Understanding Agnosticism and Atheism

''Does atheism profess an after-life?'' ''Agnostics are fence-sitters.'' ''Is atheism a religion?''

Sounds common?

If you give any religious/philosophy forum a visit, or check out the opinions of theists regarding atheism and agnosticism, chances are you'll stumble upon some facepalm-worthy gaffes from them regarding such subjects.

The ignorance regarding atheism and agnosticism in the real world is quite astounding; almost everyone thinks atheism's a belief-system or that agnosticism lies between theism and atheism, amongst other misconceptions.

I myself took quite a while to understand these terms correctly, and only recently did I get to know the real meaning and domain of agnosticism.

Atheism is very simple to understand. Atheism = non-belief in God or any higher power. Simply put, atheists are those people who do not believe in any higher power. Period.

Whether an atheist subscribes to a religion or belief in supernatural happenings etc. DOES NOT fall in the domain of atheism. Because atheism denotes nothing other than non-belief in any higher power.

Most theists have this misconception that atheism's a belief system , a community, have rules and regulations etc. None of this is true. To put in the words of the wise, atheism is a religion in a similar way that baldness is a hair-color or not collecting stamps is a hobby. Get it?

Now, as we understand theism and atheism to be stances of beliefs, on gnosticism and agnosticism are stances of KNOWLEDGE.

Agnosticism means one is not sure whether a higher power exists or not, or feels that it can never be proven either way, knowledge-wise. Gnosticism is just the opposite. It is very important to understand that agnosticism (and gnosticism too) is a stance of knowledge, not belief. Atheism and theism are stances of belief.

So, it is perfectly possible to be either an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. For example, agnostic atheism would denote that a person by knowledge is not sure whether a higher power exists or not (i.e agnosticism), but in matters of belief agrees that there is no higher power (i.e atheism).

Agnostic theism goes the same way.

By default, most theists/atheists are gnostic theists/atheists. After learning to know of agnosticism and gnosticism, they either choose to stay gnostic or turn agnostic. But it in no way affects their stances of belief i.e theism/atheism.

So saying agnosticism is the middle ground of atheism and theism, or that agnostics are fence-sitters, are horrible gaffes that deserve face-palms.

To learn more about agnosticism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism