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I lack belief in a deity of any kind. I'm not religious. I'm not "spiritual." From magic to an afterlife, I lack belief in it all. It isn't that I believe all these things to be false, it's that I see no reason to believe they are true. It's like if someone held up a large, unmarked box and asked me, "What's in this box?" To put it simply, I don't know. I could guess, but even if my guess happened to be correct, that wouldn't mean I know what is in the box. I just happened to make a lucky guess. Yes, there may be some things you'd have a hard time convincing me were in the box (A live elephant? Yeah, right.) but the fact that I don't know what actually is in the box doesn't mean I believe there is nothing in the box. This kind of answer would apply similarly to my belief in a deity; if you asked me if there was some kind of "higher power," I'd have to answer, "I don't know." There are certain kinds of "higher powers" that I think are profoundly unlikely, but that doesn't mean I could justifiably claim there has never been any form of a "higher power" anywhere at any time. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time conveying my beliefs to most people without going into some kind of mini-speech.

For most of my life I called myself an atheist. It's what my parents called themselves and my beliefs were on the same level as theirs, so I called myself an atheist. However, I have been informed (with increasing frequency) that in order to be an atheist, I must believe there is no deity of any kind. But I do no hold such a belief. If I try to discuss the terms "weak/negative" and "strong/positive" atheism, I'm told that such terms are simply made up and don't actually mean anything. So what am I?

Well, those who declare I am not an atheist will supply the label of agnostic. This might work with most people, but I am a philosophy major. I know what the original definition of "agnostic" is, and it isn't "someone who lacks belief in a deity." Agnostic, as defined by its creator (Thomas H. Huxley) means someone who believes the existence (or non-existence) of a deity cannot be known. This definition allows for there to be agnostics who believe in deities. One famous example of an agnostic Christian would be Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that you could not know that God existed; instead, you had to turn to faith. Faith, not knowledge, was the cornerstone of a belief in God. This made faith profoundly important. That being said, I do not believe God is inherently unknowable. Maybe the existence or not existence of a deity is beyond human knowledge, but maybe it's not. I don't think I have enough information to make that call.

I've even tried using the term "non-religious." Unfortunately, I have discovered that many Christians consider themselves to be non-religious, so this term doesn't help much. After all, if I'm trying to tell a self proclaimed non-religious Christian that I don't believe in a deity, I'm not going to get very far using the term non-religious. Basically, people sometimes take this to mean that I am "spiritual" but not religious, which is not the case.

So, according to many people I'm not an atheist. But agnostic doesn't fit really well either. Being non-religious seems to have little to do with a belief in a deity. What exactly am I? Beats me. For now I seem to be stuck giving little speeches whenever anyone asks.

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