From PhilPapers forum PhilPapers Surveys:

2009-12-14
Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism?
Reply to Isaac Wiegman
Good definitions! But with regard to evidence, there's another possibility: One who thinks there is both very good evidence that a deity exists, and very good evidence against this. Of course on the bottom line this converges with "One who finds no conclusive evidence", but it is perhaps worth distinguishing a dearth of evidence from, so to speak, a surplus of (contradictoty) evidence. It is especially the latter that is poignantly distinct from Jim's agnostic, who holds that there can be no good evidence one way or the other (bringing us perilously close to non- verifiability) or (folowing St. Paul and many Christian theologians) that religious belief is a matter of faith, contrasted in principle with (rational/ evidence based) knowledge.