There’s a word that seems to be being gradually redefined in our collective vocabulary, I was considering recently. That word is “nontheist”. It’s a relatively new word as it is, but in its earliest uses it seems to have been an umbrella term covering a variety of different (and broadly-compatible) theological outlooks.
Here are some of them, in alphabetical order:
| agnostic |
“It is not possible to know whether God exists.” Agnostics believe that it is not possible to know whether or not there are any gods. They vary in the strength of their definition of the word “know”, as well as their definition of the word “god”. Like most of these terms, they’re not mutually-exclusive: there exist agnostic atheists, for example (and, of course, there exist agnostic theists, gnostic atheists, and gnostic theists). |
| antitheist |
“Believing in gods is a bad thing.” Antitheists are opposed to the belief in gods in general, or to the practice of religion. Often, they will believe that the world would be better in the absence of religious faith, to some degree or another. In rarer contexts, the word can also mean an opposition to a specific deity (e.g. “I believe that in God, but I hate Him.”). |
| apatheist |
“If the existence of God could be proven/disproven to me, it would not affect my behaviour.” An apatheist belives that the existence or non-existence of gods is irrelevant. It is perfectly possible to define oneself as a theist, an atheist, or neither, and still be apathetic about the subject. Most of them are atheists, but not all: there are theists – even theists with a belief in a personal god – who claim that their behaviour would be no different even if you could (hypothetically) disprove the existence of that god, to them. |
| atheist |
“There are no gods.” As traditionally-defined, atheists deny the existence of either a specific deity, or – more-commonly – any deities at all. Within the last few hundred years, it has also come to mean somebody who rejects that there is any valid evidence for the existence of a god, a subtle difference which tends to separate absolutists from relativists. If you can’t see the difference between this and agnosticism, this blog post might help. Note also that atheism does not always imply materialism or naturalism: there exist atheists for example who believe in ghosts or in the idea of an immortal soul. |
| deist |
“God does not interfere with the Universe.” Deism is characterised by a belief in a ‘creator’ or ‘architect’ deity which put the universe into motion, but which does has not had any direct impact on it thereafter. Deists may or may not believe that this creator has an interest in humanity (or life at all), and may or may not feel that worship is relevant. Note that deism is nontheistic (and, by some definitions, atheistic) in that it denies the existence of a specific God – a personal God with a concern for human affairs – and so appears on this list even though it’s incompatible with many people’s idea of nontheism. |
| freethinker |
“Science and reason are a stronger basis for decision-making than tradition and authority.” To be precise, freethought is a philosophical rather than a theological position, but its roots lie in the religious: in the West, the term appeared in the 17th century to describe those who rejected a literalist interpretation of the Bible. It historically had a broad crossover with early pantheism, as science began to find answers (especially in the fields of astronomy and biology) which contradicted the religious orthodoxy. Nowadays, most definitions are functionally synonymous with naturalism and/or rationalism. |
| humanist |
“Human development is furthered by reason and ethics, and rejection of superstition.” In the secular sense (as opposed to the word’s many other meanings in other fields), humanism posits that ethical and moral behaviour, for the benefit of individual humans and for society in general, can be attained without religion or a deity. It requires that individuals assess viewpoints for themselves and not simply accept them on faith. Note that like much of this list, secular humanism is not incompatible with other viewpoints – even theism: it’s certainly possible to believe in a god but still to feel that society is always best-served by a human-centric (rather than a faith-based) model. |
| igtheist |
“There exists no definition of God for which one can make a claim of theism or atheism.” One of my favourite nontheistic terms, igtheism (also called ignosticism) holds that words like “god” are not cognitively meaningful and can not be argued for or against. The igtheist holds that the question of whether or not any deities exist is meaningless not because any such deities are uninterested in human affairs (like the deist) or because such a revelation would have no impact upon their life (like the apatheist) but because the terms themselves have no value. The word “god” is either ill-defined, undefinable, or represents an idea that is unfalsifiable. |
| materialist |
“The only reality is matter and energy. All else is an illusion caused by these.” The materialist perspective holds that the physical universe is as it appears to be: an effectively-infinite quantity of matter and energy, traveling through time. It’s incompatible with many forms of theism and spiritual beliefs, but not necessarily with some deistic and pantheistic outlooks: in many ways, it’s more of a philosophical stance than a nontheistic position. It grew out of the philosophy of physicalism, and sharply contrasts the idealist or solipsist thinking. |
| naturalist |
“Everything can be potentially explained in terms of naturally-occurring phenomena.” A closely-related position to that of materialism is that of naturalism. The naturalist, like the materialist, claims that there can be, by definition, no supernatural occurrences in our natural universe, and as such is similarly incompatible with many forms of theism. Its difference, depending on who you ask, tends to be described as being that naturalism does not seek to assume that there is not possibly more to the universe than we could even theoretically be capable of observing, but that does not make such things “unnatural”, much less “divine”. However, in practice, the terms naturalism and materialism are (in the area of nontheism) used interchangeably. The two are also similar to some definitions of the related term, “rationalism”. |
| pantheist |
