Atheists & Agnostics

As a long time atheist who comes from a liberal Christian background, I started off with the agnostic label. As I got older I moved to the atheist label once I become much more comfortable with my position. Those brain connections regarding Yahweh were developed very early and they are always there taunting me, but after a while I became more comfortable saying to myself what I really didn't believe. So, for me the term agnostic was truly an off ramp to atheism both of which were used to indicate "I'm not one of the deity believers".

BUT

There are many who are just as convinced of the non-zero probability of a deity or deities. This leads to the logical statement that we can't really know and it is possible albeit highly improbable. The statement regarding the off ramp is rather condescending when applied globally so I won't do it - I use it just for me.

My three children were raised without the belief in a deity in a very Christo-centric part of the country - the Deep South. Even though they were bombarded by Christian thoughts and imagery all the time, it was not supported at home. In fact, critical thinking was supported. As adults now, they tell me that it is hard to even imagine a deity for them - certainly not a Christian deity. When pressed to identify themselves they laugh and one even says "well if I must I'm a humanist." To them saying that they are an atheist is akin to saying they are an aunicornist or an afairian (not to insult the believers of the fae out there). I guess there is a non-zero probability of the existence of unicorns or fairies so one could be a unicorn or fairy agnostic.

A question I have had given the experience with life long non-christians is if the terms we use (atheism and agnosticism) are needed because there are so many who have deconstructed their childhood imposed faith in a deitiy and/or because there are still so many in this world who actually still believe in such. We don't have the term aunicornist because that's just not an issue. The terms are used/developed as a way to differentiate from the norm. Perhaps some linguist out there can discuss the terms atheist and agnostic as signifiers for the signified concept of deities. Any Saussure scholars out there want to take a stab? I'm just a statistician so won't touch that semiotic concept any farther.