agnostic

[bassdrum1]

i have a friend who is now claming to be agnostic. what exactly is it?

 

[kedaman]

An agnostic says that they don't have knowledge about something (usually God/gods) and some may claim that its impossible to know.

 

[psychedelicist]

Kedaman pretty much said it. They don't have firm beliefs about anything.

 

[kedaman]

An agnostic doesn't have to lack belief in things, they only don't claim to have knowledge about the thing in question.

 

[Eudaimonist]

i have a friend who is now claming to be agnostic. what exactly is it?

People typically start to call themselves agnostic when they are no longer sure that God exists. That's probably what your friend means.

 

[levi501]

You can be an agnostic theist by claiming you can't possibly know if god exists, but you choose to believe anyway.
Most xians I know are really agnostic theists.

 

[mamabear4]

I may be wrong about this, but I thought an atheist does not believe in the existence of God, while an agnostic may believe in His existence but doesn't take him seriously, or doesn't believe that He is sovereign, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. In other words, He believes that man is the center of the universe, not God.

My husband and I have a friend who at one time claimed to be atheist but now says that he's agnostic. One day my husband asked him what happened and he shrugged and said, "Oh, I believe in the existence of God. I just don't take him seriously."
I guess that's where I got my opinion, and it may not be even correct for all I know.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Let's keep some perspective here. A sixteen year old girl asked what her friend meant when she(?) said she is now an agnostic. Technical definitions are very unlikely to be relevant here -- young people who claim to be agnostic 99% of the time simply mean that they aren't sure any longer that God exists.

 

[levi501]

I may be wrong about this, but I thought an atheist does not believe in the existence of God, while an agnostic may believe in His existence but doesn't take him seriously, or doesn't believe that He is sovereign, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. In other words, He believes that man is the center of the universe, not God.

My husband and I have a friend who at one time claimed to be atheist but now says that he's agnostic. One day my husband asked him what happened and he shrugged and said, "Oh, I believe in the existence of God. I just don't take him seriously."
I guess that's where I got my opinion, and it may not be even correct for all I know.

your friend sounds confused.
Lot of times when someone claims to be once an atheist and is now agnostic it usually means they went from believing there isn't a God to believing it's possible he exists, but not making a claim for either or. Technically you can claim agnosticism and still choose to believe or not to believe all the while admitting you don't truly know.

 

[kedaman]

I think technical definitions are relevant, otherwise debates gets messy. If someone says he is an atheist and then is asked to prove that God doesn't exists, that's a strawman. Similarly if I claim I'm an agnostic then it doesn't mean I'm unsure whether God exists or not when I'm dead certain he does. Often also agnostic is often taken to mean that one is doubting some of the attributes of God while they still believes that he exists, in some form that is. In that sense agnostic can almost mean anything. Certainly an Agnostic doesn't have to not take God seriously, but neither does he have to not take God seriously. To be certain, its better to ask before putting words in their mouth.

 

[mamabear4]

To be certain, its better to ask before putting words in their mouth.

Agreed.

Actually, before I posted earlier I looked the definition up in the dictionary and it said agnostics do not deny the existence of God but believe that His existence and origin of the universe are not known and cannot be known. (Webster's New Practical School Dictionary)

originally posted by Levi501....
"your friend sounds confused.
Lot of times when someone claims to be once an atheist and is now agnostic it usually means they went from believing there isn't a God to believing it's possible he exists, but not making a claim for either or. Technically you can claim agnosticism and still choose to believe or not to believe all the while admitting you don't truly know.

When I posted the testimony of my friend who claimed to go from atheist to agnostic I should have mentioned that I felt he was changing his view about God, not that he was confused about the terms.

 

[merryjig]

its pretty simple really

agnosticism is not believing that there is a god

atheism is believing that there is not a god

theyre both very similar, atheists tend to rant more though whilst agnostics are generally pretty indifferent to religion

 

[The-Doctor]

Athiests dont believe in any religion or faith. Agnostic deny the existence of God because there is no proof of God.

 

[Toboe]

Athiests dont believe in any religion or faith. Agnostic deny the existence of God because there is no proof of God.

You just defined an athiest,
And Agnostic dose not know wiether there is a god or not.

 

[LemmingLord]

Athiests dont believe in any religion or faith. Agnostic deny the existence of God because there is no proof of God.

To be fair, an agnostic may believe there is a god; he/she just doesn't believe he/she KNOWS there is a god.

