aneuteloi

what is the technical difference? people usually ignorantly interchange those words, and i have trouble defining my position concerning all this crap.

Secular Pinoy

You may find this article very useful for understanding the terms.

sakrilege

It is possible to fall into different categories. Someone may be a 'xian god' atheist at the same time as being a 'deist god' agnostic.

Wiploc

The words have multiple meanings; so don't wind up thinking you have the "right" definitions. And don't let other people tell you you have to use them their way.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair used "atheist" for anyone who didn't believe in god. This was right for her, because she was political. It made sense for her posture herself as representing everybody who didn't believe.

The guy who invented "agnostic" hung some weird baggage on it. If you want to be an agnostic by his definition, you have to believe that you can never learn whether there is a god, but you have to also believe that it is your life's goal to learn anyway. The word us much too useful for most people to leave restricted like that.

Bertrand Russel called himself an atheist in front of lay audiences and an agnostic in front of technical (philosopical) audiences. He didn't want the lay audiences to think he thought Jehovah was more likely than, say, Thor.

I could call myself an agnostic, but I like to call myself an atheist because it seems to me I have done more good for the world if I get someone to accept that atheists aren't necessarily evil than I would have done by getting them to accept that a mere agnostic isn't necessarily evil.

crc

zoe

I find with xtians in particular if I say I am agnostic they think I am sitting on the fence and fresh meat for a conversion. I am in NO way at all agnostic about the bible god or any of the other religions I know about. So I often go with flat out atheist it scares them more .......bahh haa haa

seebs

These words have a great deal of history and baggage, and asserting that a given meaning is "correct" and all others are "incorrect" is almost certainly futile.

There are things written in which the word "atheist" is used to refer to people who actively deny all god-concepts, there are things written where it's assumed you mean "the" God, and there are things where it's used much more generally.

All of these usages have some historical justification; trying to attack them as "wrong" is misguided. The oldest meaning appears to be the sense of "one who denies the existance of a monotheistic conception of God", so if you're reading old writing, that's what it probably meant. More recently, anything goes.

If you want to be specific, you can do okay with "weak atheism" (lack of belief) and "strong atheism" (active disbelief). The default referent is "any and all gods" - if you want to say that you disbelieve in a specific god, but may believe in others, you need some sort of qualifier.

Secular Pinoy

Weren't early Christians called atheists by the Romans for denying their deities?

Peter Kirby

Yes.

Martyrdom of Polycarp 9:2 [ca. 156 CE]
When then he was brought before him, the proconsul enquired whether he were the man. And on his confessing that he was, he tried to persuade him to a denial saying, 'Have respect to thine age,' and other things in accordance therewith, as it is their wont to say; 'Swear by the genius of Caesar; repent and say, Away with the atheists.' Then Polycarp with solemn countenance looked upon the whole multitude of lawless heathen that were in the stadium, and waved his hand to them; and groaning and looking up to heaven he said, 'Away with the atheists.'

Jews were also sometimes called atheists.

Josephus, Against Apion, 2.145
Moreover, since this Apollonius does not do like Apion, and lay a continued accusation against us, but does it only by starts, and up and clown his discourse, while he sometimes reproaches us as atheists, and man-haters, and sometimes hits us in the teeth with our want of courage, and yet sometimes, on the contrary, accuses us of too great boldness and madness in our conduct; nay, he says that we are the weakest of all the barbarians, and that this is the reason why we are the only people who have made no improvements in human life; now I think I shall have then sufficiently disproved all these his allegations, when it shall appear that our laws enjoin the very reverse of what he says, and that we very carefully observe those laws ourselves.

best,
Peter Kirby

Starboy

As has been pointed out in this thread there are numerous definitions for both words such that in some cases they are synonyms and in some cases they are not. What I have done is decide in general terms what I think on the subject, call myself an atheist and then be prepared to explain what I mean by atheist if I find it is necessary.

Starboy

Rusting Car Bumper

Most agnostics are also atheists. They are not mutually exclusive terms.

Many identify themselves as "agnostics but not an atheist" out of ignorance or either willfull or unconscious unwillingness to offend.

DC