Also since it is claimed that “god” has a referent and yet no referent is actually presented – the term is undefined.

And that is as far as one can rationally go. It is neither possible nor necessary to argue meaningfully over an undefined term. I’m never really certain what atheism is actually against except bad reasoning and delusions of grandeur.

Sabio Lantz:
why would an atheist feel a belief in God is “justified”,shouldn’t they then become a theist?Maybe this is a technical use of the word “justified” in philosophy.

I think it’s helpful to think of “justified” in the context of belief as analogous to “justified” in the context of morality. A person is justified when killing in self-defense because he hasn’t done anything “wrong.” In the context of belief, the term “justified” is referring to the idea that a person hasn’t done anything “wrong” in believing something.
For example, trusting a clock to tell you the correct time is justified, even if it turns out that the clock is broken. As long as you don’t know that it’s broken, your justified in accepting the time.

So an atheist might think that theists have made an honest mistake in believing in God. Alternatively, they could think that theists ought to know better. Finally, they could think that some theists have made an honest mistake, and some ought to know better.

Rich: “A gnostic atheist not only believes there are no gods, he also claims to know there are no gods.”He’d be lying though.  

Often, sure. But not necessarily. Most gnostics — atheist or otherwise — can claim how they know, but the assertion of knowledge itself is all that is required at a basic level to be a gnostic monotheist/polytheist/atheist/… .

That said, when I refer to myself as a gnostic, I’m not doing so for ‘all deities’ but for specific defined or claimed deities or types of deities.

In the case of gnostic monotheists, they often claim specific knowledge of a known deity. While I think that there is more than adequate evidence to say that many of those claimed monotheistic deities are impossible for various reasons, I don’t claim that the gnostic atheism I have towards any deity claims (monotheistic or not) is adequate to rule out all deities.

In fact, there are some deities that I have to admit do exist, yet they don’t fit what is generally claimed about deities and thus I do not categorize them as deities. For example, someone who has a totem deity can have me come and see the totem. They can point at it and say that I have to admit their deity is real since I’ve seen it and can touch it. All that is true. Yet, totems are not said to be mere handmade statues that are labeled gods or spirits or deities but to be more than that in some specific ways that are unusual and more in line with gods or spirits or deities. Yet, seeing the totem. Putting my hands on it. These are not demonstrations of those god-like abilities. As such, for practical purposes. And that’s the point. Practicality.

In strict philosophical terms, I’m a gnostic about specific claimed deities, an agnostic about the general category of deities, and often an ignostic or apnostic towards other claimed deities.

In practical, day to day terms, the deity claims I’ve investigated have no more credibility than other creatures that are commonly dismissed as fantastic; yetis/bigfeet, giants, cockatrices, witches, wizards, unicorns, fairies, dragons, 4 footed insects, or whales that can be used as comfy submarines for a few days.

As such, I see no reason in practical terms to shirk the gnostic atheist title. Could I be mistaken? Philosophically or demonstratively mistaken? Sure. Till that happens, why on a practical level should I give those ideas or the idea of a deity more consideration? If they aren’t credible, that’s an important conclusion. Those who disagree can get back with me when they have something.

He’d be lying though.

Silver Bullet: Does the term ‘agnostic atheist’ not also imply that one believes that knowledge about god is impossible to attain?  

That’s basically Huxley’s version of agnosticism. He wrote passionately on the subject, and as such people think that is the only meaning of the word. At it’s base, though, agnosticism is simply ‘not gnosticism’. No other meanings are by necessity attached to the word.

Needless to say, this has caused quite a bit of confusion and the occasional argument. There are other types of agnostic knowledge claims as Luke has noted, as well as other types of knowledge claims that are not a form of agnosticism.

Keep in mind that many theists also that agnostic about their theisms, though many assert that they do know for a fact that their theistic beliefs are backed by knowledge. These are gnostic theists. For example;

gnostic monotheist – I know for certain that only one specific god exists.

Take a look at what people are actually saying about their religious positions here.

That’s one type of agnosticism, called ’strong agnosticism. See here.

shawn b Judd: I am a big supporter of defining what Atheism is, andwhat Atheist are ; but we should just “Keep it simple stupid” as the saying go’s. We cannot afford to be sliced and diced into sub catagories as mentioned in this artical.  

In general, I agree. The name game can cause quite a few problems (see: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6570#comment-30828 ).

Atheism is very simple; atheists aren’t theists.

That said, I don’t see any problem with Luke’s categories. What I think is lacking is the same type of thing for theism, though, as most theists tend to consider their narrow sect only and not theism in general that can be a topic without an audience.

The discussion tends to be focused around “Christian sects, Muslim sects, Hindu sects, …. and atheists” when it should be “theists and atheists” if we’re going to do a proper comparison.

