Does Maltheism make sense? or are they just another form of atheist/agnostic?

Question

I was at beliefnet and saw this interesting piece about the 5 religions you never heard of, and this one came up. Matheism is defined as saying God is real, but God is "evil."

http://www.beliefnet.com/gallery/uncommonreligions.html?pgIndex=5

Answer 1

Sounds like a trivially unimportant, tongue in cheek, anti-religion like LeVey's Church of Satan.

Answer 2

No.

By saying "God is real", it cannot be Atheism.

By saying "God is evil", it presumes to know about "god" and, therefore, cannot be Agnosticism.

In addition, neither atheism nor agnosticism are religions.

Fails on all counts.

Answer 3

If I wasn't an Atheist I would be a Maltheist.

Does that  help?

The difference is I don't  believe in God, but if I did, I would believe him to be evil.

Answer 4

I actually had a strawberry shake the other day and it was quite malthiest.

Deist

Answer 5

Sounds as silly as any other god belief.  Obviously they can be neither Atheist nor 'agnostic (sic)' if they believe in god.

Answer 6

Maltheism cannot be considered atheistic or agnostic, because Maltheism is a belief in a deity.

Answer 7

If a god really existed then he would have to be either evil or uncaring... but of course we know that gods don't actually exist in reality.

Answer 8

1) Maltheism is not actually a religion.  Like theism, monotheism, atheism, polytheism, or deism, it's a term that only describes where one stands on the issue of "God".  You need more than that to define a religion.  The Babylonians were largely Maltheistic (just read their creation story), but there was much more to their religion than that.

2) Belief in a malevolent deity is still a belief in deity, and thus a form of theism.  So by definition it can't be "another form of atheism" (no belief in deity) nor "another form of agnosticism" (the assertion that the existence and nature of deity is unknowable).