The recent surge of belief-questioning in the US has caused all kinds of semantic debates, with the most important one being, IMO, about the definitions of atheism, agnosticism, and theism (although, I've never seen a debate including the definition of the word "theism" unless it's been related to the latter two). The definitions, for the purpose of this thread, are as follows:
Atheism- a lack of belief in a god or gods.
Agnosticism- lack of knowledge; in this case, as to whether god or gods exist.
Theism- belief in one or more gods.
Also, god or gods- creators of and rulers over the universe. Deism isn't included in this definition because I don't think a deist god is relevant to this particular conversation.
So many times, when people have found out I'm a non-believer, it's come down to a conversation about "how can you know there's no god?" And then I end up having to explain the fact that I don't claim to know. That I'm agnostic. That atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive, blah blah blah. That convo gets boring very quickly.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone in the entire world is agnostic. No one can know for sure whether a supreme creator/ruler exists. Theists usually don't tack on the word "agnostic" (although I realize the arrogance of most of their positions prevents this), and the word has become, to a lot of people, a description of a stepping stone to atheism. This is insulting! I'm going to stop using the word, because it feels like I'm apologizing for something every time I do. Maybe it seems counterintuitive, but I'm sick of suffering people who aren't paying attention. If someone thinks I'm arrogant enough to know, they're just projecting. I don't want to engage with them anyway.
/rant.
Atheism- a lack of belief in a god or gods.
Agnosticism- lack of knowledge; in this case, as to whether god or gods exist.
Theism- belief in one or more gods.
Also, god or gods- creators of and rulers over the universe. Deism isn't included in this definition because I don't think a deist god is relevant to this particular conversation.
So many times, when people have found out I'm a non-believer, it's come down to a conversation about "how can you know there's no god?" And then I end up having to explain the fact that I don't claim to know. That I'm agnostic. That atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive, blah blah blah. That convo gets boring very quickly.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone in the entire world is agnostic. No one can know for sure whether a supreme creator/ruler exists. Theists usually don't tack on the word "agnostic" (although I realize the arrogance of most of their positions prevents this), and the word has become, to a lot of people, a description of a stepping stone to atheism. This is insulting! I'm going to stop using the word, because it feels like I'm apologizing for something every time I do. Maybe it seems counterintuitive, but I'm sick of suffering people who aren't paying attention. If someone thinks I'm arrogant enough to know, they're just projecting. I don't want to engage with them anyway.
/rant.
