(January 17, 2015 at 11:42 am)tantric Wrote:

(January 16, 2015 at 4:21 pm)Alex K Wrote: He's evil all right, but if it were a character in a novel I'd criticise it for being too over the top to be believable.

Okay, about god being evil, way back when while I was exploring mythopoesis as an art form, I wrote a little story meant to be a creation myth for vegetarians and mixed-race folks. I don't believe it to be true in anyway, except perhaps symbolically, but the part about God and Death might amuse y'all. Here it is - the history of the Ohsaycanyousea people.

The word Atheism is coming from the ancient greek : A = without Theos = God.
An Atheist is somebody living whithout god.
Some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's.

(January 17, 2015 at 12:30 pm)helyott Wrote:

(January 17, 2015 at 11:42 am)tantric Wrote: Okay, about god being evil, way back when while I was exploring mythopoesis as an art form, I wrote a little story meant to be a creation myth for vegetarians and mixed-race folks. I don't believe it to be true in anyway, except perhaps symbolically, but the part about God and Death might amuse y'all. Here it is - the history of the Ohsaycanyousea people.

The word Atheism is coming from the ancient greek : A = without Theos = God.
An Atheist is somebody living whithout god.
Some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's.

Not quite complete.

Atheism is a ternary form derived in one of the following ways:
1) (a + theos) + ism = the belief or doctrine that there is no God
2) a + (theos + ism) = a + (theism) = the lack of a belief in or doctrine about God

(1) is usually called "hard atheism" and (2) is called "soft atheism."

Keep in mind that there were no accidental "happen not to believe" when the term was first coined. There could only at that time have been a willful refusal to believe.

(January 17, 2015 at 12:30 pm)helyott Wrote: The word Atheism is coming from the ancient greek : A = without Theos = God.
An Atheist is somebody living whithout god.
Some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's.

Some antitheists have sex with lizards. Some antitheists are nazis who think the earth is flat. Statements about groups based on that kind of weasel words are pointless.

(January 17, 2015 at 12:39 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(January 17, 2015 at 12:30 pm)helyott Wrote: The word Atheism is coming from the ancient greek : A = without Theos = God.
An Atheist is somebody living whithout god.
Some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's.

Not quite complete.

Atheism is a ternary form derived in one of the following ways:
1) (a + theos) + ism = the belief or doctrine that there is no God
2) a + (theos + ism) = a + (theism) = the lack of a belief in or doctrine about God

(1) is usually called "hard atheism" and (2) is called "soft atheism."

Keep in mind that there were no accidental "happen not to believe" when the term was first coined. There could only at that time have been a willful refusal to believe.

You don't need to believe that there is no god to be an atheist.
You just have to live without a god.
For me atheism isn't a believe that there is no god, it s to state that there is no necessary to have a god to have a good life.
For an atheist god isn't a necessary hypothesis.

Sorry my english may appear poor because english isn't my first language.

---

(January 17, 2015 at 1:16 pm)Alex K Wrote:

(January 17, 2015 at 12:30 pm)helyott Wrote: The word Atheism is coming from the ancient greek : A = without Theos = God.
An Atheist is somebody living whithout god.
Some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's.

Some antitheists have sex with lizards. Some antitheists are nazis who think the earth is flat. Statements about groups based on that kind of weasel words are pointless.

I don't know antitheist that have such kind of practice. But if you know some antitheist like this, i believe they are theist who ignore themself as theist.
When i wrote that some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's, i should say that they are fighting against religion that are compared with a kind of middle age believe.

(January 17, 2015 at 1:21 pm)helyott Wrote: You don't need to believe that there is no god to be an atheist.

True. Just the absence of belief in a god defines one as an atheist.

Quote:You just have to live without a god.
For me atheism isn't a believe that there is no god, it s to state that there is no necessary to have a god to have a good life.

Everyone lives without god.

Some just believe there is a god.

(January 17, 2015 at 5:04 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:

(January 17, 2015 at 1:21 pm)helyott Wrote: You don't need to believe that there is no god to be an atheist.

True. Just the absence of belief in a god defines one as an atheist.

Quote:You just have to live without a god.
For me atheism isn't a believe that there is no god, it s to state that there is no necessary to have a god to have a good life.

Everyone lives without god.

Some just believe there is a god.

Yes.
The way i told it wasn't exactly the way i wanted to tell it....

I define atheism as the lack of belief in gods or the belief that gods don't exist - The first being an agnostic atheist and the second a gnostic atheist.

I also like to distinguish between the implicit atheist (someone who doesn't believe in god because he/she has never been introduced to the concept or never thought about it) - The first men to ever exist were probably implicit atheists I guess; and explicit atheist (someone who actively rationalizes non belief in gods - Almost every atheist nowadays is an explicit atheist

Regarding anti-theism - It is the opposition to either (1) The god idea (2) Belief in god (3) God himself [or participating in more than one of those positions simultaneously]

Anti-theism and atheism are not mutually exclusive and shouldn't be confused. I could be a theist and an anti-theist if I opposed god because I thought he was evil.

Being an atheist is often the cause to being an anti-theist, but you don't need to be an anti-theist to be an atheist - In fact you could ever argue that religion is healthy and should be promoted by the state.

In my case, I'm an anti-theist and I follow all the 3 possible forms but my position is not meant to coerce people to stop believing, I see theists as being as human as me and they have the exact same rights. Just don't expect me to not express my opinion about irrationality

(January 17, 2015 at 1:21 pm)helyott Wrote:

(January 17, 2015 at 1:16 pm)Alex K Wrote: Some antitheists have sex with lizards. Some antitheists are nazis who think the earth is flat. Statements about groups based on that kind of weasel words are pointless.

I don't know antitheist that have such kind of practice. But if you know some antitheist like this, i believe they are theist who ignore themself as theist.
When i wrote that some antitheists are looking religious people as superstitious one's, i should say that they are fighting against religion that are compared with a kind of middle age believe.

I suspect you didn't get my meaning, but I'm not sure bc I have a hard time understanding your writing there...
I meant that you make vague accusations what antitheists are like without evidence.

I disagrea with what you call agnostic atheist.
An agnostic can say that we can't know if there is a god or not.
An agnostic atheist as you call it is really an atheist. The situation is that he don't need to ask himself if god exist or not because he don t need it.

If you ask me if i believe in god i will answer you : Believe in what ?

I don t have to answer to a question that have no sense.

"Believing" in something has a bit of a double meaning in English - Believing in democracy isn't the same thing as believing in fairies. That being said, I don't fully understand the idea of 'absence of belief'. People have worldviews, whether they are well developed or not. Eschatology, epistemology, cosmology, ontology, theology, teleology - all of these can be phrased as questions (How do you know if something is true? What happens to you after you die?) and very few people will say "I've never thought about it". "I don't know" and "Nobody knows" are still positions. I used to call the summation of these views 'religion' but found that that makes some people very upset, now I call it your 'dharma', meaning both 'teachings' and 'inner nature'. Everyone has one, it's part of being self-aware. Although I personally support dharma based on the scientific method as being much more useful, I'm also interested in the function of one's dharma in terms of identity construction and sociology. I wish there were a better were a better word for it, though.