But more importantly, the only thing that can be said to unite atheists is that we reject the notion that there must be a prime supernatural actor to whom we must make obeisance and succor in our lives while we acknowledge the tiny probability that such exists, at least most of us do. We simply don’t need “It.” The sparring over the use of the word ‘atheist’ or ‘agnostic’ is a niggling over small details, I think.

Not really. The vast majority of people I know who are atheists have no interest in discussing the existence of gods. They tend to be more interested in forming connections with other atheists, because theists tend to consider “atheist” a dirty word and it is nice to be able to engage people who don’t.

A position of general opposition to predominant or any religion has nothing to do with being an atheist. It is a position that many atheists hold, but it is also a position that a lot of spiritualists and even many theists also take. It just tends to come up in a lot of forums frequented by atheists, because a lot of atheists are either sick of the special place the theism holds in our society or because they once had some sort of abusive relationship with theism – often enough it is both.

Your usage of sic seems kind of stupid too. Read up,
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/usage/sic?view=uk

Yeah, otherwise, I don’t get it. “It is also too bad for you, that you find discussions of philosophy distasteful with people who have no interest in talking about hypothetical gods.” Isn’t that what the issue is? Atheism: a take on the question of whether god(s) exists OR a position of general opposition to predominant religions. I don’t think they are the same thing. Are they?

In short Andrew, no. You are by no means required to have any sort of philosophical conversation with any of us, but nor are you allowed to decide for us how we identify ourselves. Especially because there are very specific reasons that I am, as you put it, anti-theistic. The thing is – those reasons, my very anti-theistic mentality has absolutely nothing to do with my being an atheist and everything to do with the extremely abusive relationship that I had with Christianity and what I think is a very dangerous tendency our society has for allowing people to use religion as a justification for not following the laws that everyone else has to follow.

And for the sake of clarity, I do not accept either of your atheist premises. I most certainly do not believe there “is” (sic) no gods, nor do I believe there are gods I need not concern myself with. Pure and simply, I have not seen any reasonable evidence for the existence of gods. I do not believe there are or are not any gods – by identifying as an atheist, I am merely asserting that I think the existence of gods are unlikely, because I have not been presented with evidence that there are. Presented with such evidence, I would accept that there are in fact gods or a god.

And please feel free to take your condescending “baby steps” bullshit and shove it up your ass. As an ex-theist (not as an atheist) I am more than a little bit fucking angry, but I am angry for very good reasons. This does not mean that I go around bashing every theist I run into – to the contrary, I have many friends who are theists – just as I have a lot of friends with whom I have some rather fundamental disagreements. What it does mean is that I am unwilling to take any shit about who and what I am. It also means that I am absolutely disinclined to hold back my opinions about various aspects of theism. And while I am all about respecting individuals, I flat refuse to respect religion for religion’s sake – not even a little.

It is also too bad for you, that you find discussions of philosophy distasteful with people who have no interest in talking about hypothetical gods. Some of us are quite engaging when it comes to philosophy. I am personally quite keen on discussions of morality and ethics, as well as epistemology. But I suppose I quite understand that there are many narrow minded people who can’t seem to manage with people they have fundamental disagreements with. A great many of them decided that I was no longer – in any way, shape or form, an acceptable human being, when I came out as an atheist. Some were narrow enough that they would no longer allow my child to play with theirs.

It is easy for them to dismiss, for example, Christians who accept evolution and accept homosexuality as atheist/agnostics who just haven’t made the leap, rather than people who sometimes have a faith that is just as profound as that of the most ardent conservative fundamentalist. They also tend to assume that because these Christians accept homosexuality and/or evolution, that they believe anything goes, rather than accepting that this person’s dogma is simply different.

At the same time, there are way too many theists who believe that religion is somehow essential to core values – including those selfsame liberal Christians. I think this is especially ironic for me, because while I am extremely liberal when it comes to civil liberties, I have become considerably more conservative about my own behavior – in an inverse relation my faith. The less my faith influenced me, the more conservative my behavior/respect for certain behaviors has became. To be sure, I think this is just a natural side effect of growing older and maturation – but it is definitely saying something about core values and religion.

I’ve had this same discussion recently with someone who runs an atheist mailing server, and he countered the possibility of an inconsequential god with the same “…why should I care?…no, I’ll go on asserting there isn’t a god(s)” I (mistakenly) took for granted that running a mailing list dedicated to a metaphysical issue, one would have interest in that issue.

Can’t this type of atheist just call themselves an anti-theist and save me the trouble of trying to have a philosophical conversation with them? I’ve found this breed of atheist is commonly an ex-theist, so I guess they’re making progress, in baby steps, and they’ve come “a long way” but I still maintain they are wrong. Asserting “there is no god(s)” is not the same as asserting “there is not a god I need to be concerned about,” even if they mean the same thing to you.

In a wealthy secular capitalist democracy, leaving religion means there will still be groceries to buy, clothes to wear, partners to woo. In cultures strongly shaped by religious beliefs, the beliefs proscribe food preparation, clothing, marriage.

It is hard for me to imagine. Yes. I wasn’t raised with any religion (nor with any identifiers of atheism.) I should be sympathetic in some cases. And I will still speak up in favour of difficult rationality.

I was brought up with a bit of religion (Episcopalian). Not sure I ever believed any of it.

I thank you for the explanation of the struggle of leaving it all behind.

The Gods described by religion have very specific human traits, don’t they, except they have exaggerated powers to control and direct events. This is the sort of God that the atheists dismiss, because it is demonstrated logically not have any interaction with humanity or nature. It makes sense to be agnostic about the sorts of gods you indicate, because there is no way of knowing or caring or interaction. So an indifferent God exists, I am indifferent towards that. So a God on a different timescale exists, how does that affect us? If we have a sort of God with different priorities than we have, again it doesn’t matter, and I see no point in worrying or wondering about it other than to avoid using the word atheist in the same way that I do.

Here is a brief, yet clear discussion on atheism/agnosticism. Bringing theodicy into the picture for atheists is not so much assigning values to God and finding them lacking, but to respond to religious claims on the attributes of God and finding the human claims nonsense.

Agnostic Atheism & Agnostic Theism

Once it is understood that atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods, it becomes evident that agnosticism is not, as many assume, a “third way” between atheism and theism. The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god exhaust all of the possibilities. Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge — it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not.

Thus, it is clear that agnosticism is compatible with both theism and atheism. A person can believe in a god (theism) without claiming to know for sure if that god exists; the result is agnostic theism. On the other hand, a person can disbelieve in gods (atheism) without claiming to know for sure that no gods can or do exist; the result is agnostic atheism.

It is also worth noting that there is a vicious double standard involved when theists claim that agnosticism is “better” than atheism because it is less dogmatic. If atheists are closed-minded because they are not agnostic, then so are theists. On the other hand, if theism can be open-minded then so can atheism.

In the end, the fact of the matter is a person isn’t faced with the necessity of only being either an atheist or an agnostic. Quite the contrary, not only can a person be both, but it is in fact common for people to be both agnostics and atheists. An agnostic atheist won’t claim to know for sure that nothing warranting the label “god” exists or that such cannot exist, but they also don’t actively believe that such an entity does indeed exist.

I don’t think that one is either an atheist or an agnostic, I think one chooses a label and uses different labels to describe the exact same position.