 

[jayem]

Agnostics claim they don't know if a God exists or not. And some go further to say that the question is unanswerable.

But that's always seemed to me to be an intellectual cop-out. All knowledge is tentative. If you're waiting for absolute metaphysical certainty, then you would have to be agnostic regarding almost everything. Why wimp out on taking a stand? To me, arguments against the existence of any kind of supernatural deity (and that certainly includes the God of the Bible) vastly outweigh any claims to the affirmative. I think it's much more epistemologically correct to state that a supernatural God does not exist, based on currently available evidence. However, if convincing evidence should ever become available, then I would modify my position. And I would expect intellectually honest theists to do the same, should the circumstances be reversed.

 

[mamabear4]

I think it's much more epistemologically correct to state that a supernatural God does not exist, based on currently available evidence. However, if convincing evidence should ever become available, then I would modify my position. And I would expect intellectually honest theists to do the same, should the circumstances be reversed.

I like your post, jayem. I would love to share my personal testimony concerning my faith in God, and notice I said, "personal testimony." I've pretty much stayed out of these kinds of debates because they tend to become heated and sometimes mud begins to fly and that's coming from both sides of the camp. But I think debates and discussions concerning the existence or non-existence of God, our origin, faith, etc., can be held peacefully and respectfully and you sound like someone with whom I could share and neither of us become defensive. At least I will try to be respectful of your opinion and beliefs and trust you to do the same for me.


I was reared in a very conservative home where the existence of God was taught to me from childhood so any questions that I had concerning that belief came only after I experienced terrible trauma as an adult. I thought myself too righteous to blame God for the pain I was experiencing and so, excluded him from my life entirely. That was in my early 20's and before I knew it I was sitting in church listening with a very cynical heart and mind. 'God? What God? I didn't know any God like these people were talking about. How did they know there was a God? What did they know about real life anyway?'


Questions about life, pain, blame, origins, spiritual beings, and many more, plagued me day and night. I searched the Bible for answers, the encyclopedia, the stars at night, the wind, sun, rain, sand, and even in the eyes of my innocent little children. I'd sit out on the porch at night and rock my babies and wonder where they had come from. I knew they'd essentially come from my womb, but where did I come from, and my mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and on down the line to the first mother. Where did she come from? I could find no plausible answers anywhere. There were too many "missing links" in the evolutionary theory, and besides, I didn't have much faith in Charles Darwin to begin with. I think his methods of research were flawed, at best, and where he could find no evidence for some of his theories, he continued to teach them without the evidence. Check it out in his writings and you'll find them there. (The Origin of Species, p. 75, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2; New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899, pp. 66-67.) Confessions of doubt, but assertations of truth in spite of them were his trademarks. That made no sense to me at all. Way, way too many intricate details in this world, especially in human bodies, would have had to have happened by random "accidents" to be true. Creation by design makes a lot more sense to me in the overall picture. Think of the way our eyes work. They constrict or dilate to regulate the light that passes through them. And consider the ear and how a teensy weensy little hammer hits against the ear drum to translate the sounds around us into information that we process, even to the direction from which the sound came. What points to a common designer to me is that so many complex organs work in the same way in many species. And I know, evolutionists believe that's because we are all inherently related, but that doesn't make sense because there are no signs of evolution going on right now. Everything is finished and has been finished for thousands of years, as far back as we have records. Plus, the DNA of various species does not support that claim at all. We're not even close to being from the same family tree genetically.


Then there's the language and communication that passes between humans, communications that can be passed down for thousands of years and still be understood as the thoughts of man who wrote down their ideas and beliefs, not jumbled incoherent language, but with highly intelligent language. No other species of life can do that. I couldn't reconcile any of these "miracle bang-ups" with what I was seeing in my own little corner of Mississippi where the wind and the moon and the bright little eyes of my children begged for answers.


In time the answers began to come down to one pivotal question. Is there a Spirit Being called God, who is sovereign, powerful, masterful, intelligent and all of the things the Bible claims He is? Is it true? Or is it false? I had to know.


