Wait what’s the difference between Atheist, No response, and Nothing?
Also why is there a generic Christian but then also Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox? But then they just Muslim and not it’s different denominations? Why even have different denominations when you have the generic catch all and the Other category?
This graph categorization makes no sense!
Atheism are people who are activly against religion. Nothing are Irreligious people I assume. No Response are those who’s religious identity are unknown. Could be any of the others or none of them.
Generally: atheists are those that say there are no gods and no goddesses. Agnostics tend to be more on the fence about it, making no claim either way.
But, as a rule, neither requires that someone is “against religion”.
Gnosticism and theism are two different concepts and it infuriates me that every semi educated loser conflates them.
I’ve always thought that atheists are actively non theistic. Nothing would suggest there is no opinion formed to any conclusion.
Am atheist. Am not actively against religion. If it makes your life better and is also benefiting others (or at least its not a negative), have at it. I do not give a shit.
Atheist is literally “not theist” which would include nothing, none, agnostic (the belief that it’s impossible to determine the existence or absence of, in this context, God). It could even be argued that people who believe in God but do not participate in theistic practices (eg lapsed Catholics) are atheists. It does not require or even imply some position against religion.
This isn’t accurate though. In the most semantic, etymological sense perhaps. But atheism is widely understood to be the disbelief in deities. Agnosticism and atheism are very different. One is a position of belief (I cannot prove god doesn’t exist, but I don’t believe it to be so) and one is a position of ignorance (I cannot prove god does exist or doesn’t exist). Words, meanings and definitions are defined by who is interpreting them. This therefore means that the definition is whatever the majority believes it to be. You may as well be looking at a field of flowers and describing them as gay. It may have been the appropriate term once, but it is not now. And we live now. The etymology of the term is not the same as the meaning of the term. Sitting there and prescribing that your interpretation of the term is the correct interpretation reminds me a lot of the tale of King cnut.
