Exactly which definition of the terms “Atheist” “Agnostic” “Theist” are we using around here?
It seems like we should have a thread to make it clear so that the semantics issue can be resolved and stop wasting thread space. It’s rather annoying to have so much space used to discuss the definition of a word.
Since most dictionaries offer twists on the same definition for each word (some mild, some rather large), the dictionary can’t be our objective source in this case…so perhaps word roots should be what we go with? I dunno, but really, it needs to stop. I propose that this thread be either used to come up with a fairly objective definition of each word (At least one that can be the default usage of the word when it comes up around here)…or else to just bicker about semantics in one thread instead of more than one.
It is a pain reading through a very long reply only to find out that they are only disagreeing with a semantic or reduce the whole thread into name calling, insults and arrogance from both camps. It is just stupid and it does not help proving if such a reality in question exist or not.
Oh Hi I believe that Jesus is God! Therefore I am a theist!
Do you believe in Shiva?
No.
Well you are an atheist then.
Stupid discussion and silly logical traps will bring us nowhere right?
I agree 100%, but who’s going to enforce it. The first target of anarchists is the definition of words, and the first word they undermine is anarchism. Unfortunately, they’ve been pretty successful.
I’m a deist, and though that also makes me a theist, by some illogical form of convention, deism is not considered a form of theism by most theists, atheists or even deists. You can e’splain this, but how can you reach and convince everybody to reverse the convention?
We could have an ILP standard, but if past experience is any indication, it draws all the anarchists out of the woodwork so even that won’t work. To wit:
I propose the following ILP official definitions for use in this forum.
knowledge–possession of objective facts or objective truth (not whether or not it’s possible, it’s only the definition) belief–attitude based on some degree of evidence and/or feeling that is short of knowledge God–a supernatural superior being to which omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence etc. may or may not be attributed god–one’s high, or highest, personal ideal, objective or object of veneration agnostic–belief that we don’t know whether God exists or not strong agnostic–belief that we can’t know whether God exists or not theist–someone who believes that God exists strong theist–someone who claims certain knowledge that God exists atheist–someone who does not believe that God exists strong atheist–someone who claims certain knowledge that God does not exist objective truth–universal immutable facts, whether they are known, perceived or neither subjective truth–individual, malleable attitudes that determine individual reality truth–the ultimate reality being the unity of objective truth, if it exists, with subjective truth
We’ve been through this so many times now… it’s almost scary…
The definitions I use are as follows…
Atheist: Someone who is not a theist
Gnostic: someone who claims to have certain knowledge of God’s existence
Agnostic: Someone who claims ignorance about the existence of god… either on behalf of him/herself or on behalf of everyone.
Theist: Someone who believes in a god or gods.
I’m an agnostic atheist…people can be agnostic theists too…
They can also be gnostic atheists… or gnostic theists…
the mistake that is often made is when people just say “i’m agnostic”… usually they maen “agnostic atheist”… but that dosn’t necissarily follow at all…
The problem is that what you are asking is to fit people to the box instead of fitting the box to the people. Guess what? It ain’t going to happen. Generalities can be acheived, but the specifics inside a post are experience derived, and no one has the same experience. Better to become resigned to to the difficulties. For all the power of our words, language leaves much to be desired…
I don’t much care what anyone calls themselves, I just evaluate what they say about being one of those, as compared to not being one, or being something else. Whatever it is.