Atheist vs. Agnostic: Stop It
Written by Christopher Thielen in Opinion at January 7, 2012
Non-religious folks have a large pool of labels to choose from: atheist, agnostic, Bright, secular, humanist. As most readers are aware, there exist subtle differences between these labels and the usage of each helps detail and clarify our personal positions; all but one: agnostic.
In Richard Dawkins’ excellent book, The God Delusion, a scale is established which helps to demonstrate the graduation of belief, upon which Dawkins places himself a 9 out of 10 toward the atheist side, meaning something like: ” I’m as strong an atheist as you can be while still conceding I can’t disprove a negative. You can’t be too sure.” I think this scale and this type of thinking is largely responsible for the application of the agnostic or agnostic-atheist label.
I take issue with this because it’s pedantic and damages the already troubled ‘atheist’ brand. Think about the proper application of these words with an example:
A man raised by wolves isn’t likely to stumble upon civilization as a believer — he’s likely not established the proper concept of God, if his thoughts even delved that far into the philosophical. He’s decidedly a-theistic, utterly without religion. This, to me, is the clearest definition of ‘atheist’: not an anti-religious stance, but a non-religious stance.
The word ‘agnostic’ then finds excellent utility in describing opinion to a variety of matters: with no offense to our Polish readers, I’m agnostic to the politics of Poland. It’s not that I find Polish politics inspiring or troubling, I just don’t have an opinion. It doesn’t affect my life enough to take precedence over the variety of other more local or personal issues. This is the clearest usage of the word ‘agnostic’ I know.
People who call themselves ‘agnostic’ or ‘atheist-agnostic’ are making two claims: they’re not associated with religion or a belief in God in a meaningful way and they explicitly express the unanswerability of the question of God’s existence. But we already know about that. It’s reasonable to assume everybody knows the question of God is unanswerable, either because that’s the way He’s set it up or because, logically, you cannot disprove the non-existence of a thing.
It does a disservice to the very honesty of the ‘atheist’ label: you’re without religion, you’re a-theistic. That’s your religious categorization: none. No one is asking you about your philosophical opinion of God, or whether you understand Russell’s Teapot.
It’s a usage of the non-stamp collector description: what a pedantic and confusing thing to state. Call yourself an ‘atheist’ and stop damaging the brand. Stop ruining the honesty of the word.
For me though, I’m a non-Polish-political follower.