Hi, an agnostic here ... just agnostic.

[Jesster]

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.

Rofl, that's exactly how the word is formed. It has nothing to do with what existed in ancient Greek times or when exactly the word was fully formed. It was formed out of Greek word parts that we have strict definitions for.

"Atheos" before the "ist" was added is not just one word part. It is "A-" and "theos". Like that, it just means "without god". "A-" "The" and "-Ist" all together means "without belief in god". Do you understand how Greek word parts work?

It doesn't matter what Huxley said the full word "agnostic" meant, either, because that just means he misused the Greek word origins. It doesn't matter how certain strong atheists defined atheism, either, because that just means they were also misusing Greek word origins.

But please continue quoting Huxley, Smith, and Flew. I care so much.

You'll be fun here