Religion
In reply to the discussion: Question, I don't know if any gods exist or not, therefore I don't believe any do, what am I? [View all]MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Otherwise words have no meaning. A person may call themselves a fish. They aren't a fish.
Words have meaning, they are not completely subjective. Atheism and agnosticism are actually fairly clear definitions, compared to many other words.
Many people may think they are something they actually aren't, happens all the time. Usually it's because they want the benefits of the label without actually ascribing to what the label is. It's considerate to inform people that their beliefs don't actually match up with the label they've given themselves, so they can better understand reality and themselves. If they wish to continue to identify themselves that way, that's fine, no one can stop them, but all that says is that they identify that way, not that they actually are what they claim to be. And it shows they're intellectually dishonest.
It's called cognitive dissonance. This is something many theists have to engage in all the time, considering the inherent contradictions of many of their belief systems and religious texts, so perhaps the idea of saying they are one thing while holding beliefs that actually contradict what they just said is a usual practice. More likely, theists just ignore any contradicting ideas. That's what I did when I was a theist.
To recap: If you want words to have meaning, then people are not what they say they are simply because they identify as such.