Atheism is associated with a handful of hairsplitting terms: agnosticism, agnostic atheism, ignosticism, apatheism, and so on. These terms describe some technicalities about one’s relationship to belief. For instance, “ignostic” refers to the viewpoint that god is too meaningless and ill-defined to believe one way or another. “Apatheist” describes someone who doesn’t care about belief in god.

“Hairsplitting” is a derogatory way to describe it, but I mean it fondly. I love hairsplitting. I’m involved in asexual communities, it comes with the territory. Asexuality is associated with a far greater number of hairsplitting terms, like graysexuality, demisexuality, all the romantic orientation terms (heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, aromantic).

And those are just the common ones! Asexuality has also been host to a tradition where people just coin terms left and right. This is a tradition I will vociferously defend, but do not personally partake. In terms of my personal identity, I follow a more reserved practice of adopting just a few common terms. If asked, I will tell you that I am gay gray-A, with the additional clarification that I do *not* describe myself as homoromantic except in specific contexts. See? I’m reserved.

Do you get what I’m saying? Within asexuality, there is an overton window that ranges from hairsplitting to very very hairsplitting. Within atheism, there is an overton window that ranges from hairsplitting to not very hairsplitting at all.

It’s useful to understand what hairsplitting identity terms signify on a meta-level. Completely ignoring the literal meaning of “ignostic”, what does it tell us when someone identifies as “ignostic”? What does it tell us when someone identifies as one of the obscure ace identity terms like “abrosexual” or “aegosexual”?

Hairsplitting identity terms communicate an interest in disentangling the fine details of our inner worlds. A person who identifies as agnostic atheist is someone who has thought about the nature of belief, and the nature of their own belief, and come to a conclusion that they wish to share.

What about people who take the opposite strategy? What does it signify when someone just identifies as an atheist, disparages any other identity terms as “hairsplitting”, or simply refuses to place any emphasis on them?

We may draw a contrast between atheism the political project, and atheism the introspective project.  When I say “political project”, I mean that broadly.  Not referring to the atheist movement (which many would say has collapsed in the past decade), but something more evergreen.  Atheism is interested in the social acceptability of non-belief, and the opposition to political causes that can’t be justified outside of religion.  Even today, atheism continues to be stigmatized in certain contexts, and Evangelicals continue to be a powerful political force within the US.

And it is my view that the political project of atheism is not particularly served by disentangling the fine details of our inner worlds. It just doesn’t really matter.  So someone who refuses to use specificity in their identity may be someone who cares more about the political project than the introspective project.

Consider, for instance, arguments about the existence of God.  Depending on your disposition, you might find these annoying or fun to argue about.  But they hardly seem to hold much political importance.  They don’t typically convince people.  And there’s a notable gap between the god of the philosophers and the gods of religion.  For example, the god of the cosmological argument barely resembles the god of Evangelical Christianity.  If you’re interested in opposing the political force of Evangelical Christianity, then attacking the cosmological argument is an extremely indirect strategy.

And yet, arguments about the existence of God can be a motivating factor in some people’s personal journeys.  When a person undergoes the process of leaving religion, or losing belief in God, they may have at some point considered these arguments, and formed various thoughts about them. And then there is an array of identities available for you.

And then over time, as a person gets increasingly distant from religion, the fine details tend to lose their significance. Then it is up to the person whether to retain the specificity of their identity, or not.

So that’s the shape of things as I see it. Agnostics and atheists can see eye to eye and recognize that there are potentially legitimate motivations for many differing identity labels. The same is pretty much taken for granted in queer spaces. Readers’ thoughts welcome in the comments.