Agnostic vs atheist what is difference

Omni-theism need not do this, according to Swinburne, because what is morally best just is what is overall best, and thus an omniscient being will of necessity do what is morally best so long as it has no desires other than the desires it has simply by virtue of knowing what the best thing to do is in any given situation.

This challenge depends, however, on a highly questionable motivational intellectualism: it succeeds only if merely believing that an action is good entails a desire to do it. On most theories of motivation, there is a logical gap between the intellect and desire.

If such a gap exists, then it would seem that omni-theism is no more probable intrinsically than aesthetic deism. For example, a deity interested in good narrative would want a world that is complex and yet ordered, that contains beauty, consciousness, intelligence, and moral agency.

Perhaps there is more reason to expect the existence of libertarian free will on omni-theism than on aesthetic deism; but unless one starts from the truth of omni-theism, there seems to be little reason to believe that we have such freedom. For example, if open theists are right that not even an omniscient being can know with certainty what libertarian free choices will be made in the future, then aesthetic deism could account for libertarian free will and other sorts of indeterminacy by claiming that a story with genuine surprises is better than one that is completely predictable.

Alternatively, what might be important for the story is only that the characters think they have free will, not that they really have it. Finally, there is premise 3 , which asserts that the data of good and evil decisively favors aesthetic deism over theism. A full discussion of this premise is not possible here, but recognition of its plausibility appears to be as old as the problem of evil itself.

Consider, for example, the Book of Job, whose protagonist, a righteous man who suffers horrifically, accuses God of lacking sufficient commitment to the moral value of justice. Instead, speaking out of the whirlwind, He describes His design of the cosmos and of the animal kingdom in a way clearly intended to emphasize His power and the grandeur of His creation. On this interpretation, the creator that confronts Job is not the God he expected and definitely not the God of omni-theism, but rather a being much more like the deity of aesthetic deism.

Those who claim that a God might allow evil because it is the inevitable result of the universe being governed by laws of nature also lend support, though unintentionally, to the idea that, if there is an author of nature, then that being is more likely motivated by aesthetic concerns than moral ones.

For example, it may be that producing a universe governed by a few laws expressible as elegant mathematical equations is an impressive accomplishment, not just because of the wisdom and power required for such a task, but also because of the aesthetic value of such a universe.

Much of the aesthetic value of the animal kingdom may also depend on its being the result of a long evolutionary process driven by mechanisms like natural selection. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Unfortunately, such a process, if it is to produce sentient life, may also entail much suffering and countless early deaths. It is arguably far more plausible that in such a scenario the value of preventing horrendous suffering would, from a moral point of view, far outweigh the value of regularity, sublimity, and narrative. If so, then a morally perfect God would not trade the former for the latter though a deity motivated primarily by aesthetic reasons no doubt would.

To summarize, nearly everyone agrees that the world contains both goods and evils. Pleasure and pain, love and hate, achievement and failure, flourishing and languishing, and virtue and vice all exist in great abundance. In spite of that, some see signs of cosmic teleology. Those who defend the version of the decisive evidence argument stated above need not deny the teleology.

Mulgan and Murphy and in particular when it is interpreted as directed towards aesthetic ends instead of towards moral ends.

In this section, an argument for the falsity of a more ambitious form of agnosticism will be examined. Because the sort of agnosticism addressed in this section is more ambitious than the sort defended by Le Poidevin, it is conceivable that both arguments succeed in establishing their conclusions.

This form of agnosticism is more ambitious because knowledge is stronger in the logical sense than rational permissibility: it can be rationally permissible to believe propositions that are not known to be true, but a proposition cannot be known to be true by someone who is not rationally permitted to believe it.

Another difference concerns the object of the two forms of agnosticism. In this section, the target is omni-theism versus the local atheistic position that omni-theism is false. The previous section focused on two arguments for the conclusion that this form of local atheism is very probably true. In this section, the question is whether or not that conclusion, if established, could ground a successful argument against strong agnosticism.

This leaves premise 2 , the premise that, if atheism is very probably true, then atheistic belief is rationally permissible. One might attempt to defend this premise by claiming that the probabilities in premise 2 are rational credences and hence the truth of the so-called Lockean thesis Foley justifies 2 :.

The Lockean thesis, however, is itself in need of justification. Fortunately, though, nothing so strong as the Lockean thesis is needed to defend premise 2. Also, the defender of 2 need not equate, as the Lockean thesis does, the attitude of belief with having a high credence. Even this more modest thesis, however, is controversial, because adopting it commits one to the position that rational i.

