There is far more in play, here, than semantics.
Some "intelligent people with some degree of formal education" are not inclined toward being bold-- I would say "arrogant"-- enough to reach any particular conclusion about the origin of a cosmos about which we, as humans, understand so little.
With that willingness to accept their own smallness & relative ignorance, some who have done a great deal of thinking about the matter have realized that they do not feel themselves to be in any position to believe, or disbelieve, any theory. Without ignoring anything, they do not seek "proofs," they do not haughtily make decisions about "causes," and they are content to accept, as a fascinating mystery, the origins of a vast universe of which they are such a tiny part and about which they, in truth, know almost nothing.
Nothing at all semantic about that.
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