Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency

[bennyboy]

That's fair enough. I guess if atheism is described as lack of belief and lack of disbelief, i see no difference between that and agnosticism, or even apathy.

I'm with you on this one. By their definition, my beagle is an atheist. So's my big toenail.

The problem, though, is that "-ism" is usually used to describe a deliberate position or system of thought, and an "-ist" is usually used to describe someone who holds that position or adheres to that system of thought.

I will almost certainly spawn about 20 pages of hate mail and 2-axis diagrams, when I say that the answer to "Do you believe God exists?" should be found among the following:

1) Yes. (theist)
2) No. (atheist)
3) I don't know. (agnostic)
4) Please define God so I can answer. (ignostic)
5) I don't care, because what has He done for me lately? (apatheist)

In order to title myself as "atheist" in a general philosophical sense, I'd have to believe that nothing that could be called God exists, something which I cannot do. To refer to myself as "atheist" in a Christian community, I'd have to believe that the Christian God as described in the Bible doesn't exist-- that which I can extremely easily do, since it's a largely incoherent collection of impressions by various writers.

I'd say I'm agnostic when thinking about God on my own, ignostic when talking about God in general, and hard atheist when talking about any well-defined specific God idea (Christian God, Thor, etc.)