Does confidence=faith in Science? (Guardian)

[Anymouse]

Tell those assholes at the Guardian that "faith" doesn't only mean faith in some God, nor does having faith in the science that keeps your airplane in the air mean you are going to Heaven.

Letting the "other side" determine what words mean, limiting the debate and hobbling our responses, it just stupid.

Agreed. Whoever gets to do the defining gets to shape the discussion.

Which is why it is so troubling (on this side of The Big Pond anyway) that Christians in particular are trying to define atheism as a religion. Because the next not-quite-so-obvious step is: if they succeed (by defining the word instead of atheists and grammarians defining it), they can then move on to an agenda which has been brought up so many times before (Scopes monkey trial, et alia). If atheism is a religion, and science is its "mantra," it does not belong in schools or in public fora (such as courts, universities, &c.)

There is some precedent for this here. An example is the twenty-five year fight Wiccans went through to have the pentacle (an encircled pentagram) accepted as a religious symbol to be placed on veterans grave markers by the Veterans Administration. The VA opposed it in court for twenty-five years (and finally lost last December) because:

1) Wicca is not an organised religion [not required by the rules]
B) the symbol is "offensive" [though protected speech under the I Amendment], and
iii) President Bush (sr.) outlawed entry by executive order into the Armed Forces with a religious designation of Wicca (I was a Navy recruiter when this happened, and rather than have me wind up in a potential constitutional fight with the chain-of-command over this, my command transferred me to Spain for three years). They didn't get my dog tags, though they did ask to replace them with a set that had "no preference" on them for religion.

(On the above, this is a problem my wife has had upon entering hospitals as a patient: they ignore her writing "atheist" on her admission paperwork and change it to such things as "Protestant" or "Christian." Can't sue 'em, though: 'just an administrative error, you see.')

That said, when the VA first started using symbols other than a Mogen David and a Latin Cross (after WWII), they adopted a symbol for atheists who wish to have it on their marker. This is an example that some religious organisations use as "proof" atheism is a religion: the government allows the use of a symbol for it on grave markers.

(I would prefer if the government got out of "approving" religious symbols for grave markers entirely: you want one, you pay for it, religious or not. And many atheists prefer not to use the "government-approved" religious symbol for atheism anyway. The government claims they regulate this to prevent non-religious, commercial, or offensive symbols from appearing on government-supplied markers.)

This is also why I am so wound up about the definition of "agnostic," as I equate "I don't know" to mean "I don't believe." (Agnostics just claim their reason is "they don't know for sure.") They just have a different reason for their atheism - but they still do not believe. It muddies the waters of the debate, because Christians are quite happy with agnostics here saying they are not atheists - that means they are theists, by their setting the definitions. Thus, agnostic speech can also be thrown out of public fora.

As for the Guardian, I did write an E-mail. I can't really go over and "tell 'em" though: England is a bit far from Nebraska.