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What do we call a person who believes in god but not in a particular religion?

Khaleel
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3 Answers3

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A theist is a very general term for someone who believes at least one god exists.

Barrie’s answer of deist specifically refers to the notion that the existence of a god is evident from reason and the observation of the universe, but such a god does not intervene in the lives of humans.

MetaEd
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Marcus_33
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    Technically, theism implies a belief that the god intervenes in the universe. See WP, ODO, m-w etc. – coleopterist Aug 28 '12 at 17:06
  • That's actually very interesting - so (to stretch an analogy a bit) the theist and the deist are opposite halves of the coin's face, while atheists are the other side of the coin entirely? – Marcus_33 Aug 28 '12 at 17:12
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    There are also the agnostics, the antitheists, the spinozans, and probably a couple of other shades to account for. – coleopterist Aug 28 '12 at 17:24
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    Agnosticism, in the coin model, is the edge of the coin; they assert that we can neither prove not disprove the existence of any god. Spinozism is a subset of Deism seeking to explain his nature and involvement beyond our ability to detect or understand. Antitheism is simply more atheism; though some religions either assert there is no god (Buddhism) or accept that as a valid viewpoint (Hinduism), in Western culture if you call yourself "atheist" you reject the basic premise of Abrahamic religion, and are thus antitheist. – KeithS Aug 28 '12 at 18:13
  • @KeithS Not having a religion doesn't make you anti-religion. – Brendan Long Aug 28 '12 at 19:29
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    Well now we're getting into implicit/explicit atheism and weak/strong atheism. You're exactly right that you can be an "atheist" without opposing religion, but being a "strong atheist" pretty much requires it. An "implicit atheist" simply does not assert there is a god. An "explicit atheist" personally denies belief in a god, but does not go so far as to say that "there is a god" is a false statement. A "strong atheist" does make that assertion. Strong atheists are antitheists. – KeithS Aug 28 '12 at 19:55
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    @KeithS Only in the sense that a strong Christian is an antijew. You can believe there isn't a god without being against religion. There are an absurd number of branches of belief, why must lack of belief be so polarised? – Phoshi Aug 28 '12 at 19:58
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    Because of the nature of the assertion. Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians all believe in the Holy Trinity but differ as to the exact nature of God's teachings. Christians and Jews believe the same God exists but differ on belief that Jesus was the Son of God and thus that his teachings are from God. Muslims believe the same God exists, but that everyone else got it all wrong, so God started over with them. Strong atheism is fundamentally at odds with all of this; they assert that "God exists" is a false statement and thus that all theist religion is wrong at its core. – KeithS Aug 28 '12 at 20:10
  • This isn't just "I won't say there is a god". This isn't "I don't believe in a god". Strong atheism is "God does not exist. He cannot exist. There is no way anyone could logically come to the conclusion that he does exist. Thus, by saying he exists, you are lying, and lying is wrong, thus religion is wrong". – KeithS Aug 28 '12 at 20:18
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    Whether an atheist must by definition "oppose religion" depends on what you mean by "oppose". Like, I doubt that there is such a creature as bigfoot. So I oppose that idea in the sense of thinking it is false. But I don't go around campaigning against it: I don't give money to anti-bigfoot groups or try to persuade my friends not to believe in bigfoot, etc. – Jay Aug 28 '12 at 21:56
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    Bigfoot does not exist. He cannot exist. There is no way anyone could logically come to the conclusion that he does exist. Thus, by saying he exists, you are lying, and lying is wrong, thus bigfootism is wrong. Don't try to soft-pedal it @Jay, you are strong bigfoot disbeliever. All bigfootists agree on some version of a large hairy creature, but you assert that all belief in bigfoot is wrong at it's core. You are an anti-bigfootist. – psr Aug 29 '12 at 00:06
  • The difference comes in between whether you believe something is incorrect or inherently bad. An atheist may say that there are no gods, but an antitheist would say that religion is unnecessary and a detriment to society. – Quasiperfect Aug 29 '12 at 00:45
  • @psr My point was that there's a difference between believing someting to be false and actively campaigning against it. There are probably many ideas that I believe to be false that I do not campaign against because I think it would be unproductive, because I think the idea is wrong but harmless, I am not certain enough in my disbelief to be vocal, I don't care, etc. – Jay Aug 29 '12 at 15:04
  • @psr BTW a person can make a statement that is false without being a liar. He might be honestly mistaken. – Jay Aug 29 '12 at 15:07
  • @Jay - I was 100% joking. I thought the silliness of KeithS's argument would be clearer if I used bigfoot. Sorry if that didn't come across the way I thought it would. – psr Aug 29 '12 at 16:40
  • @psr I didn't catch the parallel wording to KeithS's post, so I completely missed the joke. :-( – Jay Aug 29 '12 at 20:48
  • The question is ambiguous. Does OP want a word for (i) a person who rejects *a* particular religion (but believes in God)? (ii) a person who rejects *all* particular religions (but believes in God)? or, (iii) a person, religion *unidentified*, who believes in God? The question bears all three interpretations. “Theist” will work for (iii), but does not carry the connotations of (i) or (ii) and so will not work for them. – MetaEd Nov 19 '12 at 23:23
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A deist in the OED’s definition, is ‘One who acknowledges the existence of a God upon the testimony of reason, but rejects revealed religion.’

MetaEd
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Barrie England
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  • Whether this is correct depends whether the poster meant "believes in God but explicitly rejects all religion" or "believes in God but we do't want to be so specific as to say he believes in any particular religion". Like, Jews, Christians, Moslems, Hindus, etc are all theists, but none are deists. – Jay Aug 28 '12 at 21:21
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To begin with, there are many ways to describe “a person who believes in [G]od” (or gods). Believer, theist, etc., can be used when the context already makes clear which particular god(s) are meant, or when it does not matter. When you also want to identify the god(s), you can often find a particular word, such as Christian for a person who believes in Jesus Christ.

Then there are many ways to describe a person who does not believe “in a particular religion”. If the person does not believe in any religion, they are unreligious or not religious. If you mean a particular religion, you can often construct a description using not or non, such as: non Muslim or not Buddhist. (In a noun phrase, these will generally be hyphenated, as in: “non-Jewish Israeli”.)

To identify both in a person together becomes more of a puzzle. Depending on your needs, you might try the popular “spiritual but not religious”, or something like “non-sectarian Christian”. Or, if you are describing the person from the point of view of the religion they don’t believe in, heretic, apostate, or atheist.¹

Notes

  1. The word atheist was coined by believers as an epithet for a person who is estranged from the gods or abandoned by them, and is still used in that sense by believers to mean a person who rejects their religion: Gk. atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly". (Online Etymology Dictionary) Atheists themselves adopted the word much later.
MetaEd
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