What’s the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?
One of my atheist friends recently surprised me by describing himself as a Buddhist. I tried not to do a double-take, reminding myself that is possible to distinguish ‘Buddhism the Religion’ from ‘Buddhism the Philosophy’ or ‘Buddhism the Set of Interesting Practices’. Still, it seemed incongruous.
And then there’s my other friend who describes himself as an ‘agnostic’, but doesn’t really disagree with me, the atheist, on any major points. He just seems reluctant to define himself as an atheist.
Deciding what a word ‘means’ can be a tricky proposition, especially on this issue when self-identification comes into it. People are defining ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’ by the beliefs of people they know who identify as atheists and agnostics (perhaps even themselves). I’ve met enough meat-eating vegetarians to know that this isn’t the most reliable kind of definition. Then some helpful soul comes running into the discussion with a dictionary, telling us about word parts, and insisting that the etymology of a word is its ‘true meaning’. Which is nonsense, because word meanings change over time, and words mean what speakers think they mean. (Except when the speakers are wrong because they disagree with us more knowledgeable folk.)
Word-watcher that I am, I’d normally observe the debate and not influence it. But as an atheist, it’s a different story. I’ve noticed that the popular definition of these terms is often at variance with what atheists and agnostics actually think, and that ought to count for something. So in this post, I’d like to discuss the definitions of a*ism, and see if we can describe them more accurately in terms of what people (a*ists and not) mean by these terms.
As a English-speaking youth, before I’d thought about this area very much, I absorbed these definitions:
atheist: someone who knows (believes very strongly, is absolutely certain that) there’s no god
agnostic: someone who doesn’t know if there’s a god or not
That is, the difference (I thought) was one of degree of certainty.
At the time, it didn’t seem to me that this ‘atheist position’ was very tenable. How could you be certain that something didn’t exist? You’d have to have a knowledge of everything that existed to know that something wasn’t on the list. Which, ironically, would make you God, or something close.
Well, imagine my surprise to find that no atheist I talked to held that point of view. No atheist I’ve met on- or off-line has professed absolute certainty that god does not exist, though there are some ‘strong atheists’ out there. Instead, atheists I have met reject gods because there’s no evidence for them, and many have expressed willingness to change their minds if evidence turns up.
So if certainty is not the defining characteristic of an atheist, what is? Simply: belief. Atheists believe there are no gods. Here comes the etymology: a, ‘without’ + theos, ‘god’. Someone who is without a god.
Now for agnostic. Etymology: a, ‘not’ + gnosos, ‘knowledge’, or ‘one who doesn’t know’.
A browse of various dictionaries suggests that agnosticism is less about intensity of belief and more of a philosophical stance involving the knowability of god, usually expressed by these two ideas:
1) An agnostic doesn’t know whether gods exist
2) An agnostic thinks the whole question isn’t really knowable
I find both of these ideas perfectly reasonable — to a point. Can we know if a god really exists, if that god hides from people and is perfectly good at covering her tracks? No, any more than we can know about UFO’s or invisible pink unicorns. Where I differ from agnostics is what to do about it. With no supporting evidence, I just assume it’s all bogus, but I’ll re-examine if need be. The agnostic reserves judgement, as though the two possibilities are equiprobable, and that’s simply not justified by the data we have.
What I get from these definitions is that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive categories. They’re describing two different things. Here are, I think, more accurate descriptions:
agnostic: Someone who recognises that the ‘existence of gods’ issue can’t be proven either way with the evidence we have. Agnosticism tells more about what you know about the ontological issues surrounding supernatural beings.
atheist: Someone who doesn’t believe that gods exist. Whether you’re an atheist or not has more to do with what your conclusion, yes or no, given all of the uncertainty surrounding the issue.
That explains why my self-described agnostic friend and I agree on the issues. He doesn’t know if gods exist, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t know either, I just don’t find the evidence compelling. So in that sense, my friend and I are both agnostic. And neither of us really thinks that gods exist, though we’re open to evidence. So in that sense we’re both atheists. I’m just more willing to call myself an atheist than he is.
We could plot individuals on a graph:
Quadrant 1 is me, the non-believer who nonetheless says you can’t be absolutely certain either way. Quadrant 2 is the believing agnostic, also known as ‘the bet-hedger’. (If I were a god, I would send them to hell for believing in me in such a gain-driven and cowardly way.) Quadrant 3 is the believer, and in quadrant 4 we could perhaps find the ‘strong atheist’.
These definitions are pretty close to what people already think the terms mean. Defining them this way emphasises certain aspects of a*ism in a way that helps to explain the variation in belief that we see, and gets rid of a lot of overlap between the terms.
People will still define atheism and agnosticism variously, but there are signs that this view I have presented has some acceptance. I was somewhat startled at this site, devoted to sorting out frequently confused words. The entry for ‘atheist’ reads:
atheist: one who assumes there are no gods or divinities but will accept the possibility should extraordinary evidence occur
agnostic: one who believes the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved
I fully approve.
16 August 2008 at 12:33 pm
This is why in general people who want to communicate their beliefs unambiguously shouldn’t describe them with an *ism.
The agnostic reserves judgement, as though the two possibilities are equiprobable, and that’s simply not justified by the data we have.
Uh, where (in either the naive definition or the refined definition of agnosticism) does it suggest equiprobability?
This begs the question of their definition of deity: if an agnostic believes that deities are unobservable, then it collapses into a truism (deities are unobservable <=> existence of deities is unknowable). Under these axioms the probability is in fact undefined.
16 August 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m saying that if someone decided to believe despite the lack of evidence, one way they could rationalise that would be to assume that both outcomes were equiprobable.
And then I’m saying that that’s a crap assumption, as you ably point out.
16 August 2008 at 11:24 pm
Buddhists are atheists by definition.
You can’t be a buddhist and believe in a creator God. In Tibetan buddhism there are some ‘deities’ which are not considered ‘gods’ by Tibetans – in the way we think of gods, at least. The term ‘deity’ is probably a mistranslation through a theist lens. Tibetan buddhism is a mix of buddhism and a pre-existing pantheistic religion called Bon. This occurred much like the Christians assimilated various pagan rituals and characters. But the Tibetan gods are better understood as a metaphorical psychology of human emotional and cognitive states.
Buddhism is a path of mind training based on rigorous critical thinking albeit couched in sometimes unfamiliar terms. However, if one follows the training the inevitable conclusion is that there is no one out there (or in here for that matter) and that everything simply is everything all at the same time. It’s actually a lot more radical than mere atheism.
17 August 2008 at 6:16 am
What surprised me about my friend was not that I thought he accepted the existence of gods, but rather that he might have accepted Buddhism’s dodgy truth claims (e.g. karma, reincarnation, etc.). But I suspect he probably does not.
17 August 2008 at 10:57 am
I donot think it matters very much; the word atheist, agnostic or Buddhist. The question is whether you beleive in truth, honesty and reality or in lies, superstition, and dishonesty. Nobody has seen a god or even knows exactly what this being or object is. Religions I have known are just heaps of superstition and dishonesty coupled with primitive cultures which depend on where these religions originated.
Buddha was a great atheist who propagated his ideas two thousand five hundred years ago. In his preaching at Sarnath he said, “If there is a god he cannot be good and if he is not good he cannot be god.”
He gave two other precepts: Love , caring and respect for fellow humans,(maitriya or karuna) and disbelieve in what other people tell you. Use your own reasoning,understanding and logical thinking to find out the truth.
Buddhism as a religion turned out to be quite different but often the silver lining of his teaching can be witnessed in the darkest of his followers. Dr.Bathi
17 August 2008 at 12:56 pm
I like your definition. There should be one for someone who’s not sure whether they’re an atheist or an agnostic! I know I’m an atheist and I’m certain there are no deities.
18 August 2008 at 3:45 pm
I am as certain that there is no “God” as I am that there is no BigFoot, sasquatch, or yeti… and thats pretty damn certain, but not good enough to say I know.
So whats that make me?
18 August 2008 at 4:49 pm
Well, kind of. Atheism is a description. It describes a person in which god-belief is absent. Conversely, “theist” describes a person in which god-belief is present.
Please notice that nothing is ever said about actual, live-in-the-sky, magical flying invisible god-men. Just god-belief, and whether or not is is present or absent within a human being.
Agnosticism and gnosticism address a completely different question. That is to say whether knowledge of a god is even possible.
So, atheism and theism address the question of belief, and agnosticism and gnosticism address the question of knowledge.
So, one could be an “agnostic atheist”, a “gnostic atheist”, an “agnostic theist”, or a “gnostic theist”.
There is no contradiction at all here. 🙂 I created my own chart illustrating this years ago.
19 August 2008 at 12:17 am
Looks like I just rewrote your post. If I’d seen it before, I wouldn’t have had to write this one!
Oh well, great minds. Maybe if enough of us keep repeating this meme, it’ll propagate.
20 August 2008 at 11:30 am
Thought I’d drop in and say hi 😉
I like this definition and Brent’s chart. This definition would make me an agnostic atheist, much like your friend I would say Daniel.
I really disagree with defining myself by these terms though.
It seems to me that the common speaker distinction between the two terms would be that atheists are more concerned with scientific explanations than agnostics are. And even try to disprove the existence of God with science. To assume that science can explain our lives and universe would be as ridiculous as belief in a god. The term atheist has been tainted, I believe (ha) by people who do this -‘strong atheists’ on the chart.
Science is the best tool we have to assess this world but I am more open than the ‘strong atheist’ to the idea that there is something beyond the realms of our science. And because of this, and without Brent’s chart (which as I said, I like. But, although literally correct I don’t think it reflects speaker usage) I would have described myself as agnostic.
26 August 2008 at 6:29 am
I agree with Brent; I’ve identified myself as an agnostic atheist for quite a while now. Basically along the same lines as what is in his comment, though I heard it a couple of years ago on a Penn Jillette radio show. Penn said something along the lines of ‘agnostic’ and ‘atheist’ being answers to two separate questions. Atheism is way I choose to live my life, as if there is no person in the sky passing judgement on my actions or personally interfering in the physical world, and being agnostic is recognising that it’s not logically possible to prove that something does not exist.
In this sense I guess ‘agnostic’ is an adjective used to describe the noun ‘atheist’.
5 September 2008 at 1:15 pm
I tend to describe myself as an “Apathist”. I really don’t think the question of gods’ existence or not is an important question.
Nominally, I’m a strong atheist. But as a rationalist, I know that if I were presented with incontrovertible evidence, I’d be a theist. Most religions rely on faith, not evidence. So, the only way I can know for certain if after I die.
If I wake up in Vallhallah or Hades, I’ll be presented with very clear evidence. Likewise if I die and nothing happens.
So, given that no one can know for certain until after death, I’d say the question was pretty unimportant. It’s about as uninteresting to me as is possible. Hence, apathist.