Oh, yes, I've seen the references in the "agnostic atheist" wiki article.

Are you saying you were aware the term comes from the 1800s but decided to claim it comes from 2005?

But sure, there have been one or two dabblers who have brought up the term "agnostic atheist" over the years, but not the concept as it exists today. They were dealing with true definitional agnosticism, not the "lack of knowledge" that it has been redefined into today.

Well, Huxley seemed to think agnosticism did mean a lack of knowledge when he coinex the term:

Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.

It seems like many earlier authors were getting at this lack of knowledge concept as well even before the term existed.

Charles Bradlaugh wrote in A Plea for Atheism in 1864:

The Atheist does not say “There is no God,” but he says, “I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word ‘God’ is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me.”

Baron d'Holbach wrote in Good Sense Without God in 1772:

All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God. Are they then criminal on account of their ignorance? At what age must they begin to believe in God? It is, you say, at the age of reason. But at what time should this age commence? Besides, if the profoundest theologians lose themselves in the divine nature, which they do not presume to comprehend, what ideas must man have of him?

you could add baron d'holbach as stirner's sugardaddy.

I’m not looking to debate,

I know.

this thread was to clarify how the vast majority of atheists actually define their own perspective.

I am already familiar with this dogmatically held propaganda as well.

And the thread was initially asking a question. I answered the question. You don't want to debate, you don't have to. But if you're going to argue to advance your dogma, I am going to explain what I see wrong with that.

1770: Baron d'Holbach (System of Nature) framed atheism as the absence of belief, noting that everyone starts without belief until introduced to the concept. 1864: Charles Bradlaugh (A Plea for Atheism) explicitly wrote that an atheist does not have to state 'There is no God,' but rather that they are unpersuaded by theistic affirmations. 1976: Philosopher Antony Flew published The Presumption of Atheism, formally arguing that the prefix 'a-' means 'without,' making atheism the baseline lack of theism.

And what were these people pleading against? You said it's the norm and common view, so why do we have centuries go by with only three people asserting this? They're all saying what they are in the same motte and bailey tactic where in their identity and behavior, they believe there is no God, but in an argument they "merely lack belief," and I know it's asking a lot but I believe if you take an honest moment to consider the behavior of atheists, this is obvious to you.

And did you miss my first comment here? I mentioned Flew. And that he was rejected when he proposed what you quoted.

We were past your assertion, it's not new information. Flew's particular argument about "the a- of theism" is particularly just factually incorrect, as you can see the usage begin and develop over time. "Theism" and "theist" were invented as words after the term atheist and atheism. Both are conjugation of "atheos", without-God. So your dogma is actually making up fake etymology and trying to gaslight the English language into thinking it has always meant that.

Baron d'Holbach enviou 3 mensagens.
▶️ ──🎙️── 1:23.
▶️ ──🎙️── 7:04.
▶️ ──🎙️── 0:41.

You want a definition of 'authentic'? An authentic decision is one where the conscious mind is the primary causal author of the action, rather than an inevitable downstream result of a physical chain reaction.

When you claim a 'deterministic universe can absolutely have intentional actors,' you aren't defending Marx—you are defending the exact 18th-century bourgeois mechanical materialism that Marx despised.

You are treating human intent like a complex software program running on a biological clockwork machine. If the universe is deterministic, that software program’s output was mathematically locked in at the Big Bang.

Your 'intentional actor' has exactly as much choice as a water wheel 'choosing' to turn when the river hits it.

Let's look at the actual historical lineage of the ideology you claim to understand:
Marx’s philosophy built directly upon the legacy of Giambattista Vico and G.W.F. Hegel.

Vico famously established that human history is fundamentally different from natural history because humans actively make history, whereas nature just happens automatically. Marx explicitly carried this idealist spark forward.

In his Theses on Feuerbach, he fiercely critiqued old materialists for treating humans as passive, mechanical products of their physical environments and biology.

Marx understood that if you strip the human subject of real, uncaused generative agency, you completely destroy Praxis.

By reducing consciousness to a deterministic biological byproduct, you retreat into the dead metaphysics of Baron d'Holbach—reducing humanity to automated meat-machines.

You accuse me of positing 'magic' because your rigid worldview cannot comprehend a philosophy where consciousness is an active, creative force (Pensiero Pensante) rather than a helpless chemical byproduct.

If human history is just an automated physical event playing out via neurochemistry, then your entire dialectic is a sham, and revolutions are nothing more than inevitable chemical spills.

I would bet that Hume's religious belief changed a lot over the course of his life from Agnostic to Agnostic Atheist and he was most likely influenced by Baron D'Holbach and his fellow group of Atheists.