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Overview of the Positions

by Francois Tremblay

1. Belief positions

Christian/Islamist/Jew/etc (I believe in a specific god and set of doctrines)
Theist (I believe in God)
Personal-relationship Christian (I believe in having a personal relationship with Jesus)
New Age beliefs
Buddhism/Paganism/Satanism
Atheism (I don’t believe in God)

2. Epistemic positions

Nihilism (Rejection of all or specific claims)
Religious comfort (“know-alls”, the truth of religion is unimportant since it provides emotional support)
Believer (the general position that belief is justified)
Presuppositionalist (Belief is justified because only my worldview can explain X, Y, Z)
Evidentialist (Belief is justified because of the natural/Biblical evidence that points to it)
Agnostic (There is no justified position, as a matter of principle)
Skeptic (Belief is not justified unless proportional evidence is presented)
Cynic (Belief is not justified because it is an extraordinary claim)
“Ignostic” (The issue is not worthy of epistemic discussion because theism is not falsifiable – scientific method)

3. Apologetical positions

Theistic : classical, evidential, presuppositional, reformed epistemology, post-modernist
Atheistic : positive arguments (semantic, materialist, incoherency, evidential) and negative arguments (showing how the theistic arguments are wrong and why belief is unjustified). “Strong atheism” and “weak atheism”.

4. Ontological positions

5. Science vs religion

Post-modernism and variants (neither science nor religion are valid)
Separate magisteria (Wittgenstein, science and religion speak a different language)
Consilience, non-overlapping magisteria (“no contests”, promoted by Gould, science and religion are about different things – science has nothing to say about morality)
Religious metaphor (science and religion speak about the same things, but religion is metaphorical)
Religious interpretation (science and religion speak about the same things, and when correctly interpreted religion is in accordance with science)
Religious superiority (“know-nothings”, science and religion are enemies, and religion is the right position)
Scientific superiority (science and religion are enemies, and science is the right position)

6. Atheistic reactionary positions

Tolerence (“Mother Superior” attitude, opposition to anyone’s beliefs, including Christians, should be actively discouraged)
Apathy/live-and-let-live
Anti-theist – at a small or large scale (Actively fighting against religion through personal evangelism or at an organizational/political/social level)
Collectivist opposition (religion must be wiped out in order to substitute a new political/pseudo-scientific/cultist belief system)

Last updated: 30/08/05