Help with the definition of Gnostic Atheist?

Question

This has been bugging me for the past couple hours so Im looking to you all for some clarity and guidance here.
Now first of all I know that Gnostic Atheist is said to be a person who believes " There is no God/s and I know for sure". I am at odds with this definition and its very aggravating.

Agnostic- Human Being CAN'T ever know anything beyond nature, the "supernatural". aka its out of the limitations of our reality to be able to discover anything supernatural...

Gnostic- The belief that a human being CAN possess knowledge about a "god". Whos to say we will NEVER know, thats whats making me so annoyed here. I mean to the cavemen inventing the wheel we might as well be gods with our flamethrowers and iphones...

My problem is that these good people out here taking the atheists position are calling themselves "agnostic atheist" where the word agnostic is directly related to being a freakin theist...I hope yall understand what Im trying to say here. THANKS

Answer 1

There are those that argue that the terms "Gnostic" and "Agnostic" simply refer to knowledge and that:



Gnostic = Knowing

Agnostic = Not Knowing



Therefore, a Gnostic Atheist is someone who believes that there is no God, that he or she KNOWS that for sure, and that it can be proven in some way, while an Agnostic Atheist is someone who believes that there is no God, but that it is impossible to prove that.



However, you are correct in that the word "Gnostic" (and therefore the antonym "Agnostic") is directly related to theism. Gnosticism, in it's original form did NOT refer to knowledge in general, but to a specific set of beliefs and esoteric (i.e. supernatural or religious) knowledge. The term should not be used to refer to ALL knowledge. For instance, I would not say that because I know for sure that there is no Santa Clause, I am a Gnostic Anti Santa Clausarian.



A better terminology might be Positive (or "De Facto" meaning "by the facts") Atheism and Negative Atheism. Positive Atheists believe that the statement "There is at least one God" is false, and believe that there are facts or proof that this is a false statement. Negative Atheists do not believe in a God, but they do not claim that the statement can be proven false.

Answer 2

Gnostic Definition

Answer 3

The position of 'agnostic atheist' is the more modest of the two positions. Hardly anybody would claim to be a gnostic atheist, as that would imply that not only to they not believe in any god or gods, but that they KNOW that a god or gods do not exist in reality. An agnostic atheist merely disbelieves in a god or gods, but does not claim to know for absolute certainty that such things do not exist.



EDIT: you keep asserting that the definition of 'agnostic' and 'gnostic' concern a claim about the possibility of knowledge, not whether an individual possesses or doesn't possess knowledge. What is your source for this, and could you link it?



I mean, you may be right, and I've heard the terms used in both senses. This is why I don't really use the complicated labels anymore, like I used to when I first became an atheist. Because you can debate what all this crap means. I just state my position without using a label. Makes things easier. I mean, there's 'positive atheism' 'negative atheism' 'strong atheism' 'weak atheism' 'agnostic atheism' 'gnostic atheism', etc. etc. I'm just a plain old atheist because I disbelieve in God, and any other sorts of gods.

Answer 4

Gnostic comes from the greek word Gnosis (which means knowledge) is the description of a person of the religion Gnosticism . Very simply they believe the God of the Old Testament is Satan. A cruel unjust and vindictive being that held Adam and Eve prisoner in the Garden of Eden, and that the serpent was the good guy , presenting them with the gift of the knowledge through which they themselves would become Gods.



Agnostic is not related to gnosticism. It is A(not)-Gnosis(knowledge) - which simply means "I don t know" in regard to the question of the existence of God.



Atheism is the firm belief that there is no God.



Agnostic Atheism does not exist. It is a contradiction of language and makes as much sense as a Christian Atheist.



Gnostic Atheist is Atheistic Gnosticism, which is a Gnostic who does not believe in an external Deity or higher power of any form and views the stories as metaphorical. That all is really one, and man himself, through awareness, is God. It is the fundamental underlying philosophy behind all the differing branches of the New Age Movement that you can see exploding all around as we move into the Age of Aquarius .

Answer 5

The terms Gnostic and Agnostic have to do with whether or not knowledge of the spiritual world is attainable. Note that this is just spiritual knowledge, not objective knowledge. Generally everyone agrees that knowledge in some form is attainable, although some Agnostics bordering on Nihilism might argue that you can't know anything for sure.



Similar Atheism is commonly misquoted to be "belief that there is no God". This is "Atheism from the Theist's perspective" and is appropriately misconstrued, all Atheism really means is that the person doesn't believe in a God, that he hasn't "found him" yet (probably isn't looking either), not that there is no God. The difference is subtle, but important. Granted, most Atheists will tell you that the various religions are junk based on inductive reasoning, but in the end the word Atheism means "without of theism" not "theism of disbelief"



Agnosticism on the other hand is the disbelief in all forms of spiritual knowledge. Psychology or even Philosophy for example would be utter nonsense to an Agnostic. You find many Theists in the world who hold this position, people who believe heaven and hell are literal actual/real places. The commandments from their God weren't induced by spiritual means, the Bible isn't a group of metaphorical stories meant to teach a moral, no, God literally came down from the sky wrapped in fire and carved the commandments with a thunderbolt into stone, Moses literally parted the Red Sea with magic from God, Jesus didn't perform impossible feats of rhetoric, logic or reason, he literally walked on water, fed 2,000 people with two fish and cured a blind man's eyes instead of just clearing up his "third eye" so that he could "see", etc...



