(August 1, 2016 at 11:46 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: To be fair, we do usually have an idea of what is meant by 'God'. It's fair to go with the 'usual definition' unless they say otherwise. If they mean God as 'whatever began this iteration of the universe, even if it was a quantum vacuum fluctuation' rather than God as 'supernatural person who created the universe', they should say so because they are using a nonstandard definition. That said, the definition of 'supernatural' is problematic in itself. The real differences I run into when other people use the word 'God' isn't the basic definition, it's all the baggage they tack on in addition, which sometimes seems to be different for every believer.
I asked a perfectly reasonable question of agnostics - that they tell me whether they believe in the existence of something which they would call God themselves. I think that's a pretty good question, leaving no ambiguity, to determine whether one is a theist or an atheist.
There simply isn't a state between the two. You either believe in a god or you don't. If you don't, you're an atheist. Now you can dislike a word, but that doesn't make it wrong as a description of who you are.
