RE: I can feel your anger
July 6, 2012 at 2:30 pm
(This post was last modified: July 6, 2012 at 2:32 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(July 6, 2012 at 2:22 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: It's not shell games. Theism is a big umbrella; it includes Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Greek mythology, and so on and so forth. The common property is that every belief system in Theism includes the belief, "At least one god exists."
Now, it seems to me that Atheism is also a big umbrella; it includes secular humanism, nihilism, naturalism, etc. The common property is that every belief system in Atheism fails to include the belief, "At least one god exists".
Which makes sense from a macro point of view, too; under this view, Atheism is the complement of Theism. It includes everything that isn't in theism--i.e., every belief system that lacks theistic belief.
One could conceivably believe in god while simultaneously being a secular humanist, just as one example. A nihilist might believe in a god, while also maintaining that it doesn't actually matter if there is a god, or that the concept of god is itself just as real as the concept of self -which is to say not at all, though still on equal footing. One could also be a naturalist and believe that in some far-flung universe unconnected to this one a god operates.
I think you might mean to say that some/most/all secular humanists, nihilists, and naturalists are also atheists. Of course, they don't have to be.
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