doctrbill responds to me:
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The word 'atheism' comes to us from the Greek atheos - 'denying the gods,'
Not quite. The word comes to us from the Greek "a" and the Greek "theos" - "without god."
I don't know where you get your definition but the one you point up here is that of Thorndike Barnhart in their advanced dictionary. If you don't like it, take the matter up with them.
Merriam Webster:
Main Entry: atheism
Pronunciation: 'A-thE-"i-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French athisme, from athe atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date: 1546
The word "atheism" means, literally, "without god."
The point is that you are trying to make a semantic argument and then claim that atheists are actually like your semantics. Reality doesn't work that way. If you want to know what "atheism" means, then you should start by looking at atheists and see how they define themselves.
They don't mean what you claim is meant.
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The best way to find out what atheism is is to ask atheists.
Advice which you seem to ignore in reference to yourself at the moment.
(*chuckle*)
Yeah, right. And your proof of this is what, precisely?
Question: Am I an atheist?
Question: What is my background with regard to studying comparative religion with respect to atheism?
Here...Michael Martin in his book,
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification wrote the following:
In Greek a' means without' or not' and theos' means god.' From this standpoint an atheist would simply be someone without a belief in God, not necessarily someone who believes that God does not exist. According to its Greek roots, then, atheism is a negative view, characterized by the absence of belief in God.
Let's look at the Atheism Web's
An Introduction to Atheism:
What is atheism?
Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods. This absence of belief generally comes about either through deliberate choice, or from an inherent inability to believe religious teachings which seem literally incredible. It is not a lack of belief born out of simple ignorance of religious teachings.
And later on:
So it seems that many atheists seem to be of the opinion that atheism as defined by others doesn't seem to be the same thing as atheism as defined by atheists.
Now, which definition do you think gets to be the one that really counts?
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I am unsure why you seem to think you can tell somebody else what they really believe...and think that you can do so through a semantic argument.
I believe I made it very clear that I am speaking for myself.
Do you mean you are defining your atheism? Well, that's one thing. It seemed, however, that you were trying to define atheism on a larger scale than just yourself.
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It isn't that they don't believe. It is that they have no belief. That is, atheists don't "believe there is no god." Instead, they "have no belief in god."
And this hair splitting is not a semantic argument?
No.
Please follow the link regarding
disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true.
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So now you understand how most atheists feel:
No. Now I understand how you feel.
We're back to my second question:
What is my background with regard to studying comparative religion with respect to atheism?
You seem to be so sure about my personal history, why don't relate it for us? How long have I been researching atheism? Have I written anything about it? If so, where?
Indeed, there are people out there who take what is commonly called the "strong" atheistic position where they make an active claim that there is no god and cannot be anything like god, but most atheists do not take that position.
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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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