Funny how you can be ‘friendly’ to those christians who are properly respectful, yet demean agnostics, who usually align with and support atheist causes, with childish comments about missing anatomy. Is the Republican divisiveness re: “pro-Americans” starting to trickle down?

I agree. I expected a little more from you Hemant, than to blatantly attack agnostics like this. Does everyone HAVE to be the same label as you now? Sounds like some Christians I know.

I just spend a month in Europe and people are much less uptight about labels over there. Many just call themselves skeptic or non-religious, and that is more than good enough as Europe is beautifully secular (although that is under threat with the influx of Muslims, something that American atheists seem to ignore too much). Your “everyone must call themselves an atheist” attitude wouldn’t fly over there, nor with lots of skeptics and humanists I’ve met, and certainly not with me.

no, it’s not that I don’t have the “balls” or don’t like the word atheist. I’m very open that I lack belief with people, to the point that it’s cost me friends, so I resent the implication that agnostics are weak. I choose to call myself that because I go back and forth, sometimes I think there is something, other times I don’t. I really don’t know, and yes, one reason I won’t use the word atheist is b/c how many atheists have you met that sometimes believe in something? Not many. Some have called me a “part time atheist” but this is essentially an agnostic. Also, there are some atheists that go around saying “there is no higher power of any kind” like they know for sure, and no, I don’t want to be associated with that b/c I don’t know either way and I’m not arrogant enough to say I do. Yes, this is arrogance. I am sort of a pantheistic agnostic, I go back and forth between pantheism and agnosticism, yes, agnosticism, not atheism. The words “skeptic” or “non-religious” sometimes apply better to me.

I have to say I really am surprised at how strident your post is. There are non-religious who are NOT atheists and we’re getting a little sick of atheists trying to force us to label ourselves as atheists. We might be more involved if things weren’t so “atheist centered” in skeptic circles in this country. The skeptic societies in Europe are great-if you’re non-religious, you’re welcome, atheist, agnostic, humanist, pantheist, whatever, no exclusions. How would you like if I told you have to call yourself an agnostic or else you have no guts? I’ve met many Humanists who feel this way as well. Next are you going to say Humanists are chicken shit atheists too? Seriously, isn’t it enough for you for people to just be non-religious and skeptical? Does everyone HAVE to be the same label as you? Tsk tsk. No one has the right to tell us we have to call ourselves something that we are not. Period.

belief = “confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof”

This undermines your position once again. According to the definition, *not* holding a belief would mean “*not* being confident in the truth or existence of something…” Thus, I can say that I am not confident that God exists, and I am also not confident that God does not exist. This is consistent with the definition of atheism, and still does not espouse any certainty.

Thus, if I say:
“I’m not confident that God exists” =
“I do not believe that God exists” =
Atheism
(According to your definition)

It does not entail that I must be confident that God does not exist.

Look up the definition of “belief” in your dictionary. It should say something like this:
confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof

A belief is not something you think is just the most likely scenario. It is something you accept as true. “Theist or atheist” is a false dichotomy because it assumes that you either believe God exists or else you believe He does not (for the sake of brevity I’m just talking about the Judeo-Christian God). The undecided middle ground needs a different term. That’s where agnosticism comes in.

f I say that I disbelieve something, that does not mean that I must also believe the opposite. I can say that I disbelieve that God exists, and I disbelieve that God does not exist. It’s a perfectly rational position to hold (equivalent to uncertainty).

Okay, then let’s try this again:
dis·be·lieve
verb
1. to have no belief in; refuse or reject belief in

Disbelief is the opposite of belief. It is a denial of existence or veracity. If you say you don’t believe God exists, you can’t turn around and say you don’t not believe God exists. Well, I suppose you could say that, but aside from the fact that this is a double negative, you’re cancelling out your disbelief. You can say you haven’t made up your mind either way, and that is agnosticism. Atheism is not the state of having no belief, it is defined as the state of having a belief that God does not exist.

I did read many of the posts above, but not all of them. All I saw was a lot of people saying things like “I define X as…”. Well, I just thought I’d point out that the words have actual definitions, regardless of how you choose to define it personally.