Sabio Lantz: But just wondering what sort of subjective experience counts, since an atheist (I think all) would not jump to theist explanations when natural explanations could be possibly offered for a variety of mystical subjective experiences.

Theistic explanations, I agree by definition.

Naturalistic explanations, not necessarily.

I’ve known a few atheists who like mystical explanations. One of my friends, for example, said he knew he was going to win the grand prize in the lottery and kept buying tickets each week. I decided to make him a bet — if he won in the next year (a time frame he was certain of) — I would dedicate my life to him (free of charge) and make sure that the various leaches that would attempt to get his money would not get it. In turn, if he did not win the grand prize in that year, he would stop buying lottery tickets. Guess who won? :-)

paarsurrey: I thought that Atheism is just like any other faith; and now I see they have even many denominations.

First off, ‘atheism’ isn’t capitalized for the same reason that ‘theism’ isn’t capitalized. (If you actually think that theism is capitalized, go look up the term theism (not atheism) and understand it first.)

Additionally, there are plenty of theists that don’t have beliefs that include ‘faith’ — so why should a non-theist?

There aren’t denominations either. The individual distinctions Luke makes can and do apply to atheists/non-theists in part or in whole.

What do I mean by that last comment? How about an example;

Roughly following Luke’s list, there are people who are agnostic atheists that narrowly do not believe specific deities exist, are closed mouthed about it but indifferent, are passive, yet are also by all intents Muslims. I was basically like that but a ‘Catholic’ for quite a few years; an atheist Catholic.

Is that A that you have as the image for this post a logo that someone has made to refer to atheism? Kind of like the “scarlet A” that someone else (I think maybe it was Dawkins?) came up with? Just curious. Good list! The only thing I am not fond of is the “unfriendly/friendly atheist” – but that’s more a matter of connotations. I think most people would tend to shy away from calling themselves an “unfriendly atheist”…

Yeah, on that definition, babies and rocks would be negative atheists. It’s not MY definition, and I don’t make much use of it.

Just as most moderate theists distance themselves from the militant branches of their faith, so to do atheists distance our own philosophies from men like Pot and Stalin. The disadvantage to atheism is that we cannot use the ‘not a true’ line. Stalin was an atheist, just a deluded one.

Those men were clearly militant atheists, but what about Christopher Hitchens? He is an ardent supporter of military action against militant Islam. Does his support of war cause him to fall under the same category as Pol Pot?

_____

Kilre, excellent parsing of Paarsurrey. I would like to add that these different labels of atheism do not denote schisms within atheism. They just show different approaches to the single assertion that atheism makes. For the benefit of Paarsurrey or any other theists, the only assertion of atheism is “I believe in no gods”. Compared to the serious differences between the myriad religions of the world and their different sects, the minor differences between those who profess atheism should not belie the fact that we are singularly unified on the underlying principal of our philosophy. There are no gods that work to affect our lives.

Christians often don’t like being labelled by their denominations or doctrine. But these taxonomies are useful in faciliating dialogue. We are all a complex mix of perceptions, judgements and understandings, these categories help illustrate this for Atheists and may help us not only talk to believers, but to each other.

paarsurrey:
I thought that Atheism is just like any other faith; and now I see they have even many denominations.

You’re both right and so very wrong. Atheism is a position on belief (in gods), in which sense it is like “any other faith”, but the similarities stop there.

You might have had a valid point if there were more to atheism than denial of gods. The rest is entirely dependent upon humans being humans and disagreeing with each other.

Which with atheism is fine, it’s hard to have an “infidel” on this side.

Atheism is the most un-natural faith in my opinion;

I would have to agree. It’s natural for the human mind to seek patterns, often where they aren’t, and form faulty causal relations, leading to supernatural reasons for the most mundane things. It takes more than just believing to see that lightning, or erupting volcanoes or even illnesses, is not supernatural.

I respect the Atheists though.

That’s nice.

I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.  

That’s…great…really. Shouldn’t you be plying Christians with that line?

paarsurrey: Atheism is the most un-natural faith in my opinion; I respect the Atheists though.

Could you expand on what you mean by this?

I thought that Atheism is just like any other faith; and now I see they have even many denominations.

Atheism is the most un-natural faith in my opinion; I respect the Atheists though.

I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.

Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

Α theist may have a subjective religious experience that makes his personal belief ‘justified’. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean an atheist feels justified to adopt it for his own.

Enchanted vs. Disenchanted Atheists
– as Luke has written of before but in terms of Naturalists
The enchanted includes those that still get mystical intuitions inspite of being an atheist.

Gee, there are all sorts of us, though you’d never guess by the way some Atheists write.