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Politics, in its various forms, simplifies many debates down to the classification of people. Any given person might fall into one of several pre-defined, often ill-defined boxes. There are no univerally accepted categories (because different classification systems are so often invented to suit different worldviews and political agendas), but almost everyone behaves as if all people - often with the exception of themselves - are readily classifiable. The various religions and sects are a convenient way to divide up the global population, but commentators do make the occasional consession to reality and include non-religious categories like atheism, agnoticism or generic non-belief.

These categories can only go so far in revealing the nature of belief and non-belief, and arguments arise when people start to impose actual criteria. There are several possible definitions of atheism. The one that seems to have the most practical value is this: the absence of belief in a god or gods (weak atheism). However, atheism is often contrasted against agnosticism, in which context it is usually given a stricter meaning: the belief that no god or gods exist (strong atheism). Having subtly shifted atheism aside, agnosticism squeezes into the picture as the compromise position: we do not know enough to say whether a god or gods exist or not. In fact, agnosticism itself has "weak" and "strong" varieties as well, the strong position being that we cannot ever know enough to say whether gods exist.

Arguments over this seem to be entirely philosophical and devoid of any practical implications. Even at face value, it's already quite difficult to tell the difference between weak atheism and weak agnosticism. One's preference for being called an atheist or an agnostic may reflect societal pressures. I've described myself as both an agnostic and an atheist at different times, without materially changing my opinion in between.

The argument cannot really be resolved etymologically either. At first glance, you might suppose that an "a-theist" is simply one who is not a theist (i.e. weak atheism). You could also suppose that atheism comes from the Greek "atheos", meaning "without God", and that atheism is therefore the doctrine of the absence of God (i.e. strong atheism). However, throughout history atheism has generally been a label used with disdain by ardent believers, who probably did not bother to distinguish between such subtle philosophical categories. For someone who cannot contemplate even the notion of God's non-existence - and there are many such people out there, perhaps owing in part to Christianity's one unforgivable sin: denying the Holy Spirit - atheism is likely to mean rejection, abandonment or hatred of God.

I've never been entirely comfortable trying to fit myself into any one of these categories. While philosophically defensible, I feel it is futile to argue at length for either the strong atheist or strong agnostic position. The important matter is that God, as a concept, need not play a role in our understanding of the universe. Proclamations on the existence of ill-defined entites are not the key to understanding the world around us; quantifiable theory and observation are.