Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Esquilax]

Not sure I worded it like that.

But the use of agnosticism, I understood, originated with Huxley. What are you referring to exactly with your "in the beginning"?

I'm referring to when Huxley coined the term, in 1869. His very first usage of it describes a rejection of spiritual knowledge, strictly speaking, that one shouldn't proclaim certainty in things that aren't demonstrably so. So, using agnosticism as it was originally intended, it's more of a descriptor of knowledge, where atheism is one of belief, as we've been saying all along. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

For the record, I have no problem with words that change from initial usage. I'm all for it. Rather what I have a problem with is the illegitimate change of meaning. For instance, when people claim the definition they like, or they see commonly is the One True Definitiontm.

So then what's a legitimate change in definition, and who determines that? You? The people the word applies to? Common usage? It seems to me you're wanting to proclaim dictionaries the arbiter of this, but you can find some dictionaries that still label atheism as a synonym of immoral, so hey.

Besides, I think you'll find that not a one of us is claiming ours to be the one true anything, and that if pressed we're actually willing to add an ag/gnostic qualifier to the front of our chosen label in the interests of being clear. This is just a question of specifics: I don't believe in a god, which makes me an atheist, and I don't claim knowledge over that, which makes me an agnostic. Bam.

By which one makes more sense.

the claim "does not believe in God/gods" is not only too vague, because it doesn't distinguish between "belief in" versus "belief in the existence of."

Atheism usually refers to the latter, while the former refers to the irreligious, and can include agnostics, deists, pantheists, etc.

Whoop! I wouldn't usually bother responding to a response for someone else, but I can see the error here really clearly: you're assuming that the "god" in "does not believe in gods," is a specific entity, and not that set of entities that religions entitle god, which isn't true. An atheist would disbelieve in your god claim, someone else's god claim, everyone's god claim equally. It's not vague, it's both of your things it can't distinguish between: you can't believe in something without believing it exists, surely?

I'll put it like this: atheists don't believe in any gods, but agnostics can, so long as they don't proclaim to know for certain; one can be an agnostic theist, too. Deists and pantheists believe in some form of god, so they're still theistic in some stripe. That's not vague at all.