Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Atheism vs agnosticism
Read an interview today with one of my favorite authors — Douglas Adams. He very eloquenty, and full of the dry wit that is his trademark, talks about his atheistic leanings and how he doesn’t like being confused with an agnost. It occurred to me that I never paid attention to the difference between the two words up until now.
All along, in my head, atheism and agnosticism were essentially the same thing — A lack of belief in a higher power/supremo aka God. However while atheism is more about the disbelief in all deities and the supreme being, agnosticism suggests the view that the existence of deities is either unknown, or inherently unknowable. A firm conviction in the former versus an unsurety in the latter. Glad I got that cleared up! :)
Here are the Wikipedia entries for Agnosticism and Atheism, if interested in reading more.
(transferred comment from Haloscan)
to me agnostics includes all people who fall between the absolutes of a theist and an atheist! more like the shades of grey between black and white…
thirdeye
Tuesday, May 11, 2004 @ 5:59 PM
(transferred comment from Haloscan)
Hmm.. interesting way of looking at agnosticism as a sort of middle ground.. Additional thoughts on this in the main blog.
Megha
Tuesday, May 11, 2004 @ 6:01 PM