Vinterland

I read a lot of posts on this board, and I would like to briefly explain something many agnostics appear to misunderstand about agnosticism. First, it is not a middle ground between the beliefs of atheism and theism. Agnosticism deals with knowledge rather than belief. Another misunderstanding many of you have is what atheism and theism are. They are by definition:

"theism (the doctrine or belief in the existence of a God or gods)"
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=theist

and obviously atheism is by definition a lack of belief in God(s).

prefix "a" means without

There is nothing stated in those definitions that one must be convicted of their beliefs to be a theist/atheists, therefore it is a fact that being an a theist or atheist is not conditional on how firm they hold their beliefs.

The final bit I'd like to add is that every self-described agnostic is a theist or atheist because every agnostic believes or doesn't believe in God. Agnosticism is the very useful concept we choose to apply to our belief. Don't be afraid to properly describe yourself as an agnostic-atheist only because Christian's, and some atheists themselves reinforce the notion that agnosticism and atheism are seperate entities. Also, as a Deist here on the board has demonstrated, agnostic-theism is alive and well.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”