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Otaku Gaijin
Otaku Gaijin asked in Society & CultureReligion & Spirituality · 9 years ago

Why are Agnosticism and Atheism treated like they are the same thing?

Agnosticism and Atheism are paired together like they are some packaged group. When you search Agnostic on Google it brings up searches that contain Atheism as well (with Atheism in bold to show that it search with it as a replacement world). This makes no sense to me. Yes an Agnostic person can be Atheist, but they may be Theist. An Atheist person can also be Agnostic but they might be Gnostic. These are two different ways of categorizing religious beliefs. The practice of grouping them together and using them interchangeable with each other is no different than use the term African-American and gay, Native American and transsexual, Hispanic and straight, and Caucasian and bisexual interchangeably (P.S. Ethnicity and sexual orientation were randomly generated into pairs). Yes each could be of the sexual orientation they are paired with, but they could also be any of the others because one has nothing to do with the other. It would be quite annoying to try to look up information concerning gay rights and receive nothing but information concerning African-American rights, or vice versa. So why should I have to dig through thousands of links concerning atheism to get to links concerning agnosticism. This only furthers the misunderstanding and ignorance of what Agnosticism is (because it is difficult to find things concerning it). We as members of the Agnostic community, and those of the Atheist community as well, should work to fix the tremendously aggravating, illogical, and unrepresentative problem.

Sorry this ended up becoming more of a rant then a question, but it is still valid.

Update:

@Johnny Maistre: No, you are incorrect on both accounts. Agnostic means that you believe that one cannot know whether there is a god or not as well as not being able to know qualities about it/them. This is a religious belief, it isn't looking for religious beliefs. An agnostic person can believe in gods, an afterlife, reincarnation, spiritual beings just like any gnostic theist. The only difference being that the believe one can't know for certain.

An atheist is a person that believes there is no god(s). Nothing more, nothing less. There are Buddhist that are atheist. This is because beliefs in spiritual beings, an eternal afterlife, and or a reincarnation cycle does not require a belief or disbelief in god. Also, Buddhist doesn't have a absolute set in stone belief in god(s). It is true though that many people use atheist to many that an individual believes there is nothing spiritual in existence, however this is an incorrect, although popular, usage.

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  • Common Sense
    Lv 7
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    SOME people treat them as if they were the same because they don't bother to understand the very simple definitions of each.

    ~

  • somathus
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    Part of the confusion is that people think that saying they are agnostic is an answer to the question "Do you believe in a god?" It is most certainly is not. That is the same as saying "I don't know, whats the temperature" when someone asks you "Do you think it is hot today?"

    I Don't Know is not an answer to a yes/no question

    Everyone on the planet is agnostic. Nobody has ALL the info.

  • Arantheal  
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    Yeah, I know. You're completely in the right here, atheism and agnosticism are separate things. One is about lack of belief (atheism) and the other about lack of knowledge (agnosticism).

    The reason why they are usually grouped together is that both atheists and agnostics usually have a similar mindset distinct from theism. Ours is about investigation, a conscious avoidal of bombastic claims of certain knowledge, the exercise of reason and the basing of beliefs on evidence. Most people are theists while we are the "odd ones out", meaning we get grouped together.

  • Fegelein's antic society
    9 years ago

    Because of ShockOfGod.

    He still can't tell the difference. I was in his chat room couple days ago and he said.

    "atheist say that its possible for god to exist, and not possible"

    Sounds more like an agnostic to me.

    Either way you can send him a message but it still won't penetrate that thick skull of his.

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  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Because they are the same as far as they are two false religions our Creator Hates all religions does it really matter every religion in the world are from the mind and emotions of mankind with their Father the Devil endorsing their lies without knowing your Creator Jesus who really cares what religion that sends you to a eternity of Hell all religions will send you as a soul to the same place all the lies in the world and all the so called worldly wisdom in this world are lies wake up Disney and seek your Creator found in Christ Jesus and know truth

  • Johnny Maistre
    9 years ago

    I thought everyone knew that Agnostic meant they were looking for a religion to believe in and being an Atheist is not believing in anything whatsoever, come on people LEARN!

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Google is committing the infamous logical fallacies again.

  • me
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    they are not exclusive, and atheists are more likely to be open minded enough to be agnostic

  • Truth Seeker
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    Because they are both without God-Jesus.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Only by retards...

    ~

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