Comic Strips

I mean... No? Maybe? Certainly not aliens as in biologically evolved creatures from another planet are involved, what is so hard to understand about that? Alien as in something completely foreign and unrecognizable to the human brain, sure.

It’s the same thing really, but without the “negative” connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists. “See, I’m not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I’m not to be expelled from this community as a heretic”

This, basically. At least that's how I used it. As a kid living in the bible belt, admitting you were an atheist was, in their eyes, literally no different than being a cannibalistic devil worshipper. Agnostic was easier for them to swallow (albeit because odds are high that most of them didn't even know what it meant, and figured it was some sect of Christianity they were unfamiliar with).

When I got older, and escaped the institutional bigotry woven into nearly every facet of society down in the bible belt...the lovely place where our biology teacher also headed the bible club and refused to teach evolution yet somehow still had a job as a biology teacher in the public school system, as a small example...that was when I finally gained the confidence to self-describe as an atheist.

"See, I'm not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I'm not to be expelled from this community as a heretic"

I identity with this. When I was younger I identified as agnostic, as I saw it as a more socially acceptable option than atheism which allowed me to not have to pretend to be religious.

But I've identified as atheist for many years now. In my case by the time I did, everyone of significance in my life was nonreligious.

It’s the same thing really, but without the “negative” connotations usually attributed to atheism or atheists.

Atheists and Agnostics would obviously disagree. There's a core philosophical difference between being convinced in the negative and being unconvinced in the affirmative.

That said, what are the consequences of being a Theist, an Atheist, or an Agnostic? I might argue that Theists and Atheists have history of leveraging their confidence into an active policy of discrimination and bigotry. Whether you're a Chinese Communist cracking down on under-18 church attendance or an Israeli Zionist conducting a pogrom against Palestinians, there's a habit of imbuing your personal beliefs with political teeth.

“See, I’m not really an atheist but agnostic. It means I’m not to be expelled from this community as a heretic”

The flip side of this being, "I'm not expelling you from the community for excessive display of religious ferver".

It's easier to sympathize with avowed Atheists in nations where atheism is a disenfranchised minority. But as soon as you give someone like Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris an ounce of political capital, they start cheer leading a genocide.

That, I think, is a real tangible difference. Agnostics tend not to begrudge other ideologies in the same way.

I think we largely agree. Your comment is essentially a restatement of my point. Theism is a belief that they are gods, and atheism is a lack of belief that there are gods. That lack of belief can either come from a positive belief that there are no gods, or a withholding of belief one way or the other.

Speaking about myself specifically, it is equally untrue to say that I believe there are gods as it is to say that I believe there are no gods. The former means I am an atheist, and the latter means I am an agnostic. Both labels apply to me.

i call myself a devout agnostic. the justaposition of those words is inherently absurd since part of agnosticism and identifying as such is believing there is value to studying theology even if you yourself don't believe the theologies you're studying because ultimately prior to colonization, religion was how groups of people encoded and passed along their wisdom. however saying "devout agnostic" throws people enough off balance enough to introduce them to these concepts since so many say with their whole chest that they're something when traditionally these terms have meant something else to the people who use them.

for example, an astounding (at least to me) number of people say quakers and unitarians aren't christians. when you dig down on this you often find that this position is rooted in a believe (both positive and negative) that the fundamental mechanism and experience of christianity is trauma. however, when you look at the broader world of religion, you find that that's mostly only Christian denominations rooted in the theologies of the roman empire such as roman catholicism and the various european orthodoxies like Greek and russian. however, the oldest denomination, Ethiopian Orthodox, would i think to the people who say quakers and unitarians aren't christians, seem very unchistian. for that matter, i think so would Native America Christianity, Oriental Orthodox, and Armenianism. (fun fact, the Unitarian church is rooted in Oriental Orthodox, which is either the second or third oldest christian denomination)

What's the proof that there is no deity at all?