Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Darkstar]

To see just how silly your definition of "atheist" as "not a theist" is, ask yourself whether an agnostic is "not a theist" and therefore given your false definition, agnostics are the same as atheists.

Not necessarily. Again, agnosticism vs. gnosticism is about knowledge, whereas theism is about belief. There can be a gnostic theist of an agnostic atheist or vice versa (though self-proclaimed gnostics may only think they know). Someone who identifies as only agnostic is probably someone who would be a four on the Dawkins scale.

Just to make it a bit more comical, ask yourself if a bicycle is "not a theist". Agreed, a bicycle is not a theist. Therefore, Ben Davis thinks a bicycle is an atheist.

Perhaps we should also ask the bicycle if it is agnostic about it? I mean, how could this bike know? I don't think it is accurate criticism to compare inanimate objects.

As for babies, I think they are technically atheists, but I think the term 'non-theist' would be more accurate (i.e. someone who doesn't believe in god because they have never been exposed to the concept).

Here's my problem: I don't think rejecting a claim is equivalent to disbelieving or not believing in it.

For example, at 8 am today morning, if you would have told me I was going to go out for pizza later tonight, I would not have believed that claim. Not because I rejected it, but because I didn't know it or had any reason to think it true.

So at 8 am, I did not believe it. Does that mean I was fiercely and desperately arguing against the idea that I'm going to go for pizza later tonight? Hell no. I'm just indifferent.

Wouldn't indifference be the equivalent of Apatheism? It isn't simply that you are agnostic, but you don't care, either. So while you don't believe it, you can't be bothered to argue against it. And why would you? This hypothetical pizza is not threatening separation of church and state. More importantly, there is not any evidence you would expect to find that would indicate you eating pizza later, so you have no special inclination to disbelieve it.

But the problem with you and your kind is that you're not willing to let the original sit alongside yours. You don't even acknowledge the existence of people who take the original definition to be valid. You just steamroll over them and unilaterally install your definition as the one true definition and all others as false.

I cannot speak for whomever you were originally addressing, but I believe the terms you are looking for would be hard/positive atheism (belief god does not exist) and soft/negative atheism (lack of belief god exists). Agnostic/gnostic can be tacked onto either one.

I would still argue that the second definition is equally valid because the suffix a- means lacking/without, and so atheism could logically be denoted as merely lacking theism (though it can certainly also mean the opposite of theism).