eli5 whats the difference between being athiest and non religious?
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Theist : Someone who believe in god
Atheist : Someone who doesn’t believe in god
Gnostic : Someone who know there is a god
Agnostic : Someone who doesn’t know if there is a god
Non-religious : Someone who doesn’t follow a religion.
People will always fall in more than one category. Most people are agnostic theist, meaning they don’t know if there is a god, but they believe. You can also be a non religious theist. You believe that god exist but you don’t want to take part in an organized religion. A lot of people that call themselves Atheist or Agnostic are actually both, but it really depend on each individual. Not a lot of people are confident enough to be gnostic (theist or atheist), but they exist. They are usually the vocal minority.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of people that might disagree with those definitions. Not everybody really dig into what each word mean and it’s a bit of a touchy subject. So in case of a discussion with someone, it might be important to ask them what they mean exactly by the terms they are using. Otherwise you might just end up in a discussion over definition instead of on the subject itself.
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