Reddit reviews The Oxford Handbook of Atheism (Oxford Handbooks)

> "Agnostic Atheists": If You Have to Constantly "Correct" How People Use the Words "Atheist" and "Agnostic" Then Its Your Definitions That Are Problematic, Not Theirs

OP, its_not_ibsen, is appears that you are telling me that when I self-describe via the label agnostic atheist, and then when you tell me that I am claiming that Gods do not exist - my response pointing out that I use the phrase to mean a position of non-belief or lack of belief in the existence of Gods (as a result of the continuing lack of a credible and supportable proof of the claim that God(s) exist by Theists where the "proof" provided is no better than the level of reliability and confidence threshold of a conceptual possibility, an appeal to emotion, wishful thinking, the ego-conceit that highly-subjective mind-dependent qualia-experience of self-affirmation that what "I know in my heart of hearts represents Truth" supports a mind-independent actually credible truth or fact value, and/or Theistic Religious Faith (for Theism-related claims), and/or that any logical argument that is presented fails to be shown to be both logically true and irrefutable and also shown to be factual true to the above the significance level identified above, even though the the consequences of the actualization of this God(s)/supernatural construct, or proof that God(s)/supernatural construct does exist, and associated claims, is extraordinary and justifies an extraordinary level of reliability and confidence) can be dismissed because:

'1. You say so

'2. Definitions used in academia source back to the definition of atheism was developed concurrently and conjointly with with the early Schools of Psychological thought. During the 1570s and 1580s, the word "athéisme" was introduced to the French language, and was used in the sense of “one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God” and used as semantically loaded language as a pejorative and/or insult. This tradition of using atheist/atheism as an insult continued within the English language ("atheist," "atheism"), especially in the 15th - 17th centuries where being labeled an atheist was to be considered an infidel or heretic where the result was often torture or death. In the 18th and 19th centuries when Christianity was enjoying tremendous popularity in the English speaking world, and when many common words were formally defined as they are used today, "atheist" and "atheism" was still used as an insult and the propagation of the definition of an atheist as one that claimed that God (usually the God of Christianity) did not exist was rather useful for the right-thinking Christian to argue and to maintain their position of moral superiority and righteousness against belief in the one True God and as a 'tradition' are maintained and slow to be modified to reflect changing discourse

and

'3. Definitions used in popular culture, an appeal to popularity, that are strongly influenced by the traditional pejorative usage of atheist as not believing in the God(s) that obviously exists must be more correct than that explicitly stated by the person actually presenting the term/phrase and the definition attached therein.

Really?

From:

• Discourse Analysis and the Definition of Atheism, by Ethan G. Quillen, Science, Religion and Culture, Vol. 2, Iss. 3, Pages 25-35
  
  [A good reference OP, if you are actually interested in how "atheist/atheism" has been used over the centuries - instead of just sitting on your high horse named Sanctimonious Piety to rag at a group of people.]
  
  The Discourse concludes with:
  
  "To conclude, then, we might resolve that employing a discursive analysis to the study of Atheism is effective on two levels: first, on the level of the subjects under our investigation, it alleviates the need to define the term prior to our examinations, granting us the methodological epoche or agnosticism necessary to carry out an objective inquiry; and second, it deconstructs our own internal discourse so as to further remove any subjective influence, not only in broadening what we might engage with as data, but in how we perceive our subject’s construction of identity with terminology we did not in some way ‘give’ to them. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this removes the temptation to construct our own terminology, infecting our subjects with language created for our own benefit and thus further removes us from the discourse that promotes even more precarious notions such as ‘ir-religion,’ ‘un-belief,’ or ‘non-religion.’"
  
  and
  
  
• The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Bullivant, Stephen, and Michael Ruse, eds., Oxford University Press, 2013.
  
  "The precise definition of atheism is both a vexed and vexatious issue." "Even from it's earliest beginnings in Greek and English, however, atheism/atheotés admitted of a variety of competing, and confusing, definitions - often bearing no strict relationship to it's strict etymology." "Even today, [], there is is no clear, academic consensus as to how exactly the term [atheist/atheism] should be used." Source:
  
  With the breadth and variance of the definitions and usages of various identifier terms used over the centuries, if there is ambiguity within the term/phrase as used by a person, ask the person what they mean when they use the term/phrase and use that definition (instead of standing by and saying "na uh, blah blah blah means this, and I don't have the intellectual maturity or integrity to adjust my thinking to your actual position/belief").

No.

The Oxford Handbook of Atheism

>Even today, however, there is no clear, academic consensus as to how exactly the term should be used. For example, consider the following definitions of ‘atheism’ or ‘atheist’, all taken from serious scholarly writings published in the last ten years:

>‘Atheism […] is the belief that there is no God or gods’(Baggini 2003:3)

>‘At its core, atheism […] designates a position (not a “belief”) that includes or asserts no god(s)’ (Eller 2010: 1)

>‘[A]n atheist is someone without a belief in God; he or she need not be someone who believes that God does not exist’ (Martin 2007: 1)

>‘[A]n atheist does not believe in the god that theism favours’ (Cliteur 2009: 1)

>‘By “atheist,” I mean precisely what the word has always been understood to mean — a principled and informed decision to reject belief in God’ (McGrath 2004: 175)

...

>Throughout this volume, by contrast, and unless otherwise stated, ‘atheism’ is defined as an absence of belief in the existence of a God or gods. As with most mainstream definitions of the term, it is simply the fruit of two basic decisions: the meaning and scope of a-, and the meaning and scope of -theism.

First of all, that's not agnosticism.

Secondly, Huxley and Spencer's agnosticism made a fair bit of sense in the 19th century, but they've not aged well with discoveries on the limits of knowledge in the 20th. That is, you don't get the formally agnostic Will to Believe from James (inexpertly presented recently as Life of Pi) and get to banish Russel's discussion of the matter.

Note that the overlap between atheism and agnosticism isn't new, radical, or limited to reddit. It's reasonably well documented by both the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the recently published Oxford Handbook. The former should be required reading on the topic, you can view how the latter discusses this debate using Amazon preview.