@widdershins With respect to Atheism, we’re saying the same thing. I’m not saying atheists can believe there were once gods, but that they’re just no longer around, therefore there are no gods. I’m saying that not believing there are such things as gods is being used in the same context as not believing in the existence of gods, which is the Encarta definition, as well as the Wikipedia definition ( well footnoted ), as well as every other source I checked, with some obscure loopholes. Anyway, not to trifle over the minutiae of the various interpretations for atheism. I think we’re on the same page.
Agnosticism is a little different. It hinges on the word “proof”, which at its core is purely subjective. By that, I mean that science doesn’t seek to “prove” ( or so they say ). Science seeks to find evidence that can be applied to ideas, hypotheses, and theories. Whether or not that evidence “proves” anything is a matter of whether or not it is deemed sufficient to justify someone’s belief in a claim. If the evidence is sufficient to justify belief in a claim, then that claim is considered proven.
From a purely skeptical perspective, no amount of evidence is sufficient. But from a less hard-line perspective, most people tend to have a threshold at which they think it is reasonable, based on the evidence, to believe a claim is true. So as I said, “proof” when not conflated with “evidence” becomes something purely subjective. For one person the evidence may be sufficient to prove a claim, while for another person, the same evidence may not be sufficient.
Given this situation, the existence of gods ( at least in a historical context ) is provable to some people, and not to others. Logically, it follows from there that if something exists within a group, it makes no difference whether everyone in the group holds a consensus about it being there. It exists regardless of those who choose to deny it.
Returning to the example of the Sun as a deity. It is entirely reasonable in my mind to believe that there is not only the physical object we call the Sun, but that there is also the case that it has been deified by others. Given that deification is the defining factor for any God, it is therefore entirely as reasonable to believe that the Sun as a God exists ( or at least existed ) for some people, and therefore its existence as a god is logically proven ( whether I personally subscribe to that belief of not ).
The only alternative is to claim that the Sun has never been deified, which seems to go against what my professors were saying. We can apply the same logic to pretty much any deity, including “living gods”, where people who are as objectively real as anyone else have been deified. But when we get into non-physical supernaturanuratal entities, the question of proof shifts from the issue of evidence for the deification of something known to be objectively real, to evidence for whatever has in the minds of believers, been deified, but is not known to be objectively real in the same way the Sun and people are. That “proof” is much more elusive, if not impossible to obtain.
I tend to resonate at least in part with your last comment. If I understand it correctly, you’re suggesting that if someone feels they are religious, then that is sufficient criteria to justify their claim to being religious. The only problem there is that we can all feel things that we believe make things a certain way, and also be wrong. So it matters, or at least IMO it should matter that there are objective baselines from which to judge particular issues.
As indicated above, with religion, the most significant of those baselines is the issue of deification. In the absence of any deification, I contend that there is very little justification for calling any belief a religion. However, some might argue that the performance of rituals, particularly in an organized communal setting, can be construed as religious. Personally however, I contend that an absence of deification makes any religion nothing more than a façade.
Here however, is where the lines get blurry again: The third entry for religion in Encarta defines religion as: “personal beliefs or values: a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by”. In the absence of a deity, would it be fair to call such strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes a façade? I’m not sure. If not, then if one’s strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes are based largely on the principles of critical thinking, then critical thinking is a religion. Something about that makes me uncomfortable. How about you?