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Atheist

Foster Zygote

Dental Floss Tycoon
Foster Zygote
Joined
Jun 24, 2006
Messages
22,102
No, not "one who is skeptical of gods", just the word. It's always bothered me a bit that as an "atheist" I am still defined relative to "theism". I realize there isn't any implied connotation of the superiority of theism in the word atheist, but to me, it's a bit like being defined by my lack of belief in the Easter Bunny. This isn't a call to action or any other such melodrama, I just wondered if anyone else had thought about this.

Steven
 
Probably because the word "Atheist" wouldn't exist without "Theist"?


Or because even recognizing someone for lack of belief in Gods wouldn't exist without belief in Gods existing.


For instance there's no such thing as "agiberdzyapzaer" because there's no such thing as "giberdzyapzaer".
 
It seems that you don't have a good appreciation of our grammatical word system.

The idea of theism came first. I think it's wonderfully simple to include the 'a' prefix in order to portray the other side of the meaning. It makes words economic, and easier to identify.
 
atheism
/aythi-iz’m/

• noun the belief that God does not exist.

— DERIVATIVES atheist noun atheistic adjective atheistical adjective.

— ORIGIN from Greek a- ‘without’ + theos ‘god’.
From: http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk

Mercuryturrent, I believe the word you want is etymology, not grammar.
 
Foster Zygote said:
No, not "one who is skeptical of gods", just the word. It's always bothered me a bit that as an "atheist" I am still defined relative to "theism". I realize there isn't any implied connotation of the superiority of theism in the word atheist, but to me, it's a bit like being defined by my lack of belief in the Easter Bunny. This isn't a call to action or any other such melodrama, I just wondered if anyone else had thought about this.

Steven
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You're thinking too hard about it. Besides, it's far, far better than "Bright".
 
mercuryturrent said:
The idea of theism came first.
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Um, I'm pretty sure that that's wildly unlikely. Unless Creationists are correct, humanity didn't spring into being with belief in invisible magical creatures. At some point between the trees and hunting/gathering, people started having that particularly wacky idea. It had to occur to somebody first, it's not an inherent component of human thought. I'll grant you theism is very, very old. But atheism was there first.
 
I had a discussion with someone about atheism on another board a while ago (http://p196.ezboard.com/fyoga84291frm6.showMessageRange?topicID=167.topic&start=61&stop=80). One of the arguments that he was using was similar to what you're talking about.

Basically he said that atheism can only exist in relation to theism, and that atheists shouldn't "shackle" themselves to that idea. I thought he was being very silly, as you can see from my responses to him.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Um, I'm pretty sure that that's wildly unlikely. Unless Creationists are correct, humanity didn't spring into being with belief in invisible magical creatures. At some point between the trees and hunting/gathering, people started having that particularly wacky idea. It had to occur to somebody first, it's not an inherent component of human thought. I'll grant you theism is very, very old. But atheism was there first.
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Atheism predated theism, but the idea of atheism came after the idea of theism. A person cannot be aware that they do not believe in God until they are have a concept of what God would be if he existed.
 
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Roboramma said:
I had a discussion with someone about atheism on another board a while ago (http://p196.ezboard.com/fyoga84291frm6.showMessageRange?topicID=167.topic&start=61&stop=80). One of the arguments that he was using was similar to what you're talking about.

Basically he said that atheism can only exist in relation to theism, and that atheists shouldn't "shackle" themselves to that idea. I thought he was being very silly, as you can see from my responses to him.
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Forgive me but I think them worthy to quote.

It's true that if there were no theists, there would be no one who call themselves atheists. Just like there are no a-unicornists. The fact that no one proselitises about unicorns means that pointing out that you don't believe in them is pretty pointless.

But the question of belief in god comes up often enough that we sometimes do need to tell people what we think. I try to avoid that most of the time - it usually only leads to conflict.
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Mercuryturrent, I believe the word you want is etymology, not grammar.
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No, I'm definitely talking about a faculty of grammar.

Um, I'm pretty sure that that's wildly unlikely. Unless Creationists are correct, humanity didn't spring into being with belief in invisible magical creatures. At some point between the trees and hunting/gathering, people started having that particularly wacky idea. It had to occur to somebody first, it's not an inherent component of human thought. I'll grant you theism is very, very old. But atheism was there first.
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I don't know. I think we'd have to break it down into semantics here. By 'concept,' I mean when it was seriously thought of.

Judging my today's psychology, and assuming things have either not changed much, or were more complimenting to the following idea then; humans seem to have an association problem in the brain, where they prescribe meaning to inanimate objects, or query about the meaning of those objects. It makes much more sense for a human capable of semiosis to consider under what reason an object is in front of them, instead of how that object came to be in front of them.

