RE: What planted the seed?
April 3, 2012 at 9:00 am
(This post was last modified: April 3, 2012 at 9:05 am by Tempus.)
(April 3, 2012 at 7:06 am)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: Are crustaceans and planks of wood atheist? I'd say not.
Then you'd be correct. The "-ist" suffix always refers to people.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ist#Suffix
If there were no "theism" or "god" concepts there would be no word for atheism. But what atheism describes (a lack of belief) would still be applicable. Since we do live in a world where there's theists it's quicker to say "atheism is the default position" rather than saying "in a world where there's no theism a lack of belief in god is the default position".
