Hi, an agnostic here ... just agnostic.

[TheHuxleyAgnostic]

Fine, fine. I will break the words down for you. We'll go legitimately original here.


a- is a prefix that means "not" or "without"

theism derives from Greek "theos", which means god. It's used now to denote a belief in a god or gods.

gnostic, in ancient Greek, means "having knowledge"

So "atheist" means "without belief in a god or gods" and "agnostic" means "without knowledge"


Huxley is not the originator of any of that. He just used some of that in his own way in a time when other people did not. But sure, go ahead and use that if you want. 

Rofl. That's not how the word "atheist" was put together. 

16th century: "Atheos", in full, was taken from the ancient Greek, and an "ist" (someone who believes) suffix was added. 
17th century: "Theos" was taken from ancient Greek, and an "ist" (someone who believes) suffix was added. There was no freaking word "theist" to attach an "a" prefix to, for almost 100 years. 

The ancient Greeks didn't have the word "agnostic", either. You're rewriting history. 

19th century: Huxley puts together "agnostic" and "agnosticism", and defines his terms. 

20th century: The likes of George H Smith (implicit, explicit, weak, strong, a-theism) and Antony Flew (negative and positive a-theism), acknowledge the common usage, acknowledge that they're presenting new, or uncommon, definitions, and acknowledge they're hijacking the agnostic position, as they push their a-theist definitions. 

21st century: A-theists pretend their definition is the original, and rewrite history.

Here's a Sesame Street game...

Which one of these things, is not like the others, which one of these things just doesn't belong?

Polytheist = someone who believes in many gods
Polytheist =/= many theists

Pantheist = someone who believes everything is god
Pantheist =/= everything is a theist

Monotheist = someone who believes in a single god
Monotheist =/= a single theist

Zootheist = someone who believes an animal is godlike
Zootheist =/= an animal theist

Amoralist = someone who adheres to the doctrine that there are no morals
Amoralist =/= not a moralist

Abiogenist = someone who believes in abiogenesis
Abiogenist =/= not a biogenist

Atonalist = someone who creates atonal music
Atonalist =/= not a tonalist

Athe-ist = someone who believes no gods exist
Athe-ist =/= not a theist

A-theist =/= someone who believes no gods exist
A-theist = not a theist