“Lack of belief” blurs the line between atheist and agnostic

[longship]

3. I tire of these semantic arguments.

They accomplish nothing but the initiation of chair throwing.

I call myself am atheist because I feel strongly that the evidence for any gods is severely lacking. Another person who believes the same thing may call themself an agnostic. That's fine with me. Call yourself what you want. I know what you mean when you call yourself an agnostic. I have zero problems with it. Zero!

Basically, it means the basically same thing I mean when I call myself an atheist. And let's agree to not quibble about this non-distinction by splitting hairs and digging out the OED.

And I do not care what you think about people who call themselves atheist. However, if you are going to use atheist as an epithet, I am going to have a problem with your opinion.

Atheism means I do not believe there are gods, nothing more, nothing less. It does not mean I am sure of that gods do not exist. It does not mean I could not be convinced they do. It merely states where I consider the current state of the evidence. Nothing more, and nothing less.

IMHO, it has always been a rather silly argument anyway.

I love my agnostic, atheist, spiritual, deist, etc. brethren regardless what they call themselves. Indeed, many call themselves Catholics, Hindus, Protestants, etc. I have no problem with them either as long as they keep their beliefs out of the laws of our government.

For me, it is really simple. But when asked, I always say I am an atheist.