“The Universe and God are one and the same.” The pantheist believes that it is impossible to distinguish between God and the University itself. This belief is nontheistic because it typically denies the possibility of a personal deity. There’s an interesting crossover between deists and pantheists: a subset of nontheists, sometimes calling themselves “pandeists”, who believe that the Universe and the divine are one and the same, having come into existence of its own accord and running according to laws of its own design. A related but even-less-common concept is panentheism, the belief that the Universe is only a part of an even-greater god. |
| secularist |
“Human activities, and especially corporate activities, should be separated from religious teaching.” The secularist viewpoint is that religion and spiritual thought, while not necessarily harmful (depending on the secularist), is not to be used as the basis for imposing upon humans the a particular way of life. Secularism, therefore, tends to claim that religion should be separated from politics, education, and justice. The reasons for secularism are diverse: some secularists are antitheistic and would prefer that religion was unacceptable in general; others take a libertarian approach, and feel that it is unfair for one person to impose their beliefs upon another; still others simply feel that religion is something to be “kept in the home” and not to be involved in public life. |
| skeptic |
“Religious authority does not intrinsically imply correctness.” Religious skeptics, as implied by their name, doubt the legitimacy of religious teaching as a mechanism to determine the truth. It’s a somewhat old-fashioned term, dating back to an era in which religious skepticism – questioning the authority of priests, for example – was in itself heretical: something which in the West is far rarer than it once was. |
| transtheist |
“I neither accept nor reject the notion of a deity, but find a greater truth beyond both possibilities.” The notion of transtheism, a form of post-theism, is that there exists a religious philosophy that exists both outside and beyond that of both theism and atheism. Differentiating between this and deism, or apatheism, is not always easy, but it’s a similar concept to Jain “transcendence”: the idea that there may or may not exist things which may be called “godlike”, but the ultimate state of being goes beyond this. It can be nontheistic, because it rejects the idea that a god plays a part in human lives, but is not necessarily atheistic. |
However, I’ve observed that the word “nontheist” seems to be finding a new definition, quite apart from the umbrella description above.
In recent years, a number of books have been published on the subject of atheism, some of which – and especially The God Delusion – carry a significant antitheistic undertone. This has helped to inspire the idea that atheism and antitheism are the same thing (which for many atheists, and a tiny minority of antitheists, simply isn’t true), and has lead some people who might otherwise have described themselves as one or several of the terms above to instead use the word “nontheist” as a category of its own.
This “new nontheist” definition is still very much in its infancy, but I’ve heard it described as “areligious, but spiritual”, or “atheistic, but not antitheistic”.
Personally, I don’t like this kind of redefinition. It’s already hard enough to have a reasonable theological debate – having to stop and define your terms every step of the way is quite tiresome! – without people whipping your language out from underneath you right when you were standing on it. I can see how those people who are, for example, “atheistic, but not antitheistic” might want to distance themselves from the (alliterative) antitheistic atheist authors, but can’t they pick a different word?
After all: there’s plenty of terms going spare, above, to define any combination of nontheistic belief, and enough redundancy that you can form a pile of words higher than any Tower of Babel. Then… perhaps… we can talk about religion without stopping to fight over which dictionary is the true word.
Therein lies the problem – people with 99.9% overlapping views deciding that because they differ on what is almost always a relatively minor thing, they need to “distance themselves”. I’d argue (if I had the inclination, which I don’t) that many of the terms you used are just different facets on the same thing. But then I don’t feel the need to describe myself as a “freethinking skeptic secular atheist humanist slightly-antitheist apatheist”, it’s just not a subject that interests me, other than from a historic perspective :-)
Different facets of the same thing? For most people, yes. Although there are those for whom some are true but not others. I’ve always been a secularist, but I’ve never been an apatheist. I’ve only occasionally been antitheistic, but I’ve often considered myself agnostic.
Having a richer shared vocabulary helps us to understand the intricate nuances of one another’s beliefs (or disbeliefs). Which for somebody like me, who’s quite interested in religion and religious belief, is very valuable.
My point was that people focus on the differences, rather than the similarities all too often. But then I don’t really “get” religion in the first place, so the subtle* differences between Shi’a and Sunni beliefs, for example, are neither here nor there when there’s still the great stumbling block (to me) that is the belief in a god.
* Seriously, people *die* for those differences? I really struggle to understand that. It’s the same god and same prophet, ffs. It’s the same god as the judeo-christian god, and yet wars are still fought along those lines too. That’s far more interesting (and more important to fix!) to me.
It’s an atheist schism! Atheists can’t even agree on what exactly they don’t believe in!
I do like the term igtheist, I might start throwing that about. So, you can’t list all these things without telling us which ones you personally identify with. I’m an atheist antitheist igtheist humanist rationalist secularist freethinker humanist skeptic. What are you?
Apologies for the delay in replying to this: I’ve been up in Scotland (and then really busy catching up on everything I wasn’t doing while I was up in Scotland!) – blog post to follow, as always.
From this list, I’d identify most closely as an agnostic igtheist secularist skeptic. But that’s all stuff we’ve known for years. More recently, there are clear pantheistic aspects to my experience too. Strange but true.
Marmite-eist mmmm :)
Sticky, foul-smelling stuff. I don’t know why I keep it in the house.