My Preferred Definition of Security

[ 2009-04-12 : I’ve decided to back off this specific argument of “atheist”
applying to those that lack belief. The reason for this is that although the
definitions I point to in this piece agree with my more broad description of
atheism, the Oxford English Dictionary describes atheism now as “A belief in
the non-existence of Gods”. That being the case it’s no longer logical to
keep arguing for the secondary definition. I This doesn’t change the overall
character of my argument, however, so I’ll be modifying it at some point in
the future to account for this development. ]

During some recent discussions about religion I’ve had at least one friend
whom I consider extremely intelligent call himself an “agnostic” in the
context of his belief in God. Here I will argue that he, and virtually
everyone like him, are in fact atheists, and that they should, in order to
enable higher-quality dialog on the topic of superstition vs. reason,
identify themselves as such 1.

Atheism

The most common misconception about atheism is that all atheists are 100%
convinced that no godlike entity exists anywhere in the universe. This is
false. Very few atheists of a particular type called “strong atheists” hold this extreme view, and the general definition of atheism 2 is much
more broad. Most atheists are what are called “weak atheists”, or “implicit
atheists”, meaning they aren’t making any claims at all, but rather
rejecting the claims made by others.

This view of atheism can also be seen in common definitions of the word.
Google’s definition service
defines atheism
as:
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. 2. The
doctrine that there is no God or gods, and
dictionary.com
defines atheism as:
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or
beings.

Key to this definition is the word disbelief. This is a crucial
portion of most dictionary definitions of atheism, and disbelief is,
literally, the “lack” of belief, and not the presence of an opposing
belief, as is shown in this definition of “disbelief” in the Oxford English
Dictionary.

Many refuse to identify themselves as atheists because they cannot be
sure there is no god, but what they fail to realize is that while
being agnostic pending evidence in one direction or another, their
admitted lack of belief in the meantime fully satisfies the criteria
for atheism. So it isn’t that they are atheists and not agnostic, but rather
that their status as an agnostic plants them firmly in the territory of
atheism by default.

The Difference Between (A)theism and (A)gnosticism

As shown above, there is much confusion regarding the difference between
theism
and
gnosticism. Theism refers to one’s belief in God or gods, and gnosticism is an
epistemological
term that deals with how much it is possible to know about
something–specifically, creation, death, and other serious human spiritual
matters.

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The graphic above shows how theism (belief) and gnosticism (knowability) are
related but distinct. Looking at the diagram it’s clear that a number of
combinations can exist:

• the green dot represents someone who neither believes in any gods, nor
  believes the ultimate spiritual answers are really knowable

• the red dot represents someone who thinks not only that the answers are
  knowable, but but also strongly believes in a God (which presumably
  would give glimpses of that knowledge)

• it’s also possible, however, to be a gnostic atheist, i.e. someone who
  believes the answers to the ultimate spiritual questions are knowable,
  and doesn’t currently have any belief in any gods, or, conversely, an
  agnostic believer who believes in a God fully but doesn’t think the
  deeper answers or understanding is knowable to humans

In short, there is no linear “scale of certainty” between agnosticism and
atheism, with agnosticism representing a lack of certainty and atheism
representing certainty. This is a misrepresentation of both theism (belief)
and gnosticism (epistemology).

Conclusion

There are many variations of both atheism and agnosticism, and this has not
been an attempt to enumerate or describe these subtleties. The only issue
being dealt with here is the fact that atheism includes both weak (no
belief) and strong (explicit belief in the absence) views on the presence of
gods, and that most atheists, including myself and even Richard Dawkins, are
of the weak (no belief) form.

So, given the fact that standard atheists and agnostics both
lack belief in a god, and that atheism is much more precise term for
this position, there is no reason other than fear of social backlash to
identify as agnostic–especially since calling yourself an agnostic isn’t
really describing your beliefs anyway.

To most believers, the term “agnostic” means that you’re don’t care or think
about the issue, not that you actually “don’t believe” due to a lack of
evidence. So describing yourself as an agnostic is not really an act of
making a distinction between agnosticism and strong atheism; what it really
equates to is an unwillingness to confront or engage a believer on the issue
at all, and that’s what I’m against.

It is time to shed our reluctance to be clear, through self-identification,
that we reserve the right as intellectuals in the 21st century to reject
without evidence claims that are made without evidence. You are an atheist,
and the time has come to stop obscuring this fact behind the diluted term of
“agnostic” in an attempt to appease the unreasonable. ::

Notes

1 People often ask why I think this is important. This is a good question,
and the answer is that I believe human civilization is being actively
retarded by those who seek to forge social policy based on superstition
rather than reason, and the time has come to actively engage in dialog on
the topic. The first phase of that is properly identifying the beliefs held
by both sides.

2 This article on about.com covers the many definitions that atheism has
held over time, starting with its origin, and it clearly demonstrates that a
passive “lack of belief” has been, and continues to be, part of the
definition.

Related

[ An Atheist Debate Reference | danielmiessler.com ] [ How I Became an Atheist | danielmiessler.com ] [ A Letter to Religious Moderates | danielmiessler.com ]