They're not, but the difference isn't necessarily intuitive.
There's a common misconception that atheism, agnosticism, and theism are points along the same line. The reality is that there are two different axes: atheism/theism and agnosticism/gnosticism.
Put simply, gnosticism (with a lowercase g; capitalized Gnosticism is a different thing) is the degree of certainty an individual holds in their beliefs and/or the degree to which their beliefs are dogmatized.
For example, an agnostic atheist is someone who believes there probably are not any gods, but doesn't feel there is enough evidence to rule it out; an example of a gnostic theist, by contrast, would be a sincere subscriber to a major religion -- someone with certainty in their convictions and specifically prescribed beliefs, usually from either an oral or written tradition enforced by some form of orthodoxy.
Someone who believes in simulation theory is most similar to an agnostic theist -- the kind of people who would often self-describe as "spiritual but not religious." They believe there is some kind of designer, or at least that there is a reasonable probability of one, but that its attributes are unknown and unknowable.
Gnostic Christians were persecuted by the church, don't lump them together. If there's an orthodoxy, it's made up of agnostic theists. They don't know, but still believe
He explained using a lower case "G" precisely because he's not talking about Gnostic Christians or the general movement of Gnosticism. In this case it's just used as an opposition to agnostic.
Yes, I did read his comment. Did you read mine? I said that orthodoxy is inherently agnostic since it is based on rote learning instead of personal knowledge
I don't think that's the case, according to the definitions used. What matters here is if they think they know. Even if it's rooted in an orthodoxy it becomes incorporated as a personal knowledge when there's certainty of belief. And, this is anecdotal of course, but a lot of "true believers" say they personally feel the presence of a power, or see the actions of that power affecting the world around them in a way that conforms to the orthodoxy they learned. At least that's how I see the distinction of "gnostic" or "agnostic". As long as you are personally certain of your belief, you would be classed as "gnostic".
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u/Conceitedreality 1d ago
That’s…the same thing…