This post is getting way too long and I'm writing in these large letters so these 49 year old eyes can see them and I'm far from finished with my testimony. But let me just abbreviate it by telling you quickly about the pivotal night when my faith in God was planted in one tiny seed within my heart. It was full moon and after I rocked my baby to sleep on the porch I took her inside to her bed, laid her down and covered her up. For some reason I was extra concerned that night about her future and what direction she would take and I somehow, even in my immuturity, realized that my faith in God or in evolution or whatever I chose to believe would greatly affect her and my two older children. I was so burdened that night that instead of going to bed myself I tiptoed back out to the porch, sat down on the moonlit steps and watched the night sky for a while. Then, summoning up my courage I swallowed and said what I had wanted to say for a long time but was afraid to. I asked God to show Himself to me if He indeed was real and was out there somewhere. I had been afraid to ask for fear He'd not answer. But immediately, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and in fact, even before I'd finished speaking, tears of tremendous relief flooded my eyes and face, washed down over my hands and into my lap. Great drops of tears that didn't seem to come from inside me but from up above me. They washed me so clean that night, and even though I dont' think there would be any Scriptures that would confirm that those tears washed me clean inside, I believe they did because they assured me that Someone was larger than myself. Someone cared deeply about me. Soon I felt what seemed almost like a blanket of love surround me. I didn't know it at the time but later I came to recognize that as the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Comforter would come after he ascended into heaven, and I believe that was what I felt that night. I cannot tell you how comfortable my newfound faith in God was. I cannot even tell you why this happened to me. All I can tell you is what happened. I suppose it's not evidence enough to convince anyone that there really is a Spirit Being larger and more intelligent than us, but for me, it changed my way of thinking.

For some years following that "conversion experience," however, there were still many times I doubted and wished for concrete evidence to my faith in God. Still, whenever I'd hear someone talk about God and make claims about him, I'd question whether it was really so. Then, one day I suffered a near death experience from a blood clot that traveled to my lung and in that "walk into Heaven" I saw things that are not written in the Bible but I believe they will be in Heaven. I also had Someone walk with me up a very steep hill to the City of Jerusalem, and after I was back in my own skin and hospital bed, I realized that that "Someone" had been Jesus. I had been quite ill before that incident but after I awakened I jumped out of bed - lifted the heavy hospital window all by myself and leaned out to watch the morning sky lighten in the east. I was astonished to discover how nearly alike that rising sun looked to the heavenly sky that I'd just witnessed. Several hours later the doctor came into my room and with surprise in his voice declared me completly healed. I never told him what had happened but I had no doubt in my mind that I'd had the Great Physician touch me and heal me instantly. After that I no longer doubted the existence of God at all. Those doubts disappeared right along with the blood clot in my lung.


Since that time my eldest daughter and I have both suffered from late stage cancer, and both of us are walking miracles today. She's been in remission for ten years and I've been in remission for four years. Sometimes I feel as though we must be God's favorite family, and I really believe we are because He gave His Son for us and that took a lot of love. What's wonderful is that, " ...God so loved the world (everyone from the beginning of time to the end of time) that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16


That word, "world," means you and everyone else on this entire earth. We are all God's favorite children. Some among us just haven't discovered it yet.


Thank you for giving me this much time. I didn't mean to get up on my platform and hog the mic. Now I invite you to share your beliefs with me.

 

[Faithful nonbeliever]

Once I found the term, it seemed to fit my "beliefs" to a T.
Religion has never made much sense to me, even back when I went to church.
I guess really I would consider my self an agnostic atheist, because I don't think I can know whether some type of god exists or not, but I don't believe in any gods either.
The only reason I don't normally say I'm an atheist is because I'm open to the possibility that there is some sort of god like being somewhere. And most people assume that atheists affirmatively believe that there is no god. However I am atheist in regard to the christian god.

 

[gwenmead]

I am an agnostic at heart, with a strong overlay of paganism. To define agnosticism, I go to the roots of the word itself, which comes from Greek. "Gnosis" means "knowing"; add the prefix "a-", which describes a lack of something, to the beginning and you have a word which basically means "a lack of knowing". (Reference Langenscheidt's English/Greek dictionary for details.)

To me it means that I understand the difference between faith and fact. I understand that religious belief is a matter of faith, and cannot be known in the same way that facts are generally known. There might be a deity, there might not be; it isn't provable either way, and hence isn't truly knowable, despite how loudly anyone might claim to the contrary. To my mind this doesn't mean that faith is somehow invalid at all, only that it is a separate thing from fact, and needs to be regarded as such.

I apply agnosticism to my own beliefs by acknowledging that I may be wrong. I don't believe I am, but it's always possible. After all, I certainly don't know everything.

Thanks for reading.