Since the issue of what it means to be agnostic/atheist/theist etc has come up a few times recently and the issue of two different hypothesis on how many theists would identify as holding a positive knowledge position I thought I'd do this poll.

Agnostic atheist, but I am always a bit uncomfortable with the word agnosticism because some people like to think of it relatively like the standard twoplustwo joke "its one or the other, so the odds are 50 50". So I like to make sure I give a few examples of Martian tea pots, or dive into the need for an inductive basis in epistemology, or talk about the definitional/linguistic problems in the god concept, etc.

Do the two theists that voted for option 1 know what 'know' means?

I'm pretty sure they know what they mean, but whether that's what you or OP think it means is up in the air. After all, the sheer question of knowing is already a highly complex subject:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

There are different senses and different standards and different levels of ability to measure it (physicists now "know" that Higgs exists within 5 sigma -- but most of the things we "know" are not quantifiable in this way).

Since OP didn't define his sense of knowing for this thread, it's left up to the voters to decide what sense they mean when they see it.

Agreed. The question of how we can know something, or to what level of justification we require, or whether we can really know anything at all is certainly interesting, but I would think OP's definition would fall within a certain level of practicality. The justification required for 'knowing' God's existence would be something like 'knowing' Barack Obama is a real person, or perhaps slightly less justification is needed, like 'knowing' the Holocaust occurred.

A course in epistemology is not required to answer the poll question as long as everyone's perception of what it means 'to know' is self-consistent.

I did not vote because of the "know" definition.

By "know" do you mean:

a. that I have evidence that is externally available to all such that I should be able to convince others to also agree or

b. I have sufficient evidence internally to make an affirmative statement even though I acknowledge that I cannot demonstrate knowledge to others.

For the record, if the definition of God is taken broadly your Martian tea pots are not very useful as an argument to establish a probability.

I pretty much reject a) as being a working definition of "know". For example, I know I stroked my cat at 3pm this afternoon but I can't prove it externally.

Just goes to show you theists are generally more closed minded. You kind of have to be closed minded to believe in a personal god in this millennium.

I disagree, but I understand how you might think that.

OK, given your clarification I have voted.

Would you mind running through your reasoning here? Given earlier discussions I would of given anyone odds that you were agnostic, so I'm a bit flummoxed.

Answering this is a bit tricky for me as I'm a contextualist about knowledge, and my understanding of "god" is perhaps a bit non-standard, but voting for gnostic atheism gives a bit more variety to the answers.

'Knew' it was you before I saw this post.

It seems that just about everyone in the world has a different meaning for the word god. This is too much choice so personally the word god has no meaning to me, hence atheist also has no meaning. So have no meaing for your first four options.

Well, ofc. If someone wants to call God a ham sandwich, then call me a gnostic theist.

I would think that requiring "self-consistency" only would make the poll meaningless, and that "others-consistency" gives everyone a common platform to begin discussion.

On the other hand, there's no harm in a meaningless poll if it is able to foster meaningful discussion.

Oh, the irony!

I voted Gnostic Atheist. Simply because I'm not going to entertain a .0001 possibility that I'm wrong as evidence that I don't know something.

It's a poll about self-identification, not about epistemological methodology.

If people here want to get into discussion on the nature of knowledge then the poll question won't help, but my stated intention is to demonstrate the variety of belief/knowledge positions that can fall under the umbrellas of theist/atheist

I voted agnostic theist.

Agnostic Atheist. I do not believe in the God of any religion that I've ever heard of but I leave a fair amount of room for the possible existence of a God of a different sort.

Well, I am probably a little uncertain about the definition of "to know" and I could easily have put myself in the agnostic theist category if that definition were changed somewhat.

For me, the issue is "doubt". I probably drift a little on that point but my mindset at present is that I do not feel significant doubt that there is a God. As long as it is clear that I am not claiming a proof or that I know the nature of God, then I have no problem with my vote.

really? I thought you were atheist. I thought better of you. jk obv.

I voted for agnostic atheist.

Based on "reasonable assumptions about things", theism seems ridiculous. But the reason I doubt my atheistic beliefs is because I am a skeptic about truth, understanding, knowledge, and meaning. Moreover, I am at a stage where I am open to all beliefs.

Most people arguing for atheism claim that "the burden of proof is on the person making the claim". How valid is this statement (and why)? Related question (might deserve a new thread): Can we have meaning without logic?

My skepticism prevails over my atheistic beliefs and whilst - if I had to choose between theism and atheism I would choose atheism - this does not mean that I am right.

But for me, what's more important is meaning and truth.

Well, if I tell you that I jizzed in the primordial ooze in the early years of the Earth, sparking all life, you wouldn't have to disprove my claim. Hell, you can't disprove that claim. God is the same thing. This is why the burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

That also goes back to why I consider myself a gnostic atheist. Because the likelihood of a god and my prior story are equally likely. A majority of people would say they know I didn't create all life, yet of that same majority a very small minority would claim that know that god doesn't exist.

It would be ironic if you had reason to say I was more closed minded than the group I was talking about, which I don't. It's perfectly reasonable to say theists are more closed minded because a much higher precentage of them "know" their god exists than atheists know a god doesn't exist.

You're just saying it's ironic because you have no real argument or you're just trolling.