(August 26, 2010 at 4:10 pm)Entropist Wrote:(August 26, 2010 at 3:54 pm)Existentialist Wrote: \We obviously don't share the same definitions, so this could take some time! My definitions are as follows.
Atheist = Someone who asserts that there is no god
Here we go... again:
"If atheism is a belief, then 'Off' is a TV channel."
A reasonably coherent video in its own terms, but harps on a lot on the same theme about not believing in things. Sorry if you had to play it again, but repetition does not rightness make, righteousness, maybe. As I've said, I have my own definition of atheism and I'm happy with it. It means, to me, if not to you, the state of believing there is no God. Other entities may also need words that describe not to be believed in but most of them - leprechauns, unicorns and tooth fairies - tend to lack the omnipotence that makes a god particularly important. They are hierarchically inferior. If we accept a word that denotes belief in the non-existence of God, the same word cascades its meaning satisfactorily to a full range of subordinate supernatural entities. It seems to me that this tendency to try to say that god is simply something that there is no evidence for, like leprechauns, rather than something that we positively believe does not exist, far from being the denial of a lie as the video asserts, is a serious attempt to demote the concept of god to a level which can be easily ridiculed and treated dismissively, a technique that the self-satisfied sounding chap in the video uses. We atheists engage in this hierarchical game at our peril, much replication of patriarchal authoritarianism quickly follows.
