If you’ve been here before, you might be surprised that agnosticism only ranks third in how I describe myself—after “straight, white, privileged male” and “feminist.” But these posts aren’t ranked by importance. They’re a chronology of how I think about myself in terms of labels and definitions. I don’t much like labels, but I do like to know where I stand.
So let me say plainly what has changed. I used to call myself an atheist, and for years I meant it. I no longer do. Not because I’ve found God, but because I’ve become more careful about what these words actually commit me to—and once I got careful, “agnostic” turned out to be the honest answer.
What agnosticism actually is
Wander into a theist–atheist debate, and you’ll notice something quickly: nobody agrees on what these terms mean. So even a definition takes work.
The easy move is to quote a dictionary. Many atheists do it to settle the question—”Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods, that’s it.” But “lack of belief” is far too broad to do any real work. By that definition, newborns, people who’ve never encountered the idea of gods, and patients with severe brain trauma all qualify as atheists. So, arguably, does my microwave (yes, the example is stupid, but it makes the point). That’s not a serious position; it’s a phrase built to be as inclusive as possible, and inclusiveness is not the same as precision.
More usefully, philosophy of religion (as I understand it; I tried to explore this in depth here) draws four positions on the proposition that there is a God:
- Yes — theist
- No — atheist
- Suspend judgment — agnostic
- No opinion / no concept of God — innocent
The point of these four is that no one falls into two boxes at once. The atheist doesn’t merely fail to believe; he answers no—he holds that there is no God or gods. The innocent have never considered the question. The agnostic sits in the middle in a very specific way: he has considered the question and has decided to suspend judgment. Not “hasn’t gotten around to deciding.” Decided not to decide. Roughly: maybe, maybe not.
That distinction matters because it’s exactly where I now find myself. I’ve thought hard about whether there’s a God. I’m not persuaded there is one. But I’m also not prepared to assert there isn’t—and asserting there isn’t is what Atheism, properly understood, requires.
Why I stepped back from Atheism
When I called myself an atheist, I leaned on the “weak” or “negative” version—the idea that you can be an atheist simply by failing to be convinced, without ever claiming no gods exist. That felt safe. It let me keep the label without shouldering the burden of proof.
But if I’m honest, that’s precisely the move that collapses the categories. If “Atheism” only means “not convinced,” then agnostics and innocents are atheists too, and the word stops meaning anything. The weak/strong split inside Atheism was always a way to have it both ways. Once I stopped allowing myself that, I had to ask which side of the line I was really on: do I believe there is no God, or do I suspend judgment?
I suspend judgment. Here’s why.
I think the problem of evil has real force—enough to make a certain kind of God deeply improbable: the personal, intervening, caretaker God of popular religion. That God seems, to me, close to being ruled out. But the problem of evil does far less against the God of the philosophers—an omnipotent, omnibenevolent abstraction with no obligation to intervene in ways I’d recognise. And as long as that remains an open possibility, I can’t in good conscience assert that no gods exist.
Some philosophers think they can. Nicholas Everitt’s The Non-Existence of God is a book I recommend to anyone who wants to go past the surface-level “New Atheist” material, and I find its arguments genuinely persuasive. But “persuasive” isn’t “settled.” I don’t yet know enough philosophy to stake the stronger claim that these arguments succeed—that the case against all gods is closed. Atheism asks me to answer no. The most I can honestly say is that I can’t see, but I won’t pretend to have shut the door. That’s agnosticism, and I’d rather wear the accurate label than the flattering one.
To be clear about what agnosticism is not: it isn’t fence-sitting for its own sake, and it isn’t a polite way of being an atheist who dislikes confrontation. It’s the position that, absent positive evidence either way, suspending judgment is permitted—that I’m allowed to decline to decide rather than manufacture a conviction I don’t hold.
What my agnosticism does not entail
Strictly speaking, agnosticism entails nothing beyond a suspended judgment on the question of God. But the real world attaches connotations to words, whether they’ve earned them or not, so let me head a few off.
Being agnostic doesn’t make you pro-choice—but I am. It doesn’t make you a feminist—but I am. It doesn’t make you a humanist or an egalitarian—but I am both. It doesn’t make you love Star Trek—but I do. None of that follows from where I land on theism. It follows from other commitments I hold for their own reasons, and I’d hold them whether I were agnostic, atheist, or something else entirely.
The company keeps a label.
A few years ago, I could have stopped there. I can’t now, because I also have to distance myself from some genuinely ugly ideas that circulate in these communities.
If you doubt me, spend an hour in the comments of a large Atheism page or forum that treats non-moderation as a virtue. The claim is usually that bad ideas get defeated in open debate. Real life doesn’t work that way. Unmoderated spaces don’t refute racism, sexism, or apologias for Nazism—they drive ordinary people out and leave the loudest bigots holding the floor. So online Atheism ends up associated with that content. Not because Atheism leads there—it plainly doesn’t—but because people who already held those views showed up somewhere they’d find an audience.
Atheism is a claim about deities. Nothing about it implies “build the wall” or race pseudoscience, and I suspect the people pushing that were racists and sexists long before they were atheists. The correlation is worth exploring, and I’d like to understand it better, but it’s only a correlation.
The same goes for agnosticism, and I want to say it directly: none of this is a “both sides are equally bad” hedge. Suspending judgment on God does not mean suspending judgment on cruelty. I have no trouble at all deciding where I stand on that.
I also reject the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” reasoning some non-believers adopt. The alt-right hates Islam, which makes it a convenient ally to anyone whose main interest is opposing religion. I’ll pass. I’d sooner spend an evening with a religious person who won’t touch racist or sexist pseudoscience than with a self-described rationalist who cites junk studies the moment they can be aimed at a minority, a woman, or an LGBT person.
Why bother defining it at all
I dislike labels because they’re mostly used to file people into boxes you no longer have to think about. But I dislike the opposite move more—the studied refusal to define anything you believe, which lets a person project neutrality while committing to nothing. To me, that reads as a small dishonesty, however sophisticated it looks.
So I’ll define it. I’m an agnostic: I’ve considered whether there’s a God, I’m not convinced there is one, and I’m not prepared to assert there isn’t. That’s a narrower, less crowd-pleasing position than the Atheism I used to claim—there are fewer of us once you insist on the distinction—but it’s the true one. And if honesty means occasionally revising not just your beliefs but the name you give yourself, I think that’s a trade worth making.
Further reading: What Is Atheism?
A note on AI use: I wrote this piece with the help of AI. The thinking, positions, and arguments are my own; I used AI as a tool to draft, tighten, and refine the text. As always, the views expressed here are mine.
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