Not agnostic nor gnostic
Posted on: July 8, 2009 - 1:15am
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Not agnostic nor gnostic
Is this possible? Personally I don't think so.
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The gnostic label is binary - you're either gnostic or agnostic. Barring some kind of accident with a brain transplantation device, a cat and a geiger counter, you can't be neither or both.
Religion is a virus.
Fight the infection.
Well, agnostic is literally "not gnostic." You can't be not "not gnostic" (not agnostic) and not gnostic at the same time. Though it is the same thing for atheist and theist. You can't not believe in deities (not theist) and not not belive in deities (not atheist) at the same time.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
It's binary. Only two options. However, there's a functional difference between attitudes about (a)gnosticism. There are two ways to be an agnostic. The first is to simply never be introduced to the concept of "God." For these agnostics, there's no reason whatsoever to mention their agnosticism. Consider that every human alive is an a-[fill-in-the-blank]-ic with regard to each of millions of things they've never heard of before.
You and I are both aflimpabilgists. The thing is, there's no reason to mention it.
The other option is active agnosticism. That is, someone has been introduced to the concept of God, and reasoned that he has no knowledge of such a being. In certain contexts, this is probably worth mentioning. Agnosticism is the perfect logical justification for atheism, after all. I have no knowledge of god -- therefore, I don't believe it exists.
The Burden of Proof demands that we be a-[fill-in-the-blank]-ists about everything except those things for which we can justify our status as [fill-in-the-blank]-ists.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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