Atheism vs Agnosticism

This thread is long overdue in my opinion.

Even among the more intelligent people in society there is a misconception about what atheism is, what agnosticism is, and what the differences between the two are. People often think about the issue as a religiosity spectrum -- atheists and theists are diametrically opposite, while agnosticism is considered to be a moderate stance somewhere in the middle. Furthermore, an atheist is often considered one who obstinately disbelieves in God. These are both particularly vexatious fallacies.

Theism deals with belief whereas gnosticism, in this context, deals with an epistemic question. These are two entirely different spheres of thought, and are not mutually exclusive. That is the central thesis of this post.

The theist believes in the claim that God exists. The atheist does not believe it. Note that no claims of knowledge have been specified. Also note, that though an atheist does not share the theist's beliefs, this does not mean he believes in the idea that God does not exist. He may very well choose to do so, but this is not a prerequisite for atheism. An atheist is literally "one without theism." Not believing in an idea is not the same thing as rejecting in an idea. It may seem that I am getting agitated over petty semantics, however such implicit fallacies are often insidiously manipulated.

Another way to put this is there are two possible claims about the existence of God:

1. God does exist.
2. God does not exists.

Also, in the context of belief, there are two possible positions to take on each of the claims above:

1. Believing the claim.
2. Not believing the claim.

A theist is one who believes in claim 1 and does not believe in claim 2. An atheist is one who does not believe in claim 1, but can take either position on claim 2.

We can look at gnosticism in a similar way. A gnostic claims absolute knowledge about the existence or nonexistence of God, whereas an agnostic does not claim such knowledge. It is my opinion anyone who claims gnosticism to such an issue is either lying or deluded. However, the lack of absolute knowledge, or perhaps even the inability to ascertain this knowledge, should not prevent scrutiny of unjustifiable beliefs.

It should now be clear that knowledge and belief are distinct from one another, ergo the terms associated with each are not mutually exclusive. We can now describe people using four phrases in respect to their ideas about God: agnostic theists, agnostic atheists, gnostic theists, and gnostic atheists. In my experience, I have never met a truly gnostic atheist.

My speculation on why the initial misconception exists will be the subject of another post.