Now, if you want to argue that the definition needs to be updated, I’m all ears. Technically, the latin roots of the word “atheism” literally means “without religion.” That could certainly be a broader definition of anyone that doesn’t choose to worship a god or gods. Perhaps those who don’t believe god exists should call themselves adeists.

atheism -ee-iz-zum N
the belief that there is no God
Greek a- without + theos god
atheist n

agnostic N
1 a person who believes that it is impossible to know whether God exists
2 a person who claims that the answer to some specific question cannot be known with certainty ADJ
of or relating to agnostics
a- + gnostic having knowledge
agnosticism n

I do not believe in gods of any kind. I do not believe in fairies or ghosts or leprechauns. I do not believe in magic or the power of wishes. Any of these things might exist, I cannot prove otherwise, their lack of existence is no certain. I simply do not believe in them.

Far from being certain atheism is simply the statement of an opinion. I can hold an opinion without absolute certainty. In fact I think that it is important to reserve at least some judgement in case some new evidence come to light. Agnosticism simply affirms that ability to never be absolutely sure.

As for why atheists don’t call themselves agnostic I think it is simply down to expediency. Why state an opinion and then introduce an element of doubt into it? It’s like saying “I’m an atheist but I’m not really sure”. Isn’t it difficult enough already without weakening our position at the outset?

disbelieves != certainty

If I say that I disbelieve something, that does not mean that I must also believe the opposite. I can say that I disbelieve that God exists, and I disbelieve that God does not exist. It’s a perfectly rational position to hold (equivalent to uncertainty). You can’t stick to a dictionary definition of atheism, and then use a colloquial meaning for a term in the definition: “belief”. In colloquial terms, one wouldn’t normally say they don’t believe X and not X, but according to a strict definition, that is what uncertainty is.

Perhaps you should read some of the earlier posts before commenting, or actually consider the meaning of what you copied from the dictionary, which is detrimental, rather than supportive, of your position…

a·the·ist
noun
1. a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

ag·nos·tic
n.
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

There is a very distinct difference between the two words. Atheism is defined as a position of absolute certainty. I never understand when people who claim to be skeptics can also call themselves atheists, then go on to admit that the existence of a god can not be proved or disproved.

The question, in my mind, is why don’t more atheists call themselves agnostic?

Whether or not there is a god or god-like beings somewhere is not knowable – by definition, they are beyond science’s ability to detect or deny. So I am agnostic in that I cannot know for absolute certain one way or another.

However, I am also atheistic in that I do not believe there is a personal god (or, more properly, adeistic, in that I do not believe there are any gods).

So, most completely, I call myself an agnostic atheist (“adeist” not being common enough to do anything but confuse people). I cannot prove there are no gods, but I do not believe they exist.

Why all the quibbling over what a person chooses to call him/herself?

Your point about using whatever terms help you to get through your day with the least hassle I can easily understand, but look at the fact that several of your reasons have to do with mitigating or avoiding the lack of acceptance or understanding from people around you. It illustrates the problem:

I think the quibbling is because we often have spent many years feeling isolated with few if any friends who share our views, feeling that we are at risk in a hostile environment, and frustrated by being defined and described by people who do not understand us at all. Many of us yearn for some kind of fellowship and it can be doubly frustrating when we find people who seem to share our views but who disagree over what identifying label we can share. Isolated and misunderstood again.

You might have noticed that the posts on this site that are about definitions of atheism and agnosticism, or the threads that go off on that discussion are among the longest, collecting well over a hundred comments in the first couple of days.

We-Who-Do-Not-Fit-In, if we can be called “a people” at all, are a people in search of a definition that is ours, not somebody else’s, but we often have little in common other than our shared hurt at the hands of Those-Who-Fit-In. So we struggle with our natural independence and individuality, united only by what we are not. I think that is what makes us so picky about definitions and eager to finally find some kind of agreement at least about our name.

I have no idea if we ever will.

If I want to call myself agnostic because I don’t care for the social stigma attached to the atheist label, if it’s more psychologically comforting to call myself one than another, if I want to suspend personal judgment pending further data, if I want to soften the blow when delivering the news to my very devout family members, then as long as I’m not behaving in a condescending manner to those who choose to adopt the atheist label, why all the outrage over the preferred label of one non-theist or another?

If I want to adopt a label that’s easier for me to reconcile with a philosophy of, hey, if you have faith I don’t think less of you, if you don’t that’s cool too, why does that automatically make me cowardly, condescending and self-righteous? That’s quite a tall order to be leveling at an entire group of people.