No Peace Under False Sky
They don't believe the opposite either. They're on the fence about all of it. It's not just "I don't strongly believe in a god(s)," it's also "but i don't strongly believe it can all be explained without one either."
I'm sorry, I'm typing this up before work so it's gonna be sorta short ;p. But what is happening is that you don't know exactly how belief works, and I'm trying to make that sound as unoffensive as possible. When you believe in something, you know that you believe in it. Your belief is active. I know that I believe in the big bang, I know that I believe in gravity, I know that I believe that burgers are delicious and yet bad for me. When you believe in something you know that you believe in it even if you aren't sure if it's true or something. I'm trying to keep this unword salady. In the question of a belief in something, you really either do believe or you don't. Not believing encompasses not being sure, and not believing. Not being sure and withholding belief until evidence is in, is still obviously not believing. There isn't a middle ground between I do believe and I don't believe, and I get how that's scary for people who're still deciding. But they aren't necessarily taking a definitive stance, they'er asking for the proof before they actively believe.
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It is a passive rejection of two active stances... ergo "agnostic" is a more accurate descriptor because while their belief in one or the other might fluctuate, their agnosticism remains indefinite. Just plain old "agnostic" gets the point across immediately, whereas calling yourself an atheist, where you might change your mind 3 times a day, would be giving someone the short end of the stick.
And once again this is what I've seen in this thread mostly so far. People not knowing the meanings and definitions and mixing them up. Only one of the two stances in terms of Atheist and Theist, is necessarily active. Belief is active, a lack of belief...is just a lack of a belief. If you feel like Atheism is disbelief, you're sorta right in that someone can choose to disbelieve and be an theist, but someone who lacks a belief is also an atheist. Atheism is more or less the middle ground that people so desperately want to sit on. It's "I haven't been shown the proof, so I don't believe yet". Agnostic is a claim on knowledge and you use it injunction with your current belief to explain deeper what your stance is. An agnostic atheist or theist are people who don't know if it's possible to know if a god exist but hold no beliefs in one/holds a belief in one.
Although I do get your point...that would be a hard person to pin-down interms of their belief or a lack of a belief if they're constantly switching throught out the day. So I get that the stance "agnostic" could be useful in the way that people are using it, aka a stance on belief and not a stance on knowledge. But it's still being used wrong.
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Consistency is the key, and if they are inconsistent between things, you describe them by their inconsistency
THis sounds smart, I don't really know what to say to it.