semantics, cultural-identity, ignosticismLooking at ignosticism from a practical point of view, and by the function of semantic arguments, what is the difference between ignosticism and atheism?
Thisistheid brought up whether it is on-topic or germane to a discussion about atheism, so for those of us unfamiliar with the term:
[Ignosticism] can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God:
- The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term “God” is considered meaningless.
- The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking “What is meant by ‘God’?” before proclaiming the original question “Does God exist?” as meaningless.
Practically » If, collectively, the shared trait among atheists is that they don’t [happen to] believe in [god]; in practice is this generally a different claim than the ignostic claiming no acceptable definition of [god] has been offered, or no object of the type “God” has been acceptable as an example of the [god concept]?
Semantically » Do both groups hold that the phrase “Does God exist?” is meaningless in the same way?
Given the nature of discussions on the meaning of "god" on this forum and the definition of atheism, I'm going to disagree with the view that most atheists think the definition of god is meaningless. See here, here, or here for examples of what I mean.
I think that this is an issue that fundamentally interacts with how people treat others with regards to their theological stances.
For example, there was much vituperative commentary here, which hinged heavily on this issue, of whether atheists need to define what god is in order to reject this idea.
Being ignostic or theologically noncognitivist might be the intellectual high-ground, but it seems that taking such a stance actually serves to falsely rile people up regarding the nature and substance of atheism in a way that it need not. Nonetheless, because atheism does not claim that the concept of god is meaningless but that it is a profession of the disbelief in god, then atheism and ignosticism are actually quite different semantically.
Nonetheless, I think that in practice making this distinction not in discussion with other atheists, but instead with theists could actually be very helpful, even if this property hasn't yet manifested.
For example, if you make the claim that you don't know what this "god" thing that a theist believes, this immediately puts the onus of the conversation on the theist to define what god is. This can result in two things:
If they claim god is undefinable, then you can say that you believe in blicket which is also undefinable, does that make you a religious believer in Blickianity/Blicketism/etc.?
If they start listing beliefs regarding the definition of god, there tend to be contradictions therein. You can point out these contradictions, and if they reject logic, well then you can point out the problems with that.
If they do not provide a definition which allows for a falsifiable notion of "god's" existence, then you can retreat to the ignostic position of "well that doesn't mean anything...".
If they do not have any contradictions in their features, and it is a falsifiable proposition, e.g. they merely appeal to god's sometimes intervention in the world (e.g. answer occasional prayers), at least you now know where the assumptions lie and know which issues need to be directly addressed.
If they list both undefinability and particular beliefs regarding the definition of god, that is so transparently contradictory that it almost does not warrant your time talking to the person.
In sum, by taking the position of "I don't know what god is, it's not a concept that I can use" you force the theists' hand to clarify the argument. This often results in much more productive discussion than the sorts of shouting matches that can otherwise occur.
The term “god” is meaningless. It is applied to supernatural beings in such an arbitrary way that it is impossible to come up with a definition of the term that isn’t, itself, subjective and prone to interpretation (ie “supernatural being of a great importance”).
Since the term “atheism” is dependent on a coherent definition of god to be meaningful, then, if there is no coherent definition of “god”, the term “atheism” is meaningless as well. Thus, an ignostic is just an atheist who realized that atheism is a meaningless term and wants to point it out by labeling himself or herself differently.
The difference is mostly semantical.
In a practical sense, there is no difference between an atheist and an ignostic. Both lack a belief in god. Ignosticism is just another brand of atheism by all practical standards.
I think you have ignostic atheists and I think PZ Myers, Steve Zara, David Stove and Jean Bricmont fit into that category. At least, that’s what I can glean from reading them.
On the other hand, atheists like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Jerry Coyne are clearly not ignostic. They certainly think there is a valid definition of God which can and should be assailed. So much is clear from Dawkins’ own “The God Delusion” and his stance that science has something to say about god. Same for Hawking, just see his recent comments about the obsolescence of god. And where Jerry is concerned, see his exchange with PZ Myers about “what would convince you there is a god?”.
