DU religion survey

[MillennialDem]

217. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive

Or agnosticism and religion for that matter.

Just to take Christianity/Islam/Judaism as an example because they all roughly offer the same thing as far as belief goes... ie believe in God or don't believe in God.

You can be a Gnostic Christian - which means you KNOW God exists.

Or you can be an Agnostic Christian - which means you BELIEVE (or want to believe) God exists, but you don't KNOW that God exists.

You can be a Gnostic Atheist - which means you KNOW God does not exist.

You can be an Agnostic Atheist - which means you BELIEVE God does not exist, but you don't KNOW that God does not exist.

Of course, there are varying shades of gray within agnosticism.

A simpler example of this would be I would almost certainly be agnostic that I left my car keys in my purse - I believe I did but I can't be certain unless I have an explicit memory of doing so. At the same time I can be gnostic that I left my cell phone on my computer desk as we speak :p