Colloquialisms

Heather Fluit, a columnist with the Volante Online University Of South Dakota student newspaper writes a pretty good article about Christmas and how students of different faiths, as well as non-believing students at USD choose to celebrate the holiday. She gets the obligatory definition of "agnostic" and "atheism" about half-right:

[Heather Fluit] Agnosticism is defined as neither faith nor disbelief in God, while atheism is the belief that God or a higher being does not exist.

Um... no. I don't know why she chose the tortured double-negative syntax to describe agnosticism because it makes it difficult to read and understand what she is trying to say, and a positive belief in no-god can be a part of atheism. In truth, agnosticism is "without knowledge", and atheism is "without god belief".

The two terms are not points along the same line. In other words, they are on two completely separate lines.

One set of terms - "gnosticism" and "agnosticism" - deal with knowledge. Specifically, whether or not knowledge of a god or gods is even possible.

The other set - "theism" and "atheism" - deal with whether god belief is present or absent within a human being.

So, the commonly-held understanding of "agnosticism" as being a fancy way of saying "I don't know", and a middle or moderate position between two extremes is a complete and utter misconception. A comfortable fantasy perpetuated by folks who don't understand what the words mean.

In reality, there is no "middle ground" between atheism and theism. Either god belief is present, or it is absent. It is on or off, black or white, there or not-there.

So, a person may be both an atheist, AND an agnostic. That is to say, god belief is not present within them (atheism), and they hold the position that knowledge of a god or gods is not possible (agnosticism).

I know - not a ground-breaking post, but it irks me sometimes that everyone seems to get this wrong - when it is so simple. This adds to my conviction that the words are drifting away from us and that we probably need to stop using them soon. The general human usage of the words is being co-opted by the colloquial meanings.