| JWeinCom said: Nobody has a certain answer on whether there is a god or not, but many people claim to have certainty one way or the other. I can definitely refer you to some Christians who claim to know this absolutely. Within the atheist community at least, the term atheist would refer to someone who does not believe there is a god, and agnostic vs agnostic would refer to how strongly they believe that claim. A person who believe in a god that does not interact with humans would generally be labeled a deist, which would be a subset of theism. I've never heard agnostic used to mean someone who believes in a god that does not interact with humans. At any rate, if the labels get in the way, the thing to do is drop them. I am not convinced that any gods exist, and I am convinced that every god presented by humans does not exist, at least as described. I would identify as an atheist generally, or an agnostic atheist, but if someone wants to label me differently, I'm not all that concerned, as long as are not trying to use that label to argue that I believe something that I don't (i.e. You're an atheist, so you're absolutely sure god doesn't exist). Whether that makes me a minority, I dunno. Everybody is going to belong to some kind of minority, but I think the term is best used to describe groups that are easily identifiable. I can pretty easily pick and choose whether or not I want specific people to know that I'm an atheist, whereas if I were black, people would most likely be able to tell by looking at me. So, it's a different thing. Again, I'm not interested in labels (technically both would be minorities), but I think there's an important difference between racial minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities, etc. |
making sense! deism is a great term actually, especially the 5th bullet
I agree agnostism is better described as a general don't know - cannot know, I even updated my post :P
I don't like labels either, individual personalities and beliefs come before labels, unfortunately we need them for the sake of communication and organized action :/
regarding absolute claims by Christians I guess it all depends on how reliable, educated and spiritual those people are, whether they interpret something as divine too easy or maybe they felt something very strongly, extremely unlikely yeah but who knows really... :/
don't mind my username, that was more than 10 years ago, I'm a different person now, amazing how people change ^_^
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