I may go insane if I have to tell one more person this, but: atheist is not a person who is not a theist; an atheist is a person who believes there is no god, just as an anarchist is not a person who lacks a belief about government; they believe in no government. If you lack any belief about God and you call yourself an atheist, well, sorry, but you’re misusing the word.
See, the -ism is formed off “atheos,” no God–it is not “theism” plus “a-” meaning not. Similarly “anarchism” is formed from “anarchos,” no rulers, not “archism” plus “an-” meaning not (a{n} takes the n before a word that starts with a vowel).
Or would you like to correct me on Greek onomastics?
You’re right, *atheos *was a greek word for those that disbelieved in the existence of the gods. The word became something of an insult - used against Christians, as I’m sure you well know. Then the Christians used it, too, as something of an insult. Centuries later, Huxley invented the word
agnostic, partly because of the negative connotation towards atheists at the time. But modern atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, for example, conceed that it is impossible to completely disprove the existance of some type of God. Indeed, modern atheists are quite open to evidence of the type of God Christians believe in. It is with that knowledge that some self-described atheists deny the existance of God - even though they conceed that it is impossible to disprove the existance of some kind of God.
Atheist, agnostic, freethinker, secular humanist - they’re all words used by people to describe themselves. I describe myself as an atheist, of the same type as Richard Dawkins. I conceed the possibility that there *might *be some type of divine being - and there *might *be an invisible, silent cat in my room. But I won’t believe in either until there is sufficient evidence. I’d say the odds of a personal, loving God are probably 1 to 1,000,000,000,000,00. Something like that. It’s a distant possibility. Right up there with this world being a gaint computer program and we’re all really plugged into the Matrix. Or that the crazy lady across the street really was abducted and experimented on by aliens.
I’m an atheist to all those things.
And if you want me to open the dictionary on you, I can do that too.
- “One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.” -Random House Unabridged Dictionary
- “One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods” -American Heritage Dictionary
- “A person who does not believe in God” - Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary
- “1571 … atheos 'to deny the gods, godless,” from a- ‘without’ + theos ‘a god’." -Online Etymology Dictionary
- *There is one entry on Dictionary.com that does fit your position, and I shall include it: *“someone who denies the existence of god” -WordNet
So, let’s say for a moment that you have an actual point. What word would you use to describe someone like me or Dawkins? Agnostic? Well, let’s look at that word too:
- “A person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.” -Random House Unabridged Dictionary
- “(a) One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. (b) One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.” -American Heritage Dictionary
- “One who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known.” -Online Etymology Dictionary
- “A person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)” -WordNet
So, comparing the sum of the two definations according to a small sample of the dictionaries out there, which better describes the kind of person I was talking about? That is, which word, *atheist *or *agnostic *describes someone who “lacks a belief in God, but conceeds that it is possible that God does exist - but strong, convincing evidence would be needed to believe”?
Well, by all accounts an agnostic is someone who says that they just can’t know one way or the other. Knowledge of God is impossible. An atheist, on the other hand, seems to be *either *a person who denies the existence of God *or *a person who does not believe in God.
So which is the better word for the kind of person I was talking about? Atheist. Hands down.
Looks like you’ll have to go insane. I was not misusing the word, and the popular atheists of today, as well as a good number of dictionaries, agree with me - and not you.
