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Comment by chc | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't agree with this assessment. Atheism is not a knowledge claim; it's just disbelief in God. Similarly, I don't believe in intelligent life on other worlds, but that isn't a knowledge claim — there's just no good reason to believe in it.

Agnosticism, however, is a knowledge claim: It's the claim that God is is unknowable.

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I have to respectfully disagree. I think you have your definitions mixed up.

Agnosticism is 'There may be a god, but I don't care enough to claim one way or the other', I think the 'fence sitting' argument is good.

Atheism is: 'There is no god' ie, Richard Dawkins

Atheism is a stronger claim than Agnosticism.

Who is upvoting this? Dawkins - and according to the Dawkins scale / the poll he ran, most atheists - do not claim there is no god. (That's "strong atheism" and a minority viewpoint, as it is a faith statement.) He rejects Christianity, etc., but leaves open the possibility that some definition of a god may exist, while claiming that such a being is unlikely and unproven.

Dawkins' scale of belief is at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probabilit...

He describes himself as a 6 - that's an agnostic atheist. That means lacks belief, but does not entirely rule out the possibility of a deity.

> Atheism is: 'There is no god' ie, Richard Dawkins

You have just misquoted Richard Dawkins.

Your description of agnosticism is also wrong; you described apatheism.

Agnostic: Unsure. Apatheist: Doesn't care. Atheist: Rejects theism.

You can be all of the three.

I don't believe there is a god, so I am Atheist. I also don't think the answer to "is there a god?" can be answered definitiely. That makes me Agnostic. I also think that since the answer cannot be determined, the question is a silly one. That makes me an Apathist too.

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