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Is it possible to not be Theist or Atheist?

I keep seeing people say they are not Atheist or Theist, but Agnostic. I don't really see how this is possible.

Agnostic deals with knowledge. You either don't know, or claim that you can't know. But this doesn't deal with belief.

To determine if you are Theist or Atheist, you just have to answer the question "Do you hold a belief in a God?" If you don't answer yes, you are an Atheist, right? If you say their might be a God, it doesn't mean you hold a belief, thus is Atheism. If you say you don't know, that means you don't know if you hold a belief.

Or is there a way to not be Atheist or Theist?

Update:

perttierkki: Answering yes mean you are Theist. Atheism means "not" Theism. So not answering yes is Atheism.

Update 2:

Mrg_Love_and_Wisdom: in your situation, I think immoral is strong Atheism, and amoral is weak Atheism or Agnostic Atheism.

Update 3:

Goethe: I still see fence sitting as Atheist, since they don't say "yes I hold a belief in God". They are essentially "not holding belief in God" - Atheism.

Update 4:

Physfreak: Everything I've seen says Deism is a sub-catagory of Theism. Doesn't Deism have a belief in a type of God?

17 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Agnostic is neither.

    And isn't Pantheist where nature and the universe is God? But this is different to Theism because Theists believe God is a supreme being, where Pantheists don't, but you should ask them the details because I'm not 100%.

    And I'm not sure about Deism, I think it depends on the person.

    Edit: Just got what you mean, but there isn't enough prove either way for me.

    Source(s): Agnostic
  • I agree with your definition of agnostic so, in my mind, a person must be either theist or atheist. No middle road.

    However, many (if not most) people these days use the word agnostic as an "I'm not sure" position. While I'm sure this is comfortable and serves to reduce hostility from theists, I'm not sure that it's a valid position. I'm not 100% sure whether there are any gods either but at the end of the day I must believe (or act as if I believe) one way or the other.

  • Morgan
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    No, it's not possible. Atheists don't believe in any sort of God, but theists entertain a possibility of one. The definition of God is very wide- creator, overlord, whatever. If you believe anyone of these exists, you're probably a theist; none of that "but I don't belong to any major religion" bs.

    Agnostics aren't any better than either. They're stuck in the middle road between theism and atheism. Agnostics are atheists in the sense that they don't fully believe in a God, but theists since they think there might be. I find it funny when people are sure they're agnostic, they mean they're sure they don't know.

  • 1 decade ago

    Being a Deist makes it possible to to not be an atheist or theist... just my thoughts ;)

    ADD: Deism isn't a subcatergory of theism in that God doesn't interact with the world, I would argue it's a category all to itself. In Theistic religions God is very active. I'll try to illustrate my point:

    --------- God --------

    Deism______Theism

    It all depends on how you think God interacts with His Creation, in a nutshell: Active = Theism, Passive = Deism. The major religions of the world would be considered subgroups of Theism.

    I hope this answers your original question, yes Deism is a belief in God- I think I may have misunderstood your question, you can email me if you wish to discuss this further...

    ~Respectfully

    Source(s): Deist
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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    If you don't strongly 'believe' one way or the other, you might feel more comfortable with 'agnostic'. I DEFINITELY am not theist.

    I am atheist in that I lack belief in any man-made Gods, but i do not consider the idea that time and space started from consciousness that much more unbelievable than it starting from a white nothing. The stories of the Bible, and Quran, etc etc all are easily debunked as they have huge holes in them, though.

    This is not 'fencesitting' and has nothing to do with not having "balls" to be atheist. It is more about feeling we do not have enough facts to 'make our mind up' on the issue and might not ever. I identified as SOLELY atheist for at least 2-3 years, before then changing to 'agnostic', then 'agnostic atheist'.

    It has NOTHING to do with hoping for some mythical afterlife and more to do with the uncertainty of time and space creation.

    And I think if there was/is a creator "God", he is absentee and might even be evil, if not indifferent altogether towards our planet. We could not know such a thing's nature, appearance, origin, etc, til given evidence. Either way, I often call myself either atheist or agnostic or "agnostic atheist", but it's just a label. I'm not a fan of those too much.

  • 1 decade ago

    I consider myself agnostic, but you can call it whatever. I am leaning towards atheism, but part of me is holding onto that "what if" thingie. I'm not one of those pascal's wager dipsh-ts, because I don't really believe in a deity and I think believing "just in case" is idiotic and fake. I guess I'm an atheist (since what you're saying there's no gray area), but I don't think I'm ready to wear the nametag just yet.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    People think agnosticism means that a person has not decided. It does not. It means that person has decided that the existence of gods is unknowable. Thus they lack belief and are indeed atheist. Saying gods are possibly possible is not faith, it is not belief and it in no way involves worship.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    You don't see it for the reason evidenced in your abomiably bad diction. Geez !!

    Consider how it is done with other words, for example :

    Moral Immoral Amoral

    Moral is the positive

    Immoral is the negative

    Amoral is analogous to what you are searching for . It does not mean 'yea' or 'nay'. It means :

    1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral.

    2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong.

  • 1 decade ago

    Too complicated. Yes you believe is Theism. No you don't believe is Atheism. Anything inbetween is fence-sitting (Agnosticism)

  • 1 decade ago

    No it is not possible to be anything besides Atheist or Theist.

    Source(s): Free your mind from man made gods!
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