Wherein I post flame-bait to get comments. And then sabotage it with this title.

[theweaselking]

So, demiurgent posted a paean to the superiority of his beliefs to everyone else's, by virtue of arguing that "bald" is a hair colour, "silence" is a language, and "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.

So, I figured I'd take ten minutes and define the terms, as they are required to be defined for a useful discussion that leaves you able to adequately describe any position.

Theist: One with a positive, active belief in the existence of one or more culturally postulated supernatural beings[1].
Atheist: a-theist. Non-theist. One who is not a theist. By extension, then, it is one who lacks any positive belief in the existence of any god(s).
Agnostic: A-Gnostic - without knowledge. One who professes that they do not know, or that the answer cannot be known.
Apatheist[2]: One who really doesn't care about any of this.

With those four terms, you can correctly describe any religious position. By preference, I'd use "Gnostic" rather than simply leaving the possibility as "not Agnostic", but that one's already used. In fact, I'd even rather separate Agnostic out into separate terms for "I don't know" versus "The answer cannot be known". Then I could make, like, an awesome chart. But that's not the point.

Yes, this does mean that you can be more than one at once, except for the two that actively contradict each other. For example, take myself: I'm an atheist, because I don't believe in any gods, because there's not the slightest shred of evidence that any of them exist any more than any other. I'm an agnostic by the second definition, in that I feel the existence of gods who *don't* have evidence of existence is unknowable[3], and, by extension, irrelevant. And I'm *not* an apatheist, because this kind of thing pisses me off.

[1]: commonly referred to as "god or gods". This phrasing just lets you include things like Buddha on the list, for the benefit People Who Like Playing Mr Smart Dick.
[2]: A funny term, but a seriously useful one for categorising that subsection of beliefs.
[3]: Seriously, literally unknowable. With gods, you either need to provide positive evidence of existence, or accept that the existence or nonexistence of your god is totally irrelevant to everyone and everything.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

With those four terms, you can correctly describe any religious position.

I like your terms...but, and this is where I always get tripped up, does the negative belief in the existence of any gods deserve its own place, or is that effectively equal to atheism?

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

...or, on reflection, would that be equivalent to atheism without agnosticism?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's covered under atheism, in the same way that rabid My God Is The Only God monotheism and fluffy Gods Are Everywhere And Can Be Anything You Want paganism are both theistic positions.

I didn't say *sufficiently* describe any position. However, there is no religious position I'm aware of that can't be covered by those terms, which is something you can't get when you redefine atheism to be a belief structure.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I generally agree with your definitions, and do with there was a way to split the two major Agnostic groups.

Although the "cannot know" group kinda pisses me off, because if there is no way of knowing the matter is irrelevant anyways.

Like the fucking creos who fall back on Last-Tuesdayism. If God can just make, for example, fossils in all ways seem millions of years old but have them actually thousands of years old, it doesn't matter, because for all-intents-and-purposes they're millions of years old. Also, it means God's a dick, but the Bible tells us that.

/rant

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Although the "cannot know" group kinda pisses me off, because if there is no way of knowing the matter is irrelevant anyways.

Really? Interesting. I see that as the intrinsic value of the "cannot know" position, that you are essentially telling someone that their deeply held and cherished preconceptions are without basis in evidence and therefore completely silly and strange to me, er, to someone who "cannot know." ;-)

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Would "a-theist" not more correctly refer to someone with a specific belief that no god/God/gods exist?

As you've defined these terms, all agnostics and apatheists (a word similar to one I've coined some years back, "apathists") are atheists. Is that your intent?

There are a number of non-theist belief systems which postulate non-divine supernatural phenomena and/or beings; how would you consider them?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Would "a-theist" not more correctly refer to someone with a specific belief that no god/God/gods exist?

No, because:
#1: Then you'd have no word for people who are not theists.
#2: You'd be confusing the issue.

As you've defined these terms, all agnostics and apatheists (a word similar to one I've coined some years back, "apathists") are atheists. Is that your intent?

Not true. It's entirely possible to be both a theist and an agnostic - one who isn't sure if they know the answer, or who isn't sure if the question can be answered, but believes anyway. I thought you fell into that category, actually.

And while "I don't care" doesn't seem to mesh well with belief, you could make a case for someone who believes but simply doesn't want to think about it being both a theist and apatheist. And, really, consider Christmas Christians.

There are a number of non-theist belief systems which postulate non-divine supernatural phenomena and/or beings; how would you consider them?

Depends on if we're talking UFOs or ghosts (non-theistic) versus Galactic Warlord Xenu and the spirits of your ancestors (theistic). Essentially, that's the catch of the "culturally postulated supernatural beings" term, instead of "god(s)"

[city-of-dis.livejournal.com]

Goddamn, I am sick of explaining this to people.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Hear ya.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

But I never get sick of hearing it from people.