Now, for Gnostic Atheism. This would be a person who doesn't believe in a a God (not that one definitely doesn't exist) but also believes that spiritual knowledge (such as morals) can be attained and spiritual forces (such as found in propaganda or psychology) do exist. An example would be the belief that new knowledge can be formed without the need of "external" sources. Mathematics for example is a completely abstract concept and all knowledge we have of it was created with nothing but our intellectual facilities.

Answer 6

Atheist Definition

Answer 7

Gnostic Atheism is knowing that God does not exist.



I'm a Gnostic Atheist. We exist, though we are rare.

Answer 8

Agnostic as you said means that they think humans can not know for certain if there is a god.

The term agnostic atheist refers to some one who thinks there is not a god but is uncertain of that perception and does not claim to know the truth for sure. They are atheist because they do not believe in any particular deity but agnostic because they do not proclaim to be right for certain.

-hope this clears it up a bit- I am not certain of the definition of gnostic atheist because I have never seen that term used before. I am not certain if it really is a proper term?

Answer 9

I think the 3 answerers above me covered it pretty well. I would just add a couple points.



First, I have to quibble about the use of the word "know." Where does one draw the line between knowledge and belief? In areas of logic and mathematics, it seems like a well-defined line: I *know* that 2+2=4. But what about the real world? I can make the claim that I know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning. And all the evidence shows this to be overwhelmingly likely to be true. Still, there is an *extremely* small chance that a previously-undetected black hole will swoop through our solar system and extinguish our sun before the night is over. The odds of such an event happening, even over the entire 10 billion year lifetime of our sun, are so low as to not be worth worrying about, or even considering for any practical purpose. And yet, as it is still within the realm of possibility, I can not say with absolute 100.0% certainty that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. So do I, or do I not "know" that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow? I would argue that while the odds are not exactly 0, they are close enough to 0 that I can make the claim that "for all practical purposes, the sun will rise in the east tomorrow."



The same is true with regards to the existence of a god or gods: although, based on the evidence alone, I can not say with total 100.0% certainty that there are no gods, my assessment is that the claim of there being no gods is close enough to 100% certainty that I feel comfortable claiming that I "know" there are no gods. And although I am quite willing to have my mind changed if sound evidence for their existence is presented to me, I consider the odds of such evidence ever appearing to be so extremely low as to be not worth seriously considering.



Now that said, that is only with respect to the evidence (or lack of) for a god or gods. One can make a pretty sound case for strong/positive/gnostic atheism based on logic alone. For instance, omnipotence is logically impossible; can god make a stone so heavy that even he can't lift it? The very notion of omnipotence is self-contradicting. Other qualities of god are mutually exclusive with each other or with qualities of the universe. Omniscience (being all-knowing) can not co-exist with free will, since free will can only exist when the outcome of a particular decision can not be known in advance. If god knows in advance what you will choose to do, then that outcome is already written in stone and you are not actually "choosing" at all. Likewise, omniscience is also incompatible with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which established the existence of real, genuine randomness in nature and ruled out a deterministic universe that could be known in advance.



One could of course redefine god as not having these alleged properties (and really, theists have no way of _knowing_ that god has them at all), but then is the being in question really a god? Besides, moving the goalpost is not a good way for theists to win arguments anyways.



Have you read "God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger? He makes a pretty good case for positive/strong/gnostic atheism. Check your local library or better bookstore for it.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Failed-Hypothesis-Science-Shows/dp/1591026520/ref=sr_1_1

Answer 10

Hello--I myself have a serious issue with the term "Gnostic" being used in reference to us "Strong" or "Positive" atheists, as it is well known that Gnosticism is a longstanding culture, tradition, and religious ideology that is completely based on a belief in a god, and more specifically the christian one although they eschew biblical texts as being necessary, infallible, or true at all. No matter how you look at it, there is no escaping the connection of Gnostic with theism, and this makes it totally inappropriate to be usurped by atheists as a label of representation of atheism. Furthermore, the whole essence of the atheists who try to use this term is based on the "etymology" of the term "Gnostic", and not its actual meaning. Etymology refers to what this word referenced not only in another language(Greek), but also in a completely different and long past time period, making the argument from "etymological meaning" nonsensical and irrelevant. Why some atheists choose to do such obviously irrational things when we are supposed to be and do things to exemplify rationality is beyond me. There are way many more appropriate options of labels to represent us, notwithstanding the commonly known and acceptable of "Strong" and "Positive", so this Gnostic bullshit needs to be shunned and discarded because of its inaccuracy and contradictive actual meaning, and when I say "meaning", I am not referring to what it meant in another language in some far-off time either. I think these are people who want to say they are atheist but still want to have some secret connection with the fantasy of god, by adopting a label that secretly implies a connection with some god but somehow at the same time allows them to say they are atheist. This is just another example of how us atheists turn off others who would otherwise give us consideration, because we are so ****** up and disorganized about our identity, our values, and our principles; and an organized, coherent, and consistent framework of those are completely lacking because we cant all agree on a system that accurately represents us. This is due in part to ********* who do things like make up ridiculous labels that just add another source of ridicule that we are already struggling with. To exemplify rationality, we need to not contradict it, but instead show it, along with consideration of simplicity in our chosen labels and statements of reference, that others can relate to without additional confusion, controversy, or partiality.