No, it's agnostic atheism. Both theists and atheists can be agnostic; agnosticism is an epistemological stance, independent of belief.
but at ANY point that there's a "well I don't know" between His "being" or "not being," that's agnosticism, regardless if they act that way all the time or simply "part of the time." there's no apex or in-between of agnosticism and atheism
if you are SURE by faith there's a God or not a God, that's WHY they are theists and atheists respectively, everything else is agnosticism simply even if there's a MODICUM of uncertainty one way or the other. this "agnostic atheism" moniker is basically a waste of breath
you can't call yourself, or even partly call yourself an atheist and at the same time say OH WELL HE MAY OR MAY NOT BE, that's bogus. you are either sure or not sure.
I've heard both of these arguments, and am unsure which to subscribe to. I tend to prefer krexia's, which paints a more complete picture for me. If we simply take any worldview that includes a modicum of doubt, about the existence of a god or about
anything for that matter, and group them all under the umbrella term of agnosticism, that doesn't tell me enough. There are plenty of things that we do not know, but we must
act on them nonetheless. So we form structures of assumptions and beliefs, upon which we act when we do not know something. If a person tells me they do not know if there is a god, I may still ask, "Yes--but do you pray to one?" More directly, do you act as if there is a god; do you think and make decisions under the assumption that there is a god? These structures of assumptions and beliefs are what I'm looking for in the terms theism and atheism, not simply whether a person is sure or unsure on the existence of god. How else do I distinguish between the agnostic who acts on the assumption that there is a god and the agnostic who acts as though there were none?
This isn't a side-issue -- it's directly tied to the opening question of the thread, "How would you feel if you learned that God did exist?" This eliminates from our consciousness agnosticism of any description, and I don't think enough thought has been given to how completely we would have to restructure the world from a model that is, I would argue, predominately agnostic. Semper Sanctum suggests this in his own post:
That it would forever interrupt the course of human events and change life on Earth irrevocably. Sadly, I am no prophet, so I can't say whether that would be good or bad.
Anyone who is not a theist by wu tang goku's description of the term, already knowing that there is a god, would find their universe changed in some way. Just crossing our arms and looking the other way, as some have suggested, would not cut it; and it probably would not be so simple as embracing a long-lost father either. As for questions we might ask of god, I cannot imagine we would receive answers any more satisfying than those which Job in the Tanakh/Old Testament received: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand" (Job 38:4). It would be left to us to refigure our place in the universe, to find new ways to pose the questions of free will, human suffering, and morality. But most importantly, we would no longer have the freedom of interpretation to decide whether or not to include god into our reckoning--all philosophy, religion, and science would have to include and answer to the immanent knowledge of god's existence.
We have done this before--Medieval Christian and Jewish scholars were incredibly intricate thinkers in structuring all of these into a complete model of god and the universe. But I think even the theistically-inclined of us today are far removed from this level of integration. A lot of new thought has been developed and entered into our model of the universe since Nietzsche's pronouncement in 1882,
The Gay Science, that "God is dead;" we would have to adapt or abandon much of this. And it is not only the explicitly atheistic--the agnostic as well, all the suppositions built out of our uncertainty of the existence of a god. We would not be able at this point to move directly back into a medieval mindset; but we could not keep our own. I think mankind would have a very difficult time reconciling itself to the knowledge of god's existence.
Depends on the god. If it's the NT God, bullet dodged. If it's the OT God, we are all so fluffed. If it's Odin, then vikings.
Wow. Somehow I had never considered this. The last part, at least.