Even a famous atheist, like Richard Dawkins, admits he is 99% sure there is no God. He also explains that agnosticism and atheism lie on the same spectrum. It seems like atheists are radical agnostics.

Essentially, atheism addresses belief and agnosticm addresses knowledge.

Atheism is "the lack of belief in the existence of any deities."

A agnostic is someone who claims they don't know or it is not possible to know for certain whether or not gods exist.


Here is a good graphic that explains this pretty well:



And here is another figure that illustrates the same concept:

Only idiots need faith...Moses climbed a mountain to find God.. And rest of us humans to small minded to understand God..So we either don't believe, or have faith..

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Neither of these graphs is quite accurate in representing the way the terms are usually used.

Agnostic/gnostic typically refers to a claim regarding the knowability of religious belief, or at the very least a claim about the current state of total human knowledge, not a claim about the believer's own state of knowledge.

For example: I may say I believe in God, but claim that I don't know that God exists. I would still be a gnostic theist if I think it's possible to know God exists, or especially if I believe anyone else knows that God exists.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Feb 20 2016 11:19pm

It's a technical point, but you may be right. Regardless, these figures are good introductions for people to understand the 4 major categories of religious belief and knowability.

Can an atheist be Christian?

Out of self-interest.

This post was edited by Skinned on Feb 21 2016 12:06am

It's okay to have contradictions with two competing theories.

Perhaps. By definition, atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of any deities.

Christianity, by definition, is a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament. A Christian is a believer in Jesus Christ and his teachings.

Theoretically, you could practice the teachings of the New Testament and believe (to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something) in a man named Jesus Christ but not acknowledge or believe that Jesus was a deity. Of course, Christians wouldn't call you a Christian, but in theory you could fit the definition (believer in Jesus Christ and his teachings).

But personally, I think the answer is no. The belief that Jesus is God and God's son is a central tenant of Christianity. Without acknowledging Jesus as a diety, I think it makes it difficult to justify calling you a "believer" (per the definition) of the teachings outlined in the New Testament. It would be a huge stretch to say an atheist could be a Christian.

...what teachings in the New Testament define a Christian...just a few examples will suffice ?

This is interesting. I am working on creating a new thread about the difference between knowing and believing.

props