this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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I think the issue I consistently see in discussions surrounding theism and atheism is the definition of what it means to be agnostic vs atheist. The way I see it, there are generally five “buckets” of belief most people fit into; theist, agnostic theist, agnostic, agnostic atheist, and atheist.
In the most technical sense atheist means “a lack of belief.” But some people use it to mean a disbelief in a god, or in other words a belief there is no god. Other people use it in the technical sense, but rarely does someone clarify which use they actually mean.
So for clarity and ease of communication, I think it would make sense to use the fives states of belief above as follows:
Theist: believes there is a god.
Agnostic theist: does not hold a belief in a god, but lives as though there is one.
Agnostic: does not hold a belief or disbelief in a god.
Agnostic atheist: does not hold a belief in a god, and lives as though there is not one.
Atheist/antitheist: believes that there is no god.
Obviously I don’t expect others to enter a conversation already using that framework, and it will probably never become a common framework, but when I read comments online and someone says they are an atheist, the first thing I try to do is determine if they are an agnostic or antitheist atheist.
But why? It doesn't matter how we don't believe does it? This seems like a ridiculous need to 'other' for no reason.
When I was a freshman in college over a decade ago, I was given this link to a youtube video basically asserting that all agnostic people are atheist. At the time I was fairly agnostic, and being told this felt wrong, like my thoughts were being miscategorized, but I didn't have a great way to explain that feeling at the time. The framework above is ultimately how I parsed through that feeling to better understand myself and others. That's why I started thinking about it.
I think a person's belief (or lack thereof) is a reflection of how they think, so adding clarity to what and how one believes or doesn't believe something can grant a better understanding of how they think. And I like understanding other people and how they think.
I don't really understand how this is othering, could you elaborate on that?
Well, the reasons you give are better than most. Typically people that feel your compulsion to categorize are doing it to argue others aren't 'unbelieving' the right way or for the right reasons. Comedians cracking jokes that agnostics are cowards, hardcore atheists condescending any attempt at mysticism, mystics calling atheists blind immoral fools, and so on.
It's the same with leftism and how they constantly defeat themselves by splintering into subsets of people who aren't left enough or too centrist, etc... We live in a culture desperate to form cliques to our detriment imo.