:00pm

so in a way it could be said that you have sufficient reason to believe such-and-such.

Yea...

Sure beyond reasonable doubt. I would say think of it like a court case -

Is god guilty of existing?

Guilty - Gnostic Theist
Reasonable doubt - Agnostic Theist/Atheist (depending on what you believe but cannot rationally justify beyond reasonable doubt)
Definitely not Guilty - Gnostic Atheist

People talking about 'truth' in a religious way or a deeply philosophical way seem to mean 'absolute truth' and if we go deep enough it is true that everything is subjective and we cannot 'know' anything but I don't believe that absolute truth is relevant to a rational discussion about our reality.

I guess you could say gnosticism is not 'knowledge' but a claim of knowledge.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 07:36pm

so they're disagreeing about the evidence to give them a reason to believe.


nope & nope

See it any way you like. That second quote is just my opinion on absolute certainty. i don't think it exists and I don't know if it can exist.

Gnosticism is a claim of knowledge.

It seems like an idea to me.