this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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I'm willing to accept Atheism, 'I do not believe in God', as somewhat dogmatic, but as others have said, it's the null hypothesis and they have Occam's razor going for them. Pragmatically it is a useful stance in light of the societal harm religion does.
I am however unwilling to conflate Agnosticism with 'I can not believe', always been "I'm waiting for evidence one way or the other" to me, so perhaps the more scientific point of view.
It's not 3 points, but 4.
Atheist==>Theist Agnostic==>gnostic
There are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists.
to me, those last two statements are pretty close in the grand scheme of things. it was allegorical anyway, since we weren't really talking about god.
if there is no proof one way or the other, the pragmatic stance is to be neutral. if one side is more theoretically sound, the pragmatic stance is to assume that's the correct side while still being open to the other. only when there's proof of one side can you dismuss the other. none of those steps require "belief", i.e. unfounded assumptions.
as an aside, personally i feel like religion is one of those issues where there is proof.
No, the pragmatic stance is to pick the side that is more helpful and useful. That may or may not be neutral.