Hey all. My first post here.
Personally, I don't think Agnostics should support the new, weak definition of Atheism. It would lead to the redundancy of Agnosticism.
Weak Atheists: Can't possibly be Gnostics. Stating they're Agnostics is redundant.
Gnostic Theists: Aren't Agnostics.
Gnostic Atheists: Aren't Agnostics.
Theists: Are merely believers, not Gnostics. Stating they're Agnostics is redundant.
Strong Atheists: Are merely believers, not Gnostics. Stating they're Agnostics is redundant.
Every single dictionary will state that Atheos, is the root word for Athe-ism. None will state that Theism is the root word for A-theism. It's just like Agnostic-ism, and Amoral-ism. They are doctrines/beliefs, not lack of doctrines/beliefs.
Even the Wiki article, for Atheism, states that the root word is Atheos, and that the terms Atheism, and Atheist, came into use, some 50 years before Deist, Deism, Theist, and Theism. You can't attach an A- to a word that doesn't exist, yet.
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"The introduction of this new interpretation of the word 'atheism' may appear to be a piece of perverse Humpty-Dumptyism, going arbitrarily against established common usage.[2] 'Whyever', it could be asked, 'don't you make it not the presumption of atheism but the presumption of agnosticism?'" - Anthony Flew, 1984
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It is Atheism's attempt to embrace Agnosticism's burden of proof position, as their own. Agnosticism puts the burden of proof on everyone else. Atheists want that, and their weak definition allows them to put the burden of proof totally on Theists.
Huxley didn't feel that Agnosticism was compatible with Atheism, or Theism. He didn't think of it as a simple prefix, to either.
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When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last.
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He clearly thought it was seperate position, from them.
Why?
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The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis,"–had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
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This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.
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Because they had formed beliefs (a certain "gnosis" - had accepted something as true, without sufficient proof), concerning the problem of existence, and Huxley was sure he, personally, had not. He criticized forming both beliefs, and disbeliefs, about propositions that weren't backed by sufficient evidence.
When he said insoluble, he also didn't mean fundamentaly unknowable, as is sometimes described. He was refering to his own abilities.
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I do not very much care to speak of anything as "unknowable." What I am sure about is that there are many topics about which I know nothing; and which, so far as I can see, are out of reach of my faculties. But whether these things are knowable by any one else is exactly one of those matters which is beyond my knowledge, though I may have a tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities of the case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure that the region of uncertainty–the nebulous country in which words play the part of realities–is far more extensive than I could wish.
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Peace
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