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[Girl Dancing In Orbit]

In the main page of the forum. I read the following :

What is a gnostic (strong) atheist?

Strong atheism is a position that certain types of gods definitely do not exist. An atheist may be gnostic towards the non-existence of some types of gods yet an agnostic atheist towards other types of gods.

I maybe wrong about this but I don't think that the usage of the word "gnostic" here is appropriate. Gnosticism came from Christianity, the gospel of Thomas for instance is considered to be a Gnostic text, and I personally never eared anyone use the word "gnostic" in the way of "not being agnostic". They seem to be unrelated although they obviously share some linguistic roots.

[SteveS]

I think "agnostic" was a term coined is response to the word "gnostic".  "Gnostic" implies holding certain knowledge about things, "agnostic" simply means "without this special knowledge".  At least that's my understanding.  Popular history attributes the word "agnostic" to Thomas Huxley (Darwin's Bulldog, hahaha).  Here's the wiki link that describes a lot of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

So, I'm not sure if "gnostic" is taken to mean "not an agnostic", but I think "agnostic" is definitely taken to mean "not a gnostic".

Anyway, I certainly can't recall anyone claiming they are a "gnostic atheist", but I have heard the term "strong atheist" used.

The way it is described and explained, I don't really have any objection to the definition presented on the main page.

[Smarmy Of One]

Also, isn't gnostic an actual religion? Weren't the Cathars gnostic?

I really just wanted to respond to this to take my post out of the main page index as I am tired of seeing that head shaking emoticon that I put up there.

[Whitney]

I'm not the one that came up with the term "gnostic atheist" but it does have roots in Christianity even though I doubt that's where the term originally came from.  I think its original roots are in Latin and it literally means with knowledge whereas agnostic is without knowledge.

If you Google "gnostic atheist" you will get results for usage of that term in the context in which it was used for the front page.  I would say it is a contemporary usage of a term which may not have necessarily been fitting in the past.