Many who claim they’re agnostic are actually atheists.

I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone express to me that they are not an atheist, god no, they are agnostic. This is typically followed by the person explaining that they are not positive that there is no god, but they don’t practice any religion and don’t pray to any god. Essentially, they don’t personally believe in god. Well, I hate to tell you, but that means you’re an atheist.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an agnostic as “a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.” The term was originally created by T.H. Huxley. Essentially, agnostic people don’t know if there’s a god, and in that sense, we are all agnostic.

So what, then, is an atheist? An atheist is defined as “a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.” Notice that it doesn’t say an atheist claims to know there is no god or can prove the nonexistence of god. An atheist simply doesn’t personally believe in any god. They have no faith there is a god, but they don’t claim to have information the rest of us don’t have.

This is where many people get confused. Many will say they cannot call themselves an atheist, because they’re not sure if there is a god or not, even though they are not a person of faith. A person who expresses this is an atheist. If someone could prove there was a god, you can be damn sure they wouldn’t be quiet about it.

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” ― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

So why is it that so many people who are atheists refuse to refer to themselves as atheists? Well, it is clear many are confused by the terms, so that’s one reason. Another more unfortunate reason people often refuse to call themselves atheists is that there is a stigma attached to the term.

Like the word “feminist,” atheist is seen as a politicized term only used by people who are part of some fringe group. I, myself, am a feminist who took quite some time to start saying I was one. Feminists have wrongly been portrayed as man-hating, angry, shrill people. In reality, anyone who believes men and women deserve equal rights should call themselves a feminist.

Similarly, with atheism, there is a certain image of people who refer to themselves as atheists. People imagine rude old men yelling about how religious people are idiots. I have not found actual atheists to be this way, and I believe it is a stereotype that was largely created by hyper-religious people who dislike atheism. There are of course people like this, and some of them are well known, but I think they are certainly more of an exception than a rule when it comes to atheists.

Another misconception about atheism is that there is anything new about it. Many believe it’s an idea that is relatively modern. In fact, though they may not have used the same terms, forms of atheism existed before Jesus Christ ever allegedly existed. The Greek and Roman philosophers Epicurus, Democritus and Lucretius are considered by many to be the earliest known atheists.

“All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher.”

― Lucretius, On the Nature of Things: de Rerum Natura

Democritus helped develop what is now often referred to as “materialism.” That is not to say he cared deeply about material things, like clothing and jewelry, but he believed that everything is just matter. This concept is a rejection of the supernatural and focuses on the observable. Many atheists derive much of their philosophy from this idea.

The atomist Epicurus believed, we now know correctly, that everything was made of unimaginably small building blocks that could never be destroyed. Before we were ever able to observe what is (still) called an atom, which is a word that comes from the Greeks who thought about them as Epicurus did, he built his philosophy around this concept. Epicurus, to me, represents the scientific mind of the atheist. He saw science and philosophy as inseparable in many ways.

Atheism is an old and often misunderstood idea. It is not a religion, as many try to say it is, and it does not claim to know anything that can’t be proven. If you think you’re agnostic, there’s an excellent chance you’re an atheist, and there’s no reason to be ashamed of it. It’s a respectable tradition. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote: “All thinking men are atheists.”