From: utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: atheist/agnostic 
Article-I.D.: utzoo.2763
Posted: Thu Jan 20 17:27:33 1983
Received: Thu Jan 20 17:27:33 1983

tektronix!rich misses a point:  just because the atheist under fire
says "God help me" does not mean he is sincerely appealing to the
Christian God for help.  The heavily Christian heritage of our
culture has promoted a number of such phrases to common idioms, to
the point where they are used without consideration of their original
meanings.  Example:  "goodbye" is a contraction of "God be with you".
In the context of artillery fire, "God help me" could mean anything
from its literal meaning to "shit, am I ever in trouble".  It is a
mistake to interpret a common idiom, used without thought of the
historical meaning, as implying a religious conversion.

He also missed an important category of people in his list.  This
is best illustrated by rephrasing his definitions in terms of answers
to the basic question "what is the nature of God?":

- Atheist:  There is no God.

- Agnostic:  I don't know the nature of God, and I don't believe
	you do either.  [This is the strict meaning of the word;
	for a looser and increasingly-common meaning, omit the
	second phrase.]

- Christmas Christian:  [Not really a separate category.  The selective
	church attendance is seen by True Believers as hypocrisy, but
	can arise for other reasons including avoidance of oppression
	(yes, Virginia, there are still places where one must bow to
	social convention to avoid being hassled endlessly).]

The category he missed, which lacks a formal name, is the following:

- Unreligious:  I am unconcerned with the answer because I do not
	consider the *question* interesting/relevant/important (circle
	one or more).  I am willing to believe in God(s) if presented
	with solid evidence of his/her/their/its existence, but have
	seen no such evidence to date.  Hearsay doesn't count, especially
	when there are hundreds of different, contradictory versions.
	[This category is sometimes called "humanist", but that word has
	come to have more complex implications in some quarters.]