Just to make a concise example, one of the central pieces of “The God Delusion” is Dawkins’ anti-design argument. He shows that any creator god must be more complicated than his creation. While the argument is nice, it is very clearly a non-ignostic argument. An ignostic wouldn’t even waste a word to try to refute the design argument in this way. Of course, because the argument implies that you ascribe meaning to god in some way, which is contrary to the ignostic position. In fact, Bricmont argues against Dawkins and Hawking in the text I linked above in exactly this way.
I think the difference generally lies in falsifiability and I have tried to use the similar arguments in this post:
If I say there's no God and make this assertion falsifiable, someone could provide me something that I deny (God) and the assertion "There's no God/deities/supernatural beings" automatically becomes false (while staying falsifiable): "There IS supernatural being".
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I guess scientists rarely operate on unverifiable (unfalsifiable) subjects. If there's something that can be either true or wrong, but unfalsifiable — you can neither prove it nor falsify, — there's no practical meaning to "research" it.
Dealing with unfalsifiable is impractical, because it's not associated with practice and experiment at all.
This is a nice question, and made me remember that R. Dawkins in his book "The God Delusion" gave a few explanations of the supernatural and God, but as far as I remember none of them had to do with falsifiability, at least explicitly.
Because anything supernatural can be outside of our solar system in the infinite Universe, we're unable to refute its existence, but rather by being ignostic we can test falsifiable hypotheses and theories and attempt to explain the Universe, as, for instance, S. Hawking does, and this is practical and useful research for us.
I also think, that for many scientists the term ignostic would be more appropriate, than the atheist, because most of them don't even think of religion/god/supernatural; they can hardly be named active atheists.
For most practical purposes, there is little difference between an atheist and an ignostic.
As a self-defined ignostic, I take the view that ignosticism takes religion as a whole, whereas atheism by definition is a lack of belief in any deity or deities.
Although the majority of atheists seem to take a skeptical view of reincarnation, souls, ghosts, prayer, and any of a thousand other spiritual beliefs, they are not specifically applicable to the core definition.
As an example, most Buddhists do not believe in a ‘god’ by their own definition, but most will espouse a belief in reincarnation, spiritual ascension, and/ or an afterlife. Buddhists could be generally defined as atheists, but not ignostic toward other ill-defined, unfalsifiable theological concepts.
There are four ways to answer the "Does [god] exist?" question:
Yes (with varying degrees of certainty): theism
Theists believe that [god] exists.
No (with varying degrees of certainty): atheism
Atheists do not believe that [god] exists.
I don't know: agnosticism
Agnostics believe that there is no acceptable answer to the question.
Mu (無): ignosticism
Ignostics believe that the question is not acceptable. "Mu" is an answer that un-asks the question.
So, functionally speaking an ignostic can be quite similar to an atheist, except in debates. In fact, ignostics do not believe that [god] exists, but take this a step further. So for example:
In other words - an ignostic thinks that it is impossible to give a meaningful definition for the word "[god]" (or for that matter for the verb "to exist") in that context. So the question is not only unanswerable, not only false, but completely un-askable. It's gibberish.
On the other hand, the position reverts to atheism if a possible definition of [god] is agreed on. For example, the ignostic doesn't say that the question is unanswerable given a definition of [god] and "to exist": if by [god] one means "rainbows" and by "to exist" one means can be seen by me with my naked eyes, then they would say that that particular "[god]" exists; if by [god] one means "the old man with a beard" of classical christianity, then they would say that that particular "[god]" does not exist.
The actual fact is that theists are completely "allergic" to properly define [god] and an ignostic refuses to play a cat and mouse game and argue against an ever-shifting definition.
The point of contact between atheists and ignostics is the following: to argue about [god], atheists have to define the kind of god they argue against. For example, Dawkins argues against a particular "personal God" in his book "The God delusion". An ignostic would not have a problem with that - except maybe finding the argument a bit naive because it's open to accusations of being tainted by a straw-man fallacy. A Christian would simply answer that God transcends the definitions that Dawkins has given and proceed to completely dismiss the argument from that.
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