RE: Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
December 7, 2011 at 3:36 pm
(This post was last modified: December 7, 2011 at 3:38 pm by Mister Agenda.)
Maybe if we analogize enough, Lucent will get the difference between not believing in God and believing in no God: Lucent, I don't believe you have a $50 in your pocket. Does it then follow that I believe you DON'T have a $50 in your pocket?
Or if we quote enough dictionaries that give different definitions than the ones he cherry picked for having the definition he wanted:
Atheism, from Merriam Webster: a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
Disbelieve, from Merriam Webster: Definition of DISBELIEVE
transitive verb
: to hold not worthy of belief : not believe intransitive verb
: to withhold or reject belief
(bolding mine)
Atheism has two definiions. The more inclusive one is not believing in a deity. That's the one modern atheists use, not because it makes our arguments easier, but because the agnostic atheists don't like it when people only use the definition that excludes us when like many words it has two related meanings, one more general and one more specific.
Lucent has commented several times that our use of the atheism is autobiographical, implying that it is a claim about ourselves and not the existence of God. This is entirely correct, when someone says they are an atheist, they are sharing information about themselves: that they are someone who doesn't believe deities aren't imaginary. A theist is a believer in a deity, an atheist is not a theist. The claim is about whether they believe in a deity, and the answer is 'no'.
Lucent complains that we won't engage about the existence of God, but he is the one who prevents moving on to that subject because he won't let go of the definition of 'atheist' until we all stop using 'agnostic' as an adjective to describe what kind of atheist we are. And that's weird, because he doesn't believe we're atheists or agnostics, he has claimed several times that we know God exists, so clearly he thinks we're all theists, and not even agnostic ones.
Or if we quote enough dictionaries that give different definitions than the ones he cherry picked for having the definition he wanted:
Atheism, from Merriam Webster: a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
Disbelieve, from Merriam Webster: Definition of DISBELIEVE
transitive verb
: to hold not worthy of belief : not believe intransitive verb
: to withhold or reject belief
(bolding mine)
Atheism has two definiions. The more inclusive one is not believing in a deity. That's the one modern atheists use, not because it makes our arguments easier, but because the agnostic atheists don't like it when people only use the definition that excludes us when like many words it has two related meanings, one more general and one more specific.
Lucent has commented several times that our use of the atheism is autobiographical, implying that it is a claim about ourselves and not the existence of God. This is entirely correct, when someone says they are an atheist, they are sharing information about themselves: that they are someone who doesn't believe deities aren't imaginary. A theist is a believer in a deity, an atheist is not a theist. The claim is about whether they believe in a deity, and the answer is 'no'.
Lucent complains that we won't engage about the existence of God, but he is the one who prevents moving on to that subject because he won't let go of the definition of 'atheist' until we all stop using 'agnostic' as an adjective to describe what kind of atheist we are. And that's weird, because he doesn't believe we're atheists or agnostics, he has claimed several times that we know God exists, so clearly he thinks we're all theists, and not even agnostic ones.
