• hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Agnosticism was coined because people were afraid of coming out as atheists, but it’s really the same thing.

    Atheist thinks there’s no evidence for god so it doesn’t make sense to believe in one.

    Agnostic thinks there’s no evidence for god, so it’s unlikely there’s one.

    In both cases, the person is science first and would change their opinion if proof was presented but before that they don’t believe in god.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s not what agnostic means. Agnostics believe “there is no way to know”, so you can have Agnostic Theists (we can’t know for sure, but I believe God exists) as well as Agnostic Atheists (we can’t know for sure, but I don’t believe God exists).

      The opposite is gnosticism, and you can similarly have Gnostic Theists (God exists and I can prove it) and Gnostic Atheists (God doesn’t exist, and I can prove it).

      • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Looks like I made a small mistake, but it just takes agnostic closer to atheist

        The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe

        • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Most agnostics are atheists because the evidence always favors atheism. But there really are a handful of agnostic theists out there!