Searching for a better descriptor [than "atheist"]

I don’t know what the ancient stoics believed, but there are still plenty of immanence beliefs and I don’t think the believers consider themselves atheists. I find the term atheism usually applied to, and by, those who are rejecting the concept of monotheism by the big three.

This may be a stretch, but Quakers believe in a God that exists as an inner light in people, that could be considered an immanent God. I think the stoic concept is close to my own, though maybe agnapatheist is closer, I’m not sure whether or not I give a rat’s ass about the question.

It occurs to me that J. B. S. Haldane may be a good source, as in “The universe is not (stranger) than we imagine, it is (stranger) than we can imagine.” A “stranger” (nod to Camus) considers the deity of imagination to simply be not strange enough to fit the requirements of the universe.

Yes, the original quote may have used “queerer”, but that appellation is kind of already in use

In the unlikely event a new word for atheism is popularized the baggage from atheism will simply migrate to the new word because it’s the content that matters, not the label.

What baggage is there to unbelief, other than that which believers seek to hang upon it?

Well, not necessarily. That’s why I suggested the word that I did. It has a positive not negative connotation. It says what you DO accept and ONLY what you accept, to the exclusion of all else. Theism ends up just being a tiny little tangential wasteland.

And it is an interesting portmanteau, κύδος to you for its assemblage. Yet, to me, it seems a bit awkward and inaccessible. I am growing to like the broad elegance of “stranger”.

  • I am a Christian, are you?
  • “No, I am a stranger.”

Which the believer might infer to “stranger to belief”, fairly enough. But what a ménage enténdre. It says that if I believe in anything, I believe in the greater strangeness of the universe. That “truth is stranger than fiction” (that bible thing is not nearly strange enough to hold truth). And there is no -ism, I am just a stranger. No animosity put forth from the word, unless that christian person begs me for a flying fuck about their goofy mysticism. And a vague allusion to QCD (quarks with strangeness).

Nevermind the fact that I am kind of strange to begin with.

  • “So…do you believe in God or what?”
  • “No.”
  • “Ew, atheist plz go.”
  • “Not your concern.”

Realist.

I’d never heard this word, but perhaps it’s a good description for me.

Yet I do accept the idea of a supreme global consciousness, possibly passive. And I’ve no problem saying “God grant me the serenity …” without worry that the “God” might just be an abstract illusion inside my own brain. Does this make me a Deist? A fake Deist?

Frankly, I’ve never worried much about whether I was agnostic, atheist, Deist, or, now, ignostic. I think I’m just an apatheticist.

Shrugnastic. A person who is not interested in the question of god’s existence.

Julia Sweeney’s “naturalist” seems right, as someone who rejects all things supernatural. Except that word already has a definition: “An expert in or student of natural history. Synonym: scientist”.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned “humanist” yet.

I am not an atheist myself, but I often feel backed into a similar sort of corner. If I describe myself as a Christian, people will assume certain things about my beliefs and attitudes that just aren’t true. Similarly, if I say I’m religious, that implies a lot of things that I definitely don’t believe, but not religious or spiritual imply other stuff I also don’t believe. So basically, I’m stuck either coming up with a highly specialized term that doesn’t do any good when trying to succinctly describe my beliefs to others than any of the other more common terms I’ve already rejected, or just going with good enough and then either not really caring what they think or making the effort to explain it to them because it’s worth my effort.

Or as a similar example, we see this same sort of thing with music. Sure, there’s some acts that are just a fairly generic R&B or pop rock or metal whatever, but then there’s a band that, even if what they do is really good, feels like it needs a special label. Using metal, since that’s what I’m most familiar with with this concept, sometimes they come up with some clever name where they’re the only one in their genre, like “sorrow metal” or “movie score metal”, which doesn’t tell you what they actually sound like, or they get so hyper-specific as to be utter nonsense, like avant-garde symphonic blackened death metal. Or they don’t like the history behind a name like black metal or death metal, so they go by “extreme metal” or “unblack metal”. But if I’m stuck explaining these bands to people, I’ll use a better known name, and if they’re familiar with it and interested, they’ll ask for more, and if they’re not familiar, that extra cleverness or specificity is lost on them anyway. And sometimes I’m not interested in saying anything about metal, because they’re clearly not going to be interest (eg, “OMG, have you heard the new Ke$ha?”) or I’m not interested in talking about it, so I just give a minimalist answer.

So to the OP, I just don’t see what’s so bad about the term atheist to you. If you describe yourself as such to someone that is going to believe that atheists are just angry at God and pretend to not believe in him to get back at them, do you think that added specificity about the nuances of what you do and don’t believe is really meaningful to them? And if they are someone who is interested in hearing about the nuances, that’ll be part of the conversation. And, if you don’t want to talk about it, don’t. Find a minimalist answer and move on.

Seriously, for a while I was really into finding specific labels, but that’s when I realized this. No labels offers no information, but too many is just as bad. There’s a nice spot somewhere in between none and lots where they convey useful but not necessarily completely accurate concepts. Sure, inside of a certain context, more specificity is helpful, but as you’ve already eliminated a ton of other possibilities, that greater specificity is now meaningful. So, really, if I were you, I’d not bother. If you say atheist, people will have at least some idea of what you believe, even if it’s not all correct, but if you describe yourself as stoicist, most will ask you what it means, and by the time you explain it, you could have just skipped the label and just explained it.

Humanist.

Finally a word to describe me! Thanks!

Also a good way to describe me.

Secular.

And some people are going to assume you walk around without clothes. :slight_smile:

I would not describe myself as a “stoicist”, the proper word is “stoic”, both adjective and noun like “agnostic”. Of course, the problem with stoicism is that it does embody a philosophy, in a way that “stranger” does not.

I personally am not fond of the humanist label because IME it gets used like a garbage word. Nevermind the fact that it is terribly homocentric, humans seem to show signs of being rather vile creatures much of the time.

Somehow, “shrugtastic” sounds more appealing :slight_smile:

Or, as the gay atheist rabbi who married my wife and me called himself, “secular humanist”. Only decades later on his death, did we learn from his obit that Rabbi Wine was famous.