HamzasDen: You’re not an atheist
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/06/14
Hamza: There’s no such thing as atheists. You’re not atheist. You’re agnostic.
Interlocutor: If you define an atheist as someone that believes that there is no God, I’m not an atheist. If you define atheist, as someone that doesn’t…
Hamza: You’re agnostic, mate. You’re agnostic. I’ll tell you what you are and I’ll demonstrate you are. Fair enough?
Interlocutor: Sure.
Hamza: So do you believe God exists?
Interlocutor: No.
Hamza: Do you say God doesn’t exist? Could God exist?
Interlocutor: Empirically, God could exist.
Hamza: So, you don’t know if God exists or not.
Interlocutor: Sure.
Hamza: So, you’re an agnostic.
Interlocutor: Does it matter?
Hamza: Because you don’t even know your position in that sense.
‘HamzasDen,’ “You’re NOT an atheist,” (2023)
One reason to avoid some of the verbal sleight of hand in public Christians or street preachers or online advocates is, as was noted by an elderly biologist long ago, the point isn’t a conversation. The point is a conversion, always remember this.
As you can note at the outset of the ‘conversation’ or ‘discourse’ with this individual, Hamza, presumably, of ‘HamzasDen,’ he doesn’t even listen to the full explanation of a first attempt at defining his view, the “interlocutor.”
He cuts the other man off and then proceeds to insert a trite, which is to say scripted, piece for dialogue. The idea is to cut the individual off rather than listen to them, learn something, present a new view.
What the man was getting at was a distinguishing between know and believe, the theist, in this man’s presentation, knows God exists and, therefore, believes God exists.
Similarly, the atheist, to Hamza, must know God doesn’t exist in order for God to be believed to not exist. It is a weirdness in the foundation stone of the conversation and sits in the rather enormous cavity behind Hamza’s mouth.
The man had a quite subtle view formulating before Hamza, like most of his ilk, chose to be obtuse and cut him off. The man seemed to formulate the subtle distinction between know, at least empirically, and believe.
The interlocutor did not believe that God exists, so was an atheist in that sense, but did not know that God does not exist in all possible ways, such as empirically. That makes a certain sense.
He could be considered an agnostic, as a tip of the hat to Hamza, in the sense of a limit to knowing in any absolute sense, but, still, did not believe God exists as no evidence existed so far, for him.
Hamza’s obtuse assumption or assertion, as he was attempting to pigeonhole the man before he could even articulate himself completely, was an omniscient stance of the atheist in either believe and know merged as one.
You have to be careful with street preachers. They’re, typically, obtuse like this. Because they have nothing better to do, apparently.
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