RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 7:51 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 8:08 am by Alex K.)
(June 29, 2015 at 6:16 am)pool Wrote: Problem solved or did i miss something?
The problem is that with that definition of yours I might not be an atheist (or at least not a strong atheist), but it will be a completely misleading label because I am still a quite strong atheist with respect to the Gods promoted by the large religions, but that fact will be obscured by your needlessly loose definition.
I'll give you an example to drive home my point:
I'm claiming that have made the a fantastic discovery: there are very probably unicorns in my fridge, it's true! People will say I'm crazy, but they are fools, for it is completely unreasonable for anyone to be sceptical about me having a whole herd of unicorns in my fridge. Why?
The trick is that I have defined anything which has a somewhat pointy piece or edge as a unicorn. That's my definition, deal with it. Duh. Now I'm butthurt that the zoologists on Facebook ridicule me and don't accept my claim.
Redefining words to become so general that they are useless for a specific application, and then insisting on using them for that application, is idiotic. In our case here, the application roughly is to express our lack of belief in the most common theistic propositions as they are held by religious theism in a wider sense. You are changing definitions of the words God and atheism until this demarcation is impossible because of bad definitions. That accomplishes nothing except deliberate obscurantism.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition