Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist
Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist
I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.
Gnostic atheism is only unsound if you insist we make absolute statements like 2 != 1 instead of speaking in absolutes as shorthand for probabilities that tend towards insignificance which is literally how people think and communicate outside of math. Attempts to approach philosophy like math are generally nonsense because our understand is far too underdeveloped for that to be anything but cargo cult antics.
Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist
Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist
I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.
As an atheist who would fully accept the existence of a deity if any form of rigorous proof was provided, these boxes are dumb.
Gnostic atheism is only unsound if you insist we make absolute statements like 2 != 1 instead of speaking in absolutes as shorthand for probabilities that tend towards insignificance which is literally how people think and communicate outside of math. Attempts to approach philosophy like math are generally nonsense because our understand is far too underdeveloped for that to be anything but cargo cult antics.