In other words, it commits one to the position that it is possible for each of a number of beliefs to be rational even though the additional belief that those beliefs are all true is not rational. To see why this is so, imagine that a million lottery tickets have been sold. Each player purchased only a single ticket, and exactly one of the players is certain to win. Now imagine further that an informed observer has a distinct belief about each of the million individual players that that particular player will lose.

According to thesis T , each of those million beliefs is rational. Since, however, it is certain that someone will win, it is also rational for the observer to believe that some player will win. It is not rational, however, to have contradictory beliefs, so it is not rational for the observer to believe that no player will win.

This implies, however, that rational belief is not closed under conjunction, for the proposition that no player will win just is the conjunction of all of the propositions that say of some individual player that they will lose. Defenders of premise 2 will claim, very plausibly, that the implication of T that rational belief is not closed under conjunction is completely innocuous. Others e. They contributed in a variety of ways to making this entry much better than it would otherwise have been.

The author is also grateful to Jeanine Diller and Jeffrey Lowder for helpful comments on a preliminary draft of this entry. Atheism and Agnosticism First published Wed Aug 2, Global Atheism Versus Local Atheisms 4. An Argument for Agnosticism 5. An Argument for Global Atheism? Two Arguments for Local Atheism 6. Such an atheist might be sympathetic to the following sentiments: It is an insult to God to believe in God.

Strawson By contrast, anti-God atheists like Thomas Nagel — find the whole idea of a God offensive and hence not only believe but also hope very much that no such being exists.

Consider, for example, this passage written by the agnostic, Anthony Kenny 84—85 : I do not myself know of any argument for the existence of God which I find convincing; in all of them I think I can find flaws. Global Atheism Versus Local Atheisms Jeanine Diller points out that, just as most theists have a particular concept of God in mind when they assert that God exists, most atheists have a particular concept of God in mind when they assert that God does not exist.

It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 There is no firm basis upon which to judge that theism or atheism is more probable than the other. It follows from 3 that 4 Agnosticism is true: neither theism nor atheism is known to be true. It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 There is good reason to believe that God does not exist.

It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 Source physicalism is many times more probable than omni-theism. It follows from 3 that 4 Omni-theism is very probably false. It follows from 4 that 5 Atheism understood here as the denial of omni-theism is very probably true. It follows from 1 , 2 , and 3 that 4 Aesthetic deism is many times more probable than omni-theism. Who wrote, A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still"? What was the cause of the War of Spanish Succession?

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Should you choose to buy one, we'll receive a portion of the sale. According to Pew, 72 percent of religious nones — a group that includes atheists and agnostics — believe in a "high power. Sign up for our Newsletter!

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I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why would anyone who believes be on a non-believing site.

Go preach somewhere else!! Atheist myself and I would like to add that just because I excluded myself from religion does not mean I had a traumatic experience, I just became realistic. I think that as individuals we don't give ourselves enough credit for all the great things we do and can do. I think that it doesn't matter what we believe in, we just need to reflect each other.

It's important to note that these are not mutually exclusive positions. Most atheists are also agnostic. Their position on deities is much the same as their position on werewolves: there is a presumption of nonexistence, but also an understanding that it isn't really possible to prove it. The agnostic has made up their mind to not make assumptions.

I believe if you are going to comment on anything you should make sense. When typing this, the next persons comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It isn't even proper English. To believe or not believe in a higher power is the right of everyone. To each his own! What is true for me, may not and is not, the truth for everyone. We are not here on earth to all think the same way, believe the same things. How boring would that be? I never got too much into religion as a kid although I was brought up catholic.

Now that I'm older I know fersure that I'm agnostic. I keep to myself about it and that's how it should be! Let everyone believe what they want. I came to this site to show my co-worker the difference between the two and we went through the comments, and laughed because nobody has anything to prove to anyone. I came here because I honestly didn't know the specific differences between the two words and just wanted the information. My beliefs and everyone else's are irrelevant.

It's informative, and not meant to cause people to force their beliefs on each other. Drop it so the Zionist blinders can come off! Have any of you heard of the sumerian tablets? These are clay tablets that were written years before the bible, and has some of the same stories as the bible. These tablets tells a whole different story than the bible. I would suggest to everyone to read them, it is an eye opener. God forces no one to believe. Although, I think it's funny whether it's a new subatomic particle or hot dense matter or energy or radiation that the so-called Big Bang started from had already existed.

So the Big Bang wasn't really the start and occured much later when the already existing universe was hot and dense. Hmmm I think your science needs some work. Try again or open your eyes. The answer is staring at you, but no one is forcing you to believe.