Six types of atheist

[Ben Davis]

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Hopefully no-one else has posted this yet:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...of-atheist

And the question du jour is:

Which type are you?

I think I am an intellectual atheist - just to start off with but possibly with a touch of anti-theism thrown in.

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There are some problems with the base definitions. For example the categories suffer from the conflation of atheism & agnosticism so some extra rigour around definitions would likely have yielded slightly different results. Also there's no attempt to describe the crossover of these categories: I envision a Venn or Celtic Line diagram to describe the commonalities. That said, it's really good start at getting some consistencies around the labelling.

I found the psychometrics interesting and their relation to stereotypes/common misconceptions although I'm sure that those of you familiar with those tests are aware of the flaws. Those flaws will be exacerbated by the inaccuracies in labelling & consequent profiling I mentioned above. But once again, a good start as this research will clearly be useful in combatting those stereotypes/misconceptions.

I'll look forward to the follow-up research as I'm sure that the professionals will spot the same problems as I did and try to address them.

[Whateverist]

I'm probably mostly just a non-theist. I don't really care what people believe in the privacy of their own homes so long as they aren't looking to legislate to make their conception of God's will the law of the land. I don't think theists are necessarily mentally hobbled or incapable of having an interesting opinion. Nor do I subscribe to any believe in progress which demands the clearing away of medieval mind sets of all kinds. I'm willing to grant that believing as they do serves some positive role in the lives of theists even if I'm not looking to join them. If religion -as the opiate of the masses- were a joint being passed around in my community, when it's handed to me I'm just going to pass it over to the next person who wants it without judgement. No need to kill their buzz.

Oh and if anyone wanted to attempt Ben Davis' idea of representing these categories with diagram of some kind, I would enjoy seeing it. Even a simple 1 through 6 list would help. (Too rushed and unmotivated to do it myself.)

[Angrboda]

http://atheistforums.org/thread-19804.html

http://www.atheismresearch.com/

[Tonus]

Which type are you?

The type that doesn't believe in god.

[Silver]

Anti-theist, of course.

[wwjs]

I hate categorizing.

[Doubting Thomas]

I kind of breezed through that but none of them sounded like me.

[Michael Schubert]

Why is there no category for dumb ass ignorant atheist? 99% of atheists are gonna be sad!

Ad Hominem attacks are a strong indication that one is losing the argument. Oh yeah, atheists are ignorant because they don't believe in a god according to some religion's twisted logic that only members of that church can understand.

[TaraJo]

However you choose to categorize it is up to you. Me, I consider myself an atheist until someone can provide me with sufficient evidence to prove to me that God or a god exists.

There's a part of me that wished God was real and existed, but I can't force myself to believe something that I simply don't believe.

[Walking Void]

Why is there no category for dumb ass ignorant atheist? 99% of atheists are gonna be sad!

Ad Hominem attacks are a strong indication that one is losing the argument. Oh yeah, atheists are ignorant because they don't believe in a god according to some religion's twisted logic that only members of that church can understand.

Do not forget, roughly 73.6% of statistics are made up.