What is with this Atheist/Agnostic divide stuff lately. It sounds like Catholic/Protestant, Sunni/Shia, orthodox/reform.
Do atheists or agnostics really care what the other camp call themselves?
Lots of talk here about divisiveness caused by religion but this debate always smacks of my non-god is bigger than your non-god.
I may be wrong and if so please correct me but from an observer’s viewpoint looks like the same duck that went to the mosque, then the synagogue then the cathedral! I.e. if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck...
Where you aware there are only two people that cared enough to tell me the differance between atheist, and agnostic, .......and I've forgotten their names.......and, it confused them when I told them some days I was one, other days I was the other, and some days I couldn't figure which it was....so I praised odin...or is it Ra. And...I'm rambling again....I wantta talk about something else.
Considering that athiests are going to hell & agnostics are only going to purgatory, I’d say there is plenty to argue about.
Semantic meanings do change. Atheist started out meaning "without belief". Then the Christians campaigned against atheism claiming that it meant an active disbelief and rejection of (their) God. The new Christian definition shouted down the original definition and created the confusion noted in the original post. Hence, the new term non-theist which reclaims the original atheist meaning. Many other flavors of atheist have been advanced to define particular nuances, like apatheism and anti-theism.
This topic was actually a point of discussion in my Humanists and Freethinkers group. Some will call themselves atheist no matter what. The oldest member of the group takes the position that there is no difference between Religious and Atheist because they both claim a position that cannot be proven. He advocated using Agnostic because that infers that one has no knowledge or proof. He also pointed out that, at least here in the US, "atheist" is often met with hostility with people trying to convince them that a god exists. Given that there is no way to prove either way, we are agnostic.