Definition of Atheism

[MindForgedManacle]

Oooh, I've got a lot to pull you up on here but I'm at work now. In a nutshell, you've over-simplified some definitions (accurate use vs common usage vs common misuse) and you've conflated 'belief' and 'knowledge' a couple of times. I'll elaborate later.

I don't see how I've conflated belief and knowledge. I specifically said they're different. o.o And the common usage of these terms turns out to be accurate.

The way I see it, there's no difference between disbelief and lack of belief. The distinction that should be made is between "belief" and "knowledge".

Well, there is. At least as I'm using here, disbelief is "to believe X is false" but to lack belief is just "to believe X is not true". The former is a negation while the latter might be termed a nullification.

Not sure where the belief-knowledge distinction was crossed. Knowledge is just a kind of belief, but clearly not everything i believe constitutes knowledge.

I believe it's a bit of a play on words.
We have a finite set of words to interpret an infinite amount of mental thoughts and ideas.
Just because the words don't fit, doesn't mean we can't feel a certain way towards an idea.

I don't care if there is a god or not, I can swing either way.
I have no proof which satisfies me enough to invest belief in any deity.
I have no proof that said deity cannot exist.
Deities are not important to me in my everyday life, so not very interested in wasting time trying to get to the bottom of it.
Pick or invent a word that reflects the above and that's me.
You can't use "ignoramus", it's taken.

Sounds like an apatheist or an agnostic.

When you say you have no proof they cannot exist, I think you're missing the point. Proof is somewhat irrelevant here. I can't prove all sorts of things, yet it's perfectly rationale to accept them. However, there does seem to actually be good reasons to swing one on this issue, for those who are interested in the topic.

^^ My sentiments exactly.

I've responded in more detail elsewhere without receiving a response. So there doesn't seem to be any point in doing so again. Whatever it is that has you worked up about this is in you. You won't be able to fix it by getting our agreement.

I didn't see the post you're talking about. I'm not really much interested in aggreement, but my general point is that using this 'lacktheism' is just silly. The reason I'm worked up is more or less that atheists using this definition seem to be working against themselves in several ways when they use it, i.e they loose the ability to nuance their position on the issue because their definition creates a bivalence which permits no degrees.