a - prefix signifying negation
gnosis - knowledge
gnostic - one who knows
agnostic - one who does not know
If the Christian knows…what need then for faith?
None has seen the Father but the Son. - Jesus
Thats intresting who did moses see the Devil? 
Moses didn’t see God, he saw a burning bush. God showed his face to the mountain and it was destroyed.
The analogy goes like like this.
Fire = change
Tree on fire but does not burn away = core of tree is unaffected by change (i.e. core of man, like God, is unaffected by change).
Face of God = destroyer of finite self.
BTW - I think you should have used this emoticon 
after you wrote Devil.
The Christian knows by faith. In any case, the word is to do with grounds for knowledge, rather than knowledge itself. The agnostic thinks there aren’t grounds to believe one way or the other. The theist believes there are grounds to believe there IS a god.
Atheist = Person who believes they KNOW there is no god by faith.
Theist = Person who believes they KNOW there is a higher power by faith.
Monotheist (sub categeory: Christian) = Someone who believes they know in the one and true god.
AGNOSTIC = Someone who does not know if there is or isnt a god.
Why be atheist if it’s a faith-based claim?
Why be theist if it’s a faith-based claim?
What do you value more?
Reason? Or Faith?
Reason.
But you need faith to reason.
For example is there such a thing as Cause and Effect? Well I think we simply have “faith” that there is, and we go on to reason a whole lot of things thereafter including putting man on the moon, obliterating cities in one explosion, and sequence the genome, and of course allow us to talk even right now …
wrong go back to logic class.
Atheist, is simply the inverse catagory of theist. That is to say, if one is not a theist then one is an atheist. A- means not. Thesist mean one who belives in a deity.
All things are either theistic or atheistic. My laptop is atheistic. My father is theistic.
For all common usage has twisted it. The original meaning of agnostic, as set down by some guy with some paper, is one who belives they cannot know. Ussualy this it through some belife in empiricism or some such.
So a truely openminded person, who doesn’t know, and doesn’t know if they can know is not an agnostic. And yes they are an atheist. Now go tell all your psedo-agnostic buddies and maybe we can get this language back on track.
I find I’m unable to be an agnostic. I was raised at an early age to be a theist, so that’s what I took with me when I started thinking critically. The times I’ve ceased being a theist, I moved directly to atheist because I was convinced by some serious of arguments, or moved by some life experience. When I moved back to theism, it’s because I was convinced atheism must be false again. I don’t see how I could be resigned to having an opinion of “I don’t know” about something I spend so much time thinking about.
Uccisore, there is a difference in believing something and knowing something. You can find yourself believing in God’s existence but not knowing of it or of God’s qualities. This is a religious agnostic. You can also go for it’s counterpart: Not knowing whether or not God exists, knowing that that knowledge is unknowable, but not believing in Him. The atheist agnostic.
I will start a thread shortly but unfortunately I have not the time for the next couple of weeks. I believe that there is not enough evindence to believe in the existence of God or any other deity. Even the very concept of God is beyond knowledge because of the lack of evindece.
Few reasons why I’m atheist.
Even logic is “faith based”.
Logic = If A then B
“IF” is an assumption, no matter how reasonable, taken ultimately on faith.
In other words logic = I “believe” A to be true therefore B must be true.
So both A and B are dependent on an assumption.
Faith is not a virtue, it is an unavoidable necessity and reveals the subjective nature of reality.
If is not assumptive.
If you’re outside of shelter and if you’re naked, and if it rains… you get wet.
If you stick your bare hand in fire, you get burned.
It’s showing causative correlation. That has no faith involved.
LostGuy:
I really could care less what some 1500 year old man called agnostic and atheist. If you want to go back to spaeken t’he Ould Aenglais, feel free. I’m using what the terms have meant for the past 200-300 years…k?
And the modern definition accounts for the noncommital stance of those who do not know.
