For the purposes of those whom do not know a heresy is a belief that is not orthodox. The "A" is to be understood as without not necessarily "against".
So agnostic means without knowledge and atheism is without theism.
I do not like to use the therm anti theist because "Anti" does mean against. I an not against theist. I am against theism- living as though mythology was real.
I love to study the history of Gnosticism the perhaps earliest form of Christianities. I am not against what happened in the past I only study how it affects the present. Thank you for your response.

Now this is stupid having a debate about how close one is to confirming no god
agnostic or atheist , we are the same, we do not follow a deity. Now that all are on the same page, we need to realize the real deal is too rely on our own intellect and move forward

If someone does not actually believe in a supernatural being even if they accept that there could be, they are by definition an atheist. There are simply more atheist out there than what people believe, wether they know it or wish to openly admit it.

very nicely put, Indeed so. The energy has always been here and now we join with it

theo means god. theia means goddess.

This is something that really confuses me. How can you not know, and yet believe? It sounds as if you are presented with a jar full of coins and say "I have no idea how many coins are in there, but I believe the number is odd".

@GoldenMean True. But IIUC theology applies to gods, goddesses, spirits, etc.

@hlfsousa Well, what it is that I suspect is, as I stated, that something special happened, and if what that is gets identified, I would accept that as being part of theology, even without being part of any religious practice or text. I base that in large part on a close read of the changes the Sumerian myths underwent by the time they got into the Hebrew mythos. For example, Kathleen McCauliffe, in her recent book "This is Your Brain on Parasites" surveys Pentateuch rules regarding infectious disease control. Did Canaan-era Israel actually practice infectious disease control? Did they get it from somebody else? Did anybody concurrent also do it? Did it work? Same question for Pentateuch harvest rules which ensure autumn application of manure and promises six years (twice the norm) for fallow field agriculture. Autumn manure ensures plenty of available soil nitrogen for planting time in the spring. Did they really do it? Did anybody else do it? Did it work? These are the sorts of questions I examine, and they are completely without respect to a transcendent deity or what your typical theist-on-the-street wold consider a deity. I hope that answers your question; if not, I'm happy to share my research. The take-away from this reply, I hope, is that, although almost all theist communication involves supporting Jesus as part of a triune god, he certainly doesn't have a monopoly on theological thought.

Aren't you just assuming that this something special was not natural? For if these facts have natural causes, it does not make sense to add them to any theology.

@hlfsousa Absolutely not assuming anything was not "natural." If the Greek pantheon was a stranded space ship crew who took the role of gods, that's theology. If the god of the bible was a post-doc from Deneb 4 or the sixth dimension, that would be theology too.IMHO.

@andygee but you are assuming that it was not a mundane or ordinary cause nonetheless.

@hlfsousa Still not assuming anything. I'm trying to make clear what I mean up-thread about "low values for Theo." If people think it's a god, it properly belongs in theology. It is possible that emergent, rather than transcendent, properties of the universe had some effct on us we don't know about. I'm not assuming that actually happened.

@andygee I'm really sorry, but I am still having trouble understanding that position. At first you seemed to claim, by saying that "something special" happened sometime, somehow, maybe, that you believed some phenomenon had a cause that was not related to what we know, but you didn't know what that could be. It is really hard to have a better idea without an example of what that phenomenon could be. If you could provide an example of what a "low value for Theo" could be applied, that would help me a lot -- if it is not too much of a hassle. Have a nice weekend!

@hlfsousa Short answer - anything that is NOT the Christian trinity is a "low value of Theo." this might be something I don't know about, (putting on anti-embarrassment raincoat) survivors of Atlantis or ancient astronauts or whatever. If it (1) is NOT a conscious transcendent property of the universe; (2) it is something recognized as a "god" by some group, and (3) we don't quite know what happened, then it is a low value for Theo.

@andygee I understand what you mean by "low values of Theo". That is not the point of my confusion. What I don't get is whether you believe this unknown thing or not.

@hlfsousa I don't know what the thing is. But I'll accept it if I see it!

@andygee So you don't know what the thing is, which makes you an agnostic. And you currently don't accept it as true -- concluding from "I'll accept it" that you currently do not. Correct me if I'm wrong; but if I'm not, why call yourself "theist"?

@hlfsousa I call myself a "theist accepting low values of Theo" because, for a silly but complicated reason, for the past few years on FB I've been challenging CS, ID, and IC to actually perform original and affirmative research for their positions. I find that doing that as a theist of some kind pisses them off more than being an agnostic. By now, though, I rather like the term. I think it may be accurate because it is likely that i would have a greater marginal propinquity to accept some "special" phenomenon as being caused by something I would accept as Theo than an agnostic would accept something miraculous as being caused by a more traditional deity. This all started with a mathematical and scientific exegetical project started many years ago involving specific technical details showing up in Genesis in relation to their concomitant calendrical information. Too complicated to explain in a post.

I used to think that the word agnostic evolved from the "gnostics" A Gnostic But looked it up and nope , not even connected, Not sure I believe what I just said

@EMC2 Gnostic is from Gnosos, knowing. The Gnostic Gospels are based on information "known" to select people. Agnostic is a-gnostic, "not knowing." You can be agnostic about anything. For example, I am agnostic w/r/t economics.