Supernatural Arithmetic

Categorizing people with regard to their allegiance to the supernatural phenomena

When it comes to reckoning with the supernatural, people seem to fall into several categories. I will try to enlist some of those categories (I am actually going to try to enlist them all, but I am fully aware of the shallowness of my knowledge, and I’ll leave the list open to additions).

1. Pantheists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that various aspects of reality are created, controlled, or influenced by forces or beings who are outside of the reality that is being created/controlled/influenced.

2. Deists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced.

3. Theists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced. Furthermore, that supernatural being is a person, and furthermore, that supernatural person is particularly interested in humans. The claims are thus being made that the entire reality was created by that supernatural person with humans in mind. The supernatural person (i.e., the God) has a Master Plan (or a Divine Plan), and the entire plan revolves around humans.

4. Agnostics. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that they cannot know whether the entirety of the reality is created, controlled, or influenced by a single being (or, by multiple beings) who are outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced.

5. Adeists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is not created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced. Nor is the reality created, controlled, etc. by forces or beings who are outside of the reality that is being created/controlled/influenced.

6. Atheists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is not created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced and who is also a supernatural person who cares about humans.

7. Antitheists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is not created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced. They further hold that they are glad that such a supernatural person does not exist/is not possible to exist in the first place.

8. Misotheists. Those are the people who believe (or are convinced) that the entirety of the reality is not created, controlled, or influenced by a single being who is outside of the reality that is created/controlled/influenced. They furthermore feel resentment toward even an idea that such a supernatural person could ever be introduced as a possible explanation for the reality.

There you have it. Have I missed any category of people with regard to their orientation toward the supernatural? What category do you see yourself in?