Posted by Tom Lessl on October 06, 1999 at 16:44:01:
In Reply to: definitions posted by rpcman on October 06, 1999 at 13:49:20:
What you say may be correct strictly in terms of the etymology of the term atheist, but that doesn't mean that Webster's is wrong. Dictionaries try to represent what most people mean most of the time when they use a particular term. If there are conceptual difficulties with common usage, they will be reflected in what the dictionary says. Webster's doesn't invent meanings; it merely chronicles them. The term atheist is usually used in English to mean a person who denies or disbelieves in the existence of God. In this sense it may encompass agnostics as well. Certainly Huxley disbelieved in God. He preferred the term agnostic because it was more politic. The word atheist has also been used in English to mean those who live against God. In that regard it may include religious people as well as nonreligious. Early Christians were accused of atheism because the refused to honor the gods of the Roman pantheon. This is chronicled in a second century account of the martyrdom of Polycarp. When Polycarp was brought before the Roman Proconsul for judgment he was ordered to recite the prescribed retraction of Christian faith : "Swear by the genius of Caesar, repent, say away with the atheists." In other words, he was expected to pay homage to the divinity of the Emperor and to denounce the atheist Christians. Instead the aged Polycarp pointed to the gallery of his accusers and said: "Away with the atheists."
Tom Lessl
Which is one correct definition. However, if you break the word down a-theist is merely anyone who is not-theist and that
includes those who merely lack a belief. Websters is wrong, IMO, if they don't include those people.
I've used this analogy before on the board... Something can't be both not green and not not green. It is either one or the other.
If agreen was a word then it would include all colors except green. Similarly, when someone doesn't positively assert belief in a
god or gods they are not a theist and hence, by default if nothing else, must be an atheist, or, if that word sounds too 'dirty'
because of its history, a non-theist. Atheist and non-theist mean exactly the same thing in my book though.
: : Isn't agnosticism (in it's strong form) self-defeating?
: Yes. That is part of the point I'm making. The other is to show that people mean different things when they use the word. I'm agnostic in the "unknowing" sense as well as in Huxley's sense. I'm not agnostic in the sense that I think there is some middle ground between theism and atheism.
: : Just curious, why bother to redefine atheism? In every dictonary I've been able to lay hands on, atheism is defined as "The belief that there is no God"(Webster Comprehensive Dictionary, International Edition, copyright 1992).
: Which is one correct definition. However, if you break the word down a-theist is merely anyone who is not-theist and that includes those who merely lack a belief. Websters is wrong, IMO, if they don't include those people.
: I've used this analogy before on the board... Something can't be both not green and not not green. It is either one or the other. If agreen was a word then it would include all colors except green. Similarly, when someone doesn't positively assert belief in a god or gods they are not a theist and hence, by default if nothing else, must be an atheist, or, if that word sounds too 'dirty' because of its history, a non-theist. Atheist and non-theist mean exactly the same thing in my book though.