I believe that atheism is a religion. I believe so because it's so fun to troll the adamant atheists with it.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Once more into the breach, dear friends.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Bald isn't a hair colour. It's a hair style.

[vagabond27.livejournal.com]

UR WRONG

[flemco.livejournal.com]

NO UR

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

Comment 1: Boojah.

Comment 2: while your definition of atheist is of course correct, I'd qualify it a little: one who, not only lacking any belief in a deity, positively maintains the belief that the world is devoid of deities, and/or other supernatural entities. I am an atheist because I believe (choose to believe, based on evidence, my acquaintance with religious tradition, and reasonably educated and decently thought-out common sense) that there are no gods, ghosts, fairy godmothers or immaterial souls; that matter in and of itself is cool enough to reaslise the abundant coolness of which the universe seems to be pretty well chock full; that none of this is in any way degrading to the dignity of anything, but rather elevates the very basic to the level of coolness reserved by theists for the immortal soul. Rock on, matter, whatever you are.

In the same way, I believe (choose to believe, based on evidence, my acquaintance with the scientific tradition, and reasonably and decently thought-out common sense) that causation is a real phenomenon. Currently, it is what philosophers call 'empirically opaque', meaning that while we can observe the same type of event repeatendly following the same other type of event, there's no access to what 'makes' the first event cause the second. I think we've actually got a better chance with causation, though nothing we have can prove the objective existence of either it or gods. And there's no literature to suggest that casuation sends you to hell if you don't believe in it.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

I've often stated thusly: The universe as we know it is merely matter that has learned to play with itself.

This does not in any way lessen the joys in my life.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

one who [...] positively maintains the belief that the world is devoid of deities, and/or other supernatural entities.

No. That's sloppy terminology and sloppy thinking. There's no need to "believe in no ghosts" any more than there's a need to "believe in no Santa Claus, underpants gnomes, Tooth Fairy, or Zeus". Reducing things to the level of claiming "believe in the lack of" incorrectly cedes the validity of the question *in the first place* to the crazy people who demand that you talk to their invisible friend.

You no more "believe in a lack of gods" than you "believe in the lack of particles of Monetarium, which cause things to have value" or "believe in the lack of purple dogs who will EAT YOUR FACE if you don't spit twice a day"

As soon as you start claiming that a lack of belief is a belief in the lack, you're stuck "not believing" *every single wrong idiotic thing that anyone can imagine*, with the inevitable concomitant result that you're making a "leap of faith" in the "absence of evidence", and so you're JUST as wrong as anyone who says "Monetarium is the root of all evil" is without proof.

Fuck that.

The question itself is wrong.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Actually I think souls and computer programs are immaterial, in so far as they are simply structures of information. They do depend on matter for functioning, of course, but that is somewhat beside the point since functioning is defined in terms of matter. There is no reason why computer programs should not exist without computers, or souls without bodies, but they wouldn't be very useful.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Usually the split of Agnostics tends to be either soft agnostics ("I don't know") or hard agnostics ("It is impossible to know.") I tend to go with the former for myself.

[fearmeforiampink]

I usually think of them as agnostics (I don't know) and Agnostics (no-one knows). And while I know it's sloppy terminology, I tend to split atheists (I don't believe in god/gods) and Atheists (god/gods cannot exist)

[ambug666.livejournal.com]

Regarding apathetics. I believe that it really doesn't matter if there are supernatural beings because I do not believe that they affect our material world (and "can not" and "will not" do not matter if they *do* not). Thus I feel they are irrelevant to us -- if in fact they exist -- and thus we should not care about them. Therefore I call myself an apathetic.

By your system above, I would be a subset of agnostic. I only mention this since you and I use the same term to mean different things.

[boixboi.livejournal.com]

So, I generally kind of believe in a concept of God that lives within every person, as long as I'm stoned. The longer it has been from my last toke, the shorter I can stand to sit in religious service. Without weed I don't believe in anything. What does that make me?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No matter what you say on Ecstasy, you don't REALLY love everybody.

So when the weed is making you stupid, it doesn't count. Don't believe in anything = atheist.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

> [3]: Seriously, literally unknowable. With gods, you either need to provide
> positive evidence of existence, or accept that the existence or nonexistence
> of your god is totally irrelevant to everyone and everything.

Shouldn't that be "everyone and everything else"? I mean, the mental gymnastics required to say "I believe this thing that is important to me, I can't prove it, so this important thing doesn't matter to me" make my nose bleed.

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

You could possibly add "antitheist" for those who are zealous in their non-belief. (Or "evangelical atheist", as I saw Dawkins described at one point. Of course, then it's just a subset of the regular atheist, but I like to err on the side of over-classification.)