Darkstar
Imagine if there was a citation required for every unsupported claim you made in your post.
Erase the parts that are unsupported. And give me what's left.
Lemonvariable72
Gay is still a colloquial term, not a proper term, like homosexual. If gay people started to say they cannot be called homosexual, you would think they are wrong.
And the original meaning of gay was not denied by homosexuals.
Think about what the problem is exactly- it's not that people cannot invent colloquial terms, like reusing "badass" to mean "awesome." But when people start to claim badass is some sort of proper, formal academically supported definition and the other definition is incorrect, is when you start to have problems.
Clueless Morgan
Like I told Lemonvariable72, radical's change in definition resulted in two acceptable meanings of the word, one colloquial, one proper.
But for atheist, you are saying the colloquial definition "lack of belief" is correct and the proper definition (denial of God) is false.
"Gay" has not replaced the definition so much as simply adding one more definition. The original definition was not revoked.
If you were to accept the formal, proper definition of atheism, you would say "formally I am/am not an atheist, while colloquially you are/are not an atheist."
Do you make such a distinction, or do you assume atheism means only what you colloquially take it to mean? While you might colloquially call yourself an atheist, formally are you an atheist as well?
Optimistic Mysanthrope
To the extent that philology or etymology work, they describe words and language. What they don't do is deal with what the words and language represent.
Since the discussion is about a disagreement not over the origin of words or use of language, both philology and etymology are irrelevant.
Feel free to continue ignoring the rest of my posts for a while, though. Not likely you'll say anything of substance if things were any different.
Ben Davis
Play the citation game with your own post. Erase the parts where you're just making up shit and have no citations to back up your assertions, and post the remaining three or four words that remain.
Mister Agenda
Your angst is duly noted. Have a nice day.
Incidentally, regarding Ben Davis' quote in your post, I had to chuckle that be misspelled Merriam. And I double-chuckled when I saw how Merriam-Webster defined atheism.
Imagine if there was a citation required for every unsupported claim you made in your post.
Erase the parts that are unsupported. And give me what's left.
Lemonvariable72
Gay is still a colloquial term, not a proper term, like homosexual. If gay people started to say they cannot be called homosexual, you would think they are wrong.
And the original meaning of gay was not denied by homosexuals.
Think about what the problem is exactly- it's not that people cannot invent colloquial terms, like reusing "badass" to mean "awesome." But when people start to claim badass is some sort of proper, formal academically supported definition and the other definition is incorrect, is when you start to have problems.
Clueless Morgan
Like I told Lemonvariable72, radical's change in definition resulted in two acceptable meanings of the word, one colloquial, one proper.
But for atheist, you are saying the colloquial definition "lack of belief" is correct and the proper definition (denial of God) is false.
"Gay" has not replaced the definition so much as simply adding one more definition. The original definition was not revoked.
If you were to accept the formal, proper definition of atheism, you would say "formally I am/am not an atheist, while colloquially you are/are not an atheist."
Do you make such a distinction, or do you assume atheism means only what you colloquially take it to mean? While you might colloquially call yourself an atheist, formally are you an atheist as well?
Optimistic Mysanthrope
To the extent that philology or etymology work, they describe words and language. What they don't do is deal with what the words and language represent.
Since the discussion is about a disagreement not over the origin of words or use of language, both philology and etymology are irrelevant.
Feel free to continue ignoring the rest of my posts for a while, though. Not likely you'll say anything of substance if things were any different.
Ben Davis
Play the citation game with your own post. Erase the parts where you're just making up shit and have no citations to back up your assertions, and post the remaining three or four words that remain.
Mister Agenda
Your angst is duly noted. Have a nice day.
Incidentally, regarding Ben Davis' quote in your post, I had to chuckle that be misspelled Merriam. And I double-chuckled when I saw how Merriam-Webster defined atheism.
