[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by ebuddy

If they believe a god is POSSIBLE, they are agnostic.

I'd suggest reading the past couple of pages before jumping in. Agnosticism is the belief that a god is unknowable. While it logically requires believing that God is possible (as does theism), it's specifically about knowledge rather than God's existence.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I'd suggest reading the past couple of pages before jumping in. Agnosticism is the belief that a god is unknowable. While it logically requires believing that God is possible (as does theism), it's specifically about knowledge rather than God's existence.

You can suggest anything you like. I might suggest you not be so argumentative. Or I might suggest for example; reading the question the initial poster posed for the foundation of this thread;

What do you call a person who believes in a god , but doesn't claim to know any specifics about him/her/it?

The answer is through process of elimination, an atheist does not believe a god exists (his friends can't be this), an agnostic has not made this belief or unbelief known for reasoning's sake. (his friends can't believe this because it's already been stated that "they believe in a god, but...") Agnosticism is accepting the possibility of both. Period. You can convolute it any way you wish and I realize the thread has deviated from it's initial intented question quite a bit, my "jumping in" was quite relevant and responsive.

Theist is the closest match to explain what his friends are unless you'd like to fashion some new, particularly adherent term such as the ones I've provided.

[Scientist]

Originally Posted by ebuddy

If they believe in a god, they are theistic or deistic.

Deistic; the belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

I'm assuming that if you're friends could find some divine influence, they would not be the above, or if they believed the god acted in a supernatural way, they would know more about who that god is which would make them a more specific philosophy or even religion. The definition that appears closest to your friends would be;

Theistic; Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.

Alas, these are also the two closest matches I could find, but they fail to satisfy me. As your definition states, deism is fairly specific. It describes specifics about the nature of god that my friends are unwilling to believe. For example they admit that a god may or may not exert influence on natural phenomena. Deism remains a tempting label because of the rationalistic spirit in which it was born. In a way I see the beliefs of my friends as the modern, ultra-skeptical form of deism. I don't like commandeering words for my own purposes so I won't use the word in this way.

The word "theist" isn't specific enough because it encompasses all religions that believe in a god. My friends certainly are theists, but this word doesn't differentiate them in a meaningful way.

Thedeist wouldn't work because 1)It is too specific and 2)It isn't a word

Perhaps "Undecided Theist" would be most appropriate. Here are a few words I pieced together from greek roots. Do any of these sound good to anyone?

Karyontheist - "Karyon" means seed, nucleus or center. I chose this because my friends meet the core requirments for being considered theists, but little more. I'm afraid this sounds too much like "Carrion Theist - worshiper of rotten flesh"

Spermatheist - "Sperma" means seed. I find it suitable for the reasons cited above. Again, this may be inappropriate because people would identify it with "Sperm Athiest - atheist who likes sperm"

Koilotheist - "Koilos" means hollow. They believe in a god but since they don't have a doctrine they have a lot of space in their belief structure.

Micrognostic - "small knowledge" - they claim to know very little about the nature of god.

Rhizatheist - "root" - chosen for the same reasons as seed.