We’ve had this argument three times already on the board since I’ve joined. I’ve won every time. I don’t want to get into your petty ass semantics squabbling. Buy a dictionary. Use it.
Your argument “assumes” either present or past tense.
If I (am/was) outside of shelter (while/when) it rains I (do/did) get wet
In this case IF does not apply because both A and B have occurred.
A is, therefore B resulted.
If - Then is predictive of a future event.
If I am caught outside shelter the next time it rains(A) then I will get wet(B)
Assume - v, to take for granted; to suppose
If- conj, to suppose; on condition that.
Suppose-v.t - To lay down as fact for the sake of argument
Then- adv, immediately or soon afterward.; next in order of time
Assumption does not imply faith. In these cases the assumptions are reasoned on evidential basis.
Or would you say your own argument is faith-based, because it’s only an assumption that you know the meanings of the words you’re using?
If I say faith is reasoned and reasonable assumptions made on evidential basis, would it change things?
Entertaining anything less than that would be irrational, useless and even deterimental to the pursuit of knowledge.
Axioms are one of such assumptions, eg the basis for Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry. The axioms are taken as “self-evident”, but really it is a matter of faith that everyday we use the computational results and outcome of Euclidean geometry in things like mechanics, architecture, travel (incl going to Mars), etc etc.
Thank you chanbengchin.
Furthermore, with respect to Euclidean Geometry, some of these axioms (assumptions) have been “proven” false. For example, that the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line”. This seems self evident and reasonable but it is false. The shortest distance between two points is a curved line because, according to Einstein, space is curved and not flat as EG assumes. Logical progressions make assumptions and the quality of the “proof” depends in some part on the reasonableness of the assumption.
The same problem turns up with Hume and “cause and effect”. It’s not certain a pen will fall to the ground if you drop it, it might fly into the air or something, cause we can’t see the future. Yet we BELIEVE it will drop to the ground.
It’s the same way with Atheistm. We believe.
Uhhh, actually…
Geometry deals with Euclidean Space. The interesting thing about that, is that all space consists of infinitesimally small chuncks of euclidean space. Technically, the shortest distance between two points is indeed a line, if space and time weren’t intertwined. Now the problem is, how fast are we talking and for how long. Also, there’s an observer issue involved in here. From your point of view, the shortest distance will be a straight line, however, as an outside observer, it will appear curved. Kinky, eh?
I still adhere to the geometric corralary that the shortest distance is a straight line.
But umm, that’s really a side point.
Continue debating your religions, now.
Rafajafar wrote: (much earlier on)
As ksterling1979 began with:
I think your definition for ‘Athiest’ is off.
Athiest = Not a Thiest.
An Athiest does not put the value on believing that Thiests do, and faith is meaningless to them so your definition is inaccurate, and it is more of a label made from a Thiest’s perspective.
Let’s just stick to these definitions, k?
Disecting the prefixes is bullshit sophistry. Just argue the points. Agnosticism is just as easily a subset of Atheism as it is Theism. As an agnostic, I take offense to you telling me there is no god. As an agnostic, I take offense to you telling me there IS a god, too.
Atheism means…no god. Godless. Period. None. Nada. End of story. It does not just mean “without theism”… it means… “without god”. Remember, theism translates further, itself.
I am very … firm… about this. I am not atheistic. I am not theistic. I am agnostic. There’s a difference, and it’s not a wishy-washy stance to me.
As an atheist, you need faith to say god does not exist. As a theist, you need faith to say that god exists. As an agnostic, you know that you are without the knowledge of god… you just dont know. Which is the wisest position? The partisan one? Or the honest one?
Leave that dirty dictionary out of this.
Agnosticism means very specifically, belives it is impossible to know if God exist. Remeber dictionaries come from English professors. English professors come from the school of retoric. The school of retoric has been the enemy of the school of philosophy for over 2000 years. They write books based on common usage, or their usage, never on our usage.