So I think, at least for humans, once a concept was being formed about theistic matters, the default was animism.
 
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UserGoogol said:
Atheism predated theism, but the idea of atheism came after the idea of theism. A person cannot be aware that they do not believe in God until they are have a concept of what God would be if he existed.
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But one doesn't need to be aware of the idea of gods in order to not believe in them. Babies are all atheists, even the baptized ones.
 
TragicMonkey said:
But one doesn't need to be aware of the idea of gods in order to not believe in them. Babies are all atheists, even the baptized ones.
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There needs to be some sort of distinction between nontheist and athiest, and agnostic here. I propose the following:

nontheist: one who is not concerned with the idea of god.
agnostic: one who reserves judgement of belief in the idea of god, feeling there is not an enough evidence for belief either way; does not believe in god.
atheist: one who believes there is no such thing as a god
thiest: one who believes there is a god.
 
mercuryturrent said:
There needs to be some sort of distinction between nontheist and athiest, and agnostic here. I propose the following:

nontheist: one who is not concerned with the idea of god.
agnostic: one who reserves judgement of belief in the idea of god, feeling there is not an enough evidence for belief either way; does not believe in god.
atheist: one who believes there is no such thing as a god
thiest: one who believes there is a god.
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"Not concerned with" sounds like they've heard of gods, and simply don't care. The problem is that "atheist" means "one who does not believe in gods". It doesn't make a distinction between those who have heard the idea and rejected it, and those who have never encountered belief in gods at all. I think keeping those two together is the most honest representation of the matter: because it's the people who believe in gods who are the odd ones out. Theirs is the wacky idea, and theirs is the burden of proof. Letting them act like they're the normal ones is giving in to the wackiness of their world view.
 
TragicMonkey said:
"Not concerned with" sounds like they've heard of gods, and simply don't care. The problem is that "atheist" means "one who does not believe in gods". It doesn't make a distinction between those who have heard the idea and rejected it, and those who have never encountered belief in gods at all.
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Grayman's definition from oxford dictionary in this thread hints otherwise.

What I think it is, is that lexicography, for the most part, has never bothered to consult an expert in defining atheism. But I think for here, since were are discussing distinctions, and trying to be accurate, we should. I don't think one who has no concept of a god should be considered an atheist. I think they should be classified as nontheists.
 
Foster Zygote said:
No, not "one who is skeptical of gods", just the word. It's always bothered me a bit that as an "atheist" I am still defined relative to "theism". I realize there isn't any implied connotation of the superiority of theism in the word atheist, but to me, it's a bit like being defined by my lack of belief in the Easter Bunny. This isn't a call to action or any other such melodrama, I just wondered if anyone else had thought about this.

Steven
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Something in a different thread reminded me indirectly to come back here. There are certain negative connotations of "atheism" - the word. That's why a number of atheists are getting behind "the brights". Site is pretty indicative.
http://www.the-brights.net/

They just want a "nicer" term. On the other hand, Dawkins has a pretty good article (linked from the site) defining why he'd support what seems to be a sort of lightweight idea. (My own jury's still out, though.)
 
mercuryturrent said:
Grayman's definition from oxford dictionary in this thread hints otherwise.

What I think it is, is that lexicography, for the most part, has never bothered to consult an expert in defining atheism. But I think for here, since were are discussing distinctions, and trying to be accurate, we should. I don't think one who has no concept of a god should be considered an atheist. I think they should be classified as nontheists.
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There's lexicography (which would make a great name for an album, wouldn't it?) and then there's the finer subtleties of connotation; frankly, I want theism to not occupy the "default" position. It's wrong that atheism is the active choice, and theism isn't. Belief is a choice, nonbelief is what you get when you either choose the other way, or don't choose at all. They're the weird ones, not us!

And after I manage to enforce that little paradigm, I'm going to work on people not assuming everyone's heterosexual unless otherwise indicated. They're uphill battles, I grant you, but we in the Monkey Conspiracy of Cultural Attitude Shift are prepared to sit around and watch TV all day if necessary, to bring justice and truth to all!
 
Hmm. If you take the phrase absolutely literally, inanimate objects are atheist, in that they don't believe in God. But that's stupid, so perhaps if you're atheist you have to at least have the capacity to hold beliefs.

TragicMonkey said:
But one doesn't need to be aware of the idea of gods in order to not believe in them. Babies are all atheists, even the baptized ones.
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But babies don't have an idea of atheism, which was my point.
 
UserGoogol said:
But babies don't have an idea of atheism, which was my point.
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Atheism isn't necessarily an idea it is at it's most basic a lack of belief in God. Babies don't need to have an idea of atheism they aren't theistic therefore they are atheistic.
 
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