RE: Accepting/Rejecting "Atheism" as a label.
January 20, 2013 at 7:08 pm
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2013 at 7:09 pm by NomenMihiNon.)
This is precisely why I prefer to call myself a naturalist. Because what I do believe is that the natural universe is all that exists, since it's the only thing for which thousands of years of scientific research has found evidence. I agree that it's arbitrary to define people on one particular non-belief, since I don't believe in ghosts or psychic abilities or even alien abductions and cryptozoology just as much as I don't believe in a god.
That said, I'm more likely to tell people I'm an atheist simply because that's the term people know. I've even encountered Christians who are unaware that "supernatural" includes mainstream ideas of God and religion and not just, say, New Age ones, so explaining naturalism as a lack of belief in the supernatural is often not enough. And it seems that many people, atheist and non-atheist alike, tend to assume that atheism automatically equals naturalism, even if the latter term is unfamiliar to them.
That said, I'm more likely to tell people I'm an atheist simply because that's the term people know. I've even encountered Christians who are unaware that "supernatural" includes mainstream ideas of God and religion and not just, say, New Age ones, so explaining naturalism as a lack of belief in the supernatural is often not enough. And it seems that many people, atheist and non-atheist alike, tend to assume that atheism automatically equals naturalism, even if the latter term is unfamiliar to them.
