Posted by rpcman on October 06, 1999 at 18:42:25:
In Reply to: Atheists and Agnostics posted by Tom Lessl on October 06, 1999 at 16:44:01:
: Webster's doesn't invent meanings; it merely chronicles them.
And words change meaning(s) over time. Perhaps the page isn't clear enough, but I was trying to get the point across that I was proposing a somewhat new definition based on where the words started and how they have changed to become used differently today.
Many people who rightly (again IMO) call themselves atheists *today* merely lack belief in the gods. When dictionaries fail to note this fact and/or instead use the term to mean something disparaging or otherwise go well beyond the etymology of the word then they aren't effectively chronicling the word or how it is or can be used now.