I’m an atheist. I sleep in on the weekend and worship Athe, hallowed be her name.
Which implies they’re irrational. Despite the following, I’m willing to stay more neutral than that.
I think it would be easier to reclaim “gay,” “queer” and Nimrod. 
I should have hung a smiley on it, obviously. But my point was that those failing to believe Jupiter is covered with giant daffodils are not the ones who need a defining group name. They have their faith-based belief and an associated name; we don’t need a non-name for non-belief.
Pascal and Kirkegaard were both agnostics, but both believed in God.
No, I am* asking *the atheists what their definition is. Are you telling the Christians what your definition of True Christian is?
Why dont you argue this with TonySinclair, whose term it is?
One of the most outspoken atheists in the US, the somewhat annoying Sam Harris, is actually a Buddhist. So, is he a “true” Atheist?
Yes, and I accepted your definition about Hard and Soft Atheists. I agree, “Soft” is not a form of Faith or Belief. But to me, the line between Soft and Agnostic is fuzzy and grey.
We agree “Hard” atheists do appear to have some form of Faith or Belief.
That means there’s a lot of shoddy thinking on this board then! 
I’ve already admitted a while back that “True” was clumsy and never used it again. Except for asking for clarification of a term used by another poster I have taken everything said about what a Christian is by self-professed Christians at face value, avoiding proclamations like
. I still have no idea what you mean by “True” atheist as opposed to just your garden variety atheist.
What deity does he believe in?
I don’t see why. An agnostic is a soft atheist who believes that the existence or non-existence of a god or gods is unknowable, even in principle. In other words, it’s not just that he hasn’t yet seen sufficient evidence to believe, it’s that there is no conceivable evidence that would make him believe.
Why should that seem surprising? Anybody with an email account can post here.
And here I was about to post that I consider myself a “hard” atheist, and the central tenet of that atheism is that I don’t have “faith” or “belief” in anything.
“Atheist” and “agnostic” are term created for the comfort of believers, who feel the need pidgeonhole unbelievers so that those incomprehensible heathens can more easily be attacked. The lion’s share of unbelievers spend no time pondering any mythos save when believers try to press their beliefs upon them. As kaylasdad99 said above, most non-religious people feel that this question is not worth a first thought.
Why would I need a definition? There’s no atheist club or culture that we need a litmus test to be included or excluded based on. If a person considers themselves an atheist, I don’t care to figure out the extent to which they do or don’t believe. It has no consequence.
I have a belief that there is no god, just like I suspect you have a belief that there are no leprechauns. You don’t claim knowledge of no leprechauns, and you’re not saying they’re completely impossible, right? Show me some leprechauns and I’ll change my mind, but until then, I’ve seen enough to make me pretty convinced that they don’t really exist. Just like god.
Maybe that’s shoddy thinking, but I think we all take shortcuts like that.
What’s your view of whether leprechauns exist? Are you a hard a-leprechaunist? If so, isn’t that a sign of shoddy thinking?
I’ve disagreed on this issue before; I’ll do so again here :).
I think my lack of belief in deities is fundamentally different from my coffee mug’s, and my cat’s, lack of belief in deities. Furthermore, it’s different from the lack of belief in deities held by an infant and even from a five-year-old raised by atheists and who’s never heard of deities. That difference deserves a word whose definition captures it.
Therefore, I think of atheists not as those who lack belief in deities, but as those who have considered the arguments and evidence for deities and found them wanting.
Agnostics may be similar to atheists; but they may also hold a different epistemiology. When I talk about how the evidence hasn’t convinced me, and theists talk about how I must have faith, I find it maddening: faith is, I think, a failing, not a virtue. But I recognize that many theists disagree with me, and there’s no common ground I can find from which I can argue persuasively against faith. An agnostic may differ from me because she may think my approach–examining evidence and finding it wanting–is flawed, believing that the methods for examining the natural world are not applicable to the supernatural world.
Nah, it gives the believers far too much respect. There is never any evidence and the mythical beings are never even fully defined. My atheism as a child is exactly the same as it is now.
You have no belief in a being I’m just about to make up and you’ve never heard of. Once I start to talk about it and you find my words unconvincing does your disbelief change in nature?
There is not even a conversation to be had until there is any evidence for a supernatural world
If you’re saying that my approach respects believers, that’s a point in its favor :).
Absolutely. Do you, for example, believe in Kathabirala? What about Matsakan’ya?
At this point, you almost certainly don’t.
Once I tell you that that the first is the Bangla word for “squirrel,” does that change your belief?
Once I tell you that the second is the Bangla word for “mermaid,” does that change your belief?
For me, the change is dramatic. In the first case, I don’t believe because I don’t have enough information to draw a conclusion. In the second case, I gain enough information to draw a conclusion. Finding out what Matsakan’ya means changes me from agnostic to atheist.
The fish doesn’t recognize the water it swims in; you don’t seem to realize the epistemology you think in.
Actually, as is occasionally the case, you and Wikipedia are wrong.
Look up the meaning of the prefix “a” in Latin, and you will find, as I said, that it means “not.”
This is why “atheist” translates directly to “not a theist.”
Then look up Gnostic, and you will see what that once meant.
The Wiki entry you quoted is the modern bolixed meaning which I described, and the one I described as " what it used to mean," is what it used to mean.
I realize that Wikipedia is not infallible. If you can provide a better cite showing that “agnostic” has ever been used to mean “not a Gnostic,” I would like to see it.
I know who the Gnostics were, but (IIUC) the term is a relatively modern term; it’s not what the ancient members of that sect/belief system called themselves. The Greek word “gnosis” that the term is based on means “knowledge”; and it is that small-g word that forms the root of the word “agnostic.”
“Agnosticism” seems to have originated from a speech by Thomas Huxley in the mid-19[sup]th[/sup] century. One dictionary source says that it derives directly from αγνοτος, which google translates as “ignorance”. So, no, it was never used in direct reference to the ancient Gnostics.