Richard Dawkins Highlights US Atheist’s Video on Agnostic Atheists, Agnostic Theists

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March 17, 2014|10:37 am

British atheist professor Richard Dawkins tweeted a YouTube video by an American atheist, JaclynGlenn, who argues that "agnosticism" is not a stand-alone term and that many atheists "wrongly" identify as just being agnostics. She urges them not to do so any longer.

JaclynGlenn, who is from Los Angeles, Calif., and has about 22,000 followers on Twitter, says she made the video after many religious people asked her why she doesn't say she's an agnostic. "But the thing is ... agnostic is not a position of belief," she says.

Dawkins, who's got more than 900,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted the video last week, saying, "Agnostic atheists (& agnostic theists). The stylish @JaclynGlenn's impeccable etymology will be much misunderstood."

Atheism means without "theism" or belief, JaclynGlenn explains. And agnosticism means without "gnostic" or knowledge of religion or God. "It's a position of knowledge, not of belief." Everyone should say she or he is agnostic, because you can't prove there's God, she adds.

The only people who do not identify as being agnostics are "super-Christians," she charges, adding that they think they know the answer and all the facts, but they are "flat out wrong."

"Atheism is just a lack of belief in God. We're not claiming to know that God doesn't exist. Therefore, atheists are agnostics. But if you claim that you're only agnostic, that's nothing," she tells her viewers.

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Many people think they are neither Christian nor atheist, and that's why they call themselves agnostic, she says. While that's not correct, it's still better than being a certain type of a Christian, she adds.

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Richard Dawkins Highlights US Atheist's Video on Agnostic Atheists, Agnostic Theists

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