The meaning of Atheism.

[Tiberius]

War? I think not. But when people start telling me that I must conform to a dictionary, that I am "wrong" if I don't conform, it automatically causes me to feel rebellious. I think that's ok. I oppose cultural totalitarianism in all its forms.

I'm not telling you to conform to a dictionary. I'm telling you that the very purpose of dictionaries is to record what words mean in our language. That way, when we come across and unfamiliar word, instead of inventing a meaning for it, we look to see what the meaning is already (assuming it already has one). These meanings are invented by the people who create the words, and are modified to remove ambiguity. In many cases, the same word may have multiple meanings, all depending on the context the word is in. Dictionaries help us to understand which meaning should apply. It isn't cultural totalitarianism, so you can quit with the hyperbole; it's just a way of making conversation easier to understand. If we let people define their terms on a personal level, then you might be able to hold a conversation with people you are familiar with, but when you meet new people, conversing becomes impossible. If we have standards for what words mean, and we can get people to use those standards, then everyone can converse with everyone else.

Apart from anything else, I am well aware of two sets of people in my family, one very old and one very young, who use words in a way that would not be recognised in any dictionary, but who, with a little patience by the listener, are fully able to get their meanings across using their nonconformist definitions.

I didn't deny that words change, or that you can't figure out what people mean when they use strange definitions, but it isn't helpful if everyone does this. It only makes conversing harder in the long run. I'd also point out that your anecdote doesn't show itself as the rule, only something that you have observed withint your own family. I could relate similar anecdotes where words used in a non-standard way are not understood at all, sometimes within families, but very often between subcultures.

I think the problem is that dictionaries were only invented in the 18th Century. Were people able to function before then without dictionaries? I suspect so.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the standard of language didn't exist. People have kept records of what words mean in their heads longer than dictionaries came around. With the spread of civilisation, it helps to keep track of language; dictionaries made that job easier, and they put the standard by which people spoke into a record that could survive the ages.

Your stance is that words in the language must broadly retain a static, unchanging meaning and that any dispute can be solved objectively by a dictionary, and there is no need for us to spend time and effort getting to know each other's definitions. (I say broadly, I imagine even you would make some allowance for a proportion of words in the dictionary to change their meanings according to need - say 1% per decade?). The view that words must remain broadly static is actually a bit sad and rather dictatorial, especially if your class allegiances are to the power stratum that produces dictionaries and swears by them to impose concepts like "the government has run out of money" or "redundancies are inevitable". I'm not saying you are, by the way, just that there is an ideological level on which this debate is relevant and I want to make it quite clear that I am aware of that.

By all means, have your own definitions for words. However, in a public forum; in a place where there are multiple people, it is considered *polite* to use words which everyone can relate to...in this case, the standard for the English language, which is neatly recorded in the dictionary. I don't care to learn your personal definitions, or anyone else's on this forum, when it is far easier to just make everyone use the meanings that are set out as a standard. If you don't do that, you are going to find yourself ignored.

From where I stand, there is no right or wrong when it comes to the definitions of words. Dictionaries simply add to the debate. We're not playing Scrabble. I see logicalities and illogicalities in the concepts that words represent, but I'm keen on personal linguistics - the way people use the same words to describe things that are subtly or even not very subtly different.

By all means debate the logicalities of the concepts; I'm not opposed to that. What I am opposed is to you going around making arguments with words that already have meanings that are accepted by the people here, and using them to make confusing statements like "theism and atheism are not mutually exclusive".

My point was about tautologies and logical impossibilities in their use ("reddish rouge", "piano drumbeat", "agnostic atheist")

You still haven't explained how "agnostic atheist" is a tautology / logical impossibility.

Actually, I'm not complaining. I'm putting forward rational alternatives to your point of view. That is ok, isn't it?

Sure...though they are far from rational.

Theism and Atheism are not mutually exclusive concepts. Not in my mind. The term atheos already has a presence in the ancient greek form of expression which means a set of ideas specifically around the non-worship of a particular set of deities. English adds -ism to this pre-existing word. The word theos in greek simply means god (but feel free to dispute my use of the word "simply" in this context I am not profoundly wedded to it). Theos does not carry any particular statement of a person's stance on the existence of god, atheos definitely does. The two words have profoundly different provenance and different masses of meanings behind them right up to the way we are using them now.
Intuitively most people would not use the words as opposites, and far from being an argument arrived at by popularity, I think most people would rightly be tapping into the very different histories that attach to both words.

"theos" means "God" in Greek; "atheos" means "without God". atheos only carries a particular statement about a person's stance on the existence of God if you apply it to their stance. Saying someone is "atheos" doesn't automatically make them an atheist. Christians would say we have been without God since the fall. Both words carry a particular statement if you apply them to a stance on the existence of God. "theos" meaning God being present, and "atheos" meaning God not being present (in their beliefs).

In English, the words are both the stem of the words theism and atheism respectively. Theism means the belief in God; atheism means the non-belief in God. Why you insist on looking at the stems of words in order to tell something about their usage today is most amusing though, and of course, completely irrelevant to the discussion. Please stop. If you want to have a rational discussion, make rational arguments. Atheism and Theism have meanings; I've given you the meanings for them. Now tell me how they are not mutually exclusive (oh, and answer my challenge regarding agnosticism too).