He's talking about Ricky Gervais

I've always had trouble splitting up the ideas of agnosticism and atheism. You inspired me to dig a little into the definitions. Agnostic as a word looks like an adjective in "agnostic atheist" but after reading up on agnostic, agnostic atheist, and atheist, they feel like different points on a spectrum and "agnostic atheist" is a name for one of those points/philosophies instead of being a clear modifier of atheist.

I'd even go so far as to argue against your point about agnosticism not being about belief; it's the belief that we do not and cannot know about the existence of God and consequently do not believe or disbelieve in god. An agnostic atheist doesn't believe we can know about the existence of God but also believes God does not exist.

Even after typing all of this I feel like I'm splitting hairs on the definition of belief. The only thing I'm confident about is that the terms "agnostic" and "gnostic" are too fluid for easy discussion. Even gnostic vs Gnostic (capital G) don't mean the same thing.

Have we come full circle? Are we back in 2012 Reddit?

I don’t believe I was in this particular manner. I didn’t realize there was a difference but as far as I’m aware my concepts still check out.

You are talking about Gnosticism, not gnosticism.

Not quite. Gnosis implies knowledge of god or spiritual matters. Divine knowledge.

Doesn't gnostic basically mean "to know" and agnostic mean "to not know"?

So a gnostic atheist is someone that claims to know there isn't a god and isn't religious while an agnostic atheist is someone that doesn't claim to know that there isn't a god and also isn't religious.

I suppose I am wrong in that respect.

> Gnostic atheism is an oxymoron.

Is it? I thought some versions of Japanese Shinto are considered godless (atheistic), but there's a belief in supernatural beings or spirits that reside in otherwise inanimate objects.

He's definitely talking about anti-theists. I'm an atheist and I couldn't care less which religion other people follow.

OK Fair dos. I was under the impression Gnosticism was about being sure in whatever beliefs you had, I didn't realise it was specific to religious beliefs

I don’t think you understand the concept of Gnosticism if you believe a person can be a gnostic atheist. Gnostic atheism is an oxymoron.

I love David Mitchell, but I don't agree with him here. Agnosticism is not some sort of middle ground between belief and atheism. It's a claim about knowledge, not belief. You can be an agnostic atheist (in fact, most atheists are): someone who doesn't believe that there's a god, but doesn't claim that they know with certainty that god doesn't exist.

Also, yeah, other -isms have caused atrocities. The real problem here is dogma, and political movements can be pretty dogmatic too. But the thing with big organized religions is that they have an innate and strong tendency to default on dogma, because one of their core tenets is the idea of belief based on faith alone, even when (especially when) you have no evidence of a claim being true. And believing on principle that you must be right, and not allowing for re-examining or second guessing when new evidence arises is dogmatic by definition.

Sounds like he is taking about anti-theists not atheists.

And it's a bit of a straw man to say atheists would only want to stop people being religious because of the killings done in the name of those religions.

There are plenty of other immoral things that are being done in the name of religions that would point towards religious dogmatic teachings being a bad idea in general, and there are better ways to educate those people than telling them from birth that religious texts, religious leaders, your elders, your ancestors etc... have all the right answers and they should have complete control over how you live your life.

I do want to comment that killing in the name of religious belief is what really bothers me. Its not that communism, or fascism involves a god....but it involves commitment to an ideology with religious fervor in the righteousness of the cause.

I don't think a believer in god is inherently a large cause for killing, but religious devotion to an ideology is.

This implies agnosticism and atheism are incompatible. You can be an agnostic atheist or a Gnostic atheist or an agnostic Christian or a Gnostic Christian. Agnosticism is more rational than Gnosticism but I don't think it's an alternative to atheism. He's right about the killings though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLLQFLXz6VE

big bill's hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZuN0xXWLc&ab_channel=pud

Flaccid. Erect. Flaccid. Erect.

"I like it going up and down." Jesus. The girl clearly wants to fuck his brains out but he is too slow to figure it out.

"Can we go now?"

Dude can't drive while his girl rolls the window up and down.

No capriciosa, but.

Skase got that.

And a shitload of hot chips.

He would if there was a Chicko Roll in the glovebox.

Barge Arse wouldn’t be seen dead in a Mini.