I was very excited to recently learn a term on this subreddit. I was mostly excited because it was a term that I immediately identified with, but I didn't know that it existed. That term is “igtheist”.

I'm writing to explain what being an igtheist means to me. (Since this is a debate sub, I guess my position to be argued is that igtheism is a rationally sound position that more atheists should adopt.)

First, I'd like to start off with some basic definitions: One can either be a theist or an atheist. That's all. There is no third option. To say “I'm not an atheist or a theist! I'm an agnostic” betrays a misunderstanding of the terms. Theism and atheism address the topic of belief. Gnosticism and agnosticism address the topic of knowledge. One can be one of four options: a gnostic theist (someone who claims to both know that there is a god and to believe that there is a god), an agnostic theist (someone who does not claim to know that a god exists, but believes that one does), an agnostic atheist (someone who does not claim to know that god exists and does not believe that a god exists), and a gnostic atheist (an angry sixteen-year old). (I'm kidding! I love my gnostic theists.)

If someone asks if you believe in a god, and you answer in the affirmative, then you are a theist. If you answer anything other than the affirmative, then you are an atheist.

Igtheists, however, can't answer the question. (This puts them under the atheist umbrella, since they since they are still not answering in the affirmative.)

Let me give you an example to better illustrate. If I asked you if you believed in sherwexy, I don't think that any rational person could answer in the affirmative, since they don't know what sherwexy means. Asking someone to define what they mean by “sherwexy” is the only way to give an informed and/or reasonable answer to the question.

If they said that by “sherwexy” they mean “the Earth's core is made of Kraft Mac n' Cheese”, then I could confidently say that I don't believe in sherwexy.

If they said that by “sherwexy” they meant “at least one person exists who did not enjoy the film Avatar: The Last Airbender”, then I would tell them that I believe in sherwexy.

But what if they didn't offer a clear definition? What if they said that by “sherwexy” they meant “the source of all sherwexy”? Can one really give an informed and valid answer to a question about believing something that they not only don't understand but also when it seems like there is some circular logic involved? To me, since the question doesn't seem to make sense, I don't feel that I can really give an answer.

What if they offered a definition that was self refuting? What if they said that by “sherwexy” they mean “that water can be liquid, solid, and gas at the same moment in time” Obviously the answer is no, but it feels strange to be asked a question in which there is obviously only one reasonable answer.

[EDIT: OMFG! I get it! It was a bad analogy! Can we focus on the issue instead of picking apart my bad analogy?!]

If someone told me that “sherwexy” meant “the ability to make pancakes in a place where it is completely impossible to make pancakes”, then obviously I couldn't believe in sherwexy, but what does it mean to say you don't believe in something that no reasonable person can believe in?

If someone told me that “sherwexy” was “a bumblebee that had the desire, the power, and the ability to eat all popcorn in the world”, a simple kernel of popcorn would be enough to illustrate that asking if someone could believe in such a thing is ridiculous, because nobody reasonably could.

I'm sure that it's become painfully obvious where I'm going with this.

Whereas a theist would answer in the affirmative to the question of belief in a god, an igtheist would respond “What does that even mean?"

I've never been presented with a definition of god that was neither logically impossible by definition or completely nonsensical.

I'd be happy to hear one, but so far I've had no such luck.

“God is a disembodied mind.”

Well, everything we know about the mind implies that it is a process of the brain. We have no evidence to support the notion that a mind can exist separate from a brain, and all of the evidence that we do have points to the opposite conclusion.

If I said that “sherwexy is the human circulatory process, but it happens with no heart, veins, blood, or any matter whatsoever”, I don't believe that any reasonable person would believe in sherwexy. But when you change the organ and call it “god”, somehow people claim to believe it. I don't see how.

“God exists outside of space.”

Pretty much the only way we define existence is spatially. The concept of existing, but existing nowhere is clearly absurd.

In my sherwexy examples above, I've already touched upon “God is the creator of everything”, “God is a trinity of beings”, and “God exists outside of time”, and “God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful.”

Just about every other definition I've heard is just as easily nonsensical.

I can at least somewhat relate to people who believe that the sun or the moon are gods, or people who worship certain people as gods. But how can you begin to have a conversation when someone defines god as "a mystery"? They're admitting that they believe in something that they don't understand. They're coming right out and saying that whatever sherwexy is, they believe that it's true.

I posit that atheists shouldn't even get into a discussion about whether belief in a god is rationally justified unless a coherent definition of a god is provided.

And if a coherent definition of a god is provided, I'd love for them to send it to me, because I have no idea what it would even look like.