Grrrr...am feeling a bit irritated! ( Like that's unusual, eh?)
So many of us call ourselves atheist. And so many say "atheists 'believe' such and thus." For crying out loud! Not everyone who identifies as atheist thinks the same way about everything.
Am I wrong here?
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I know exactly how you feel. I am active on the Debating Christianity & Religion forum and it is an issue in almost every thread. There was even an entire thread dedicated to defining atheism because a theist got upset that atheists were saying that they didn't believe that there is no god, they just don't believe in any proposed Gods. They just kept insisting that there is no way an atheist was not someone who believed that there is no God. No matter how many people said " I am open to the belief in a god provided there Is evidence, but I don't have evidence and so I have no reason to believe in a God", this debater would claim, "so if you don't believe in God then you must believe that there are no Gods. It seems impossible for some people to realize that atheism at its core is simply the lack of theism. Nothing more need be attached to the word. You would think this would be so obvious just from the etymology of the word itself. Maybe people are just so obsessed with attaching themselves to their particular denomination or belief system that they really can't fathom someone who doesn't adhere to a certain "doctrine" so to speak.
I like to describe atheism as neutrality. Ill believe in anything thats proven and ill accept anything disproven to be false.
Having done sone reading in wikipedia im really not liking the term atheist.
The label started as a capital crime and literally ment without the state religion.
These days no two atheists agree on the meaning since it now includes people that dont believe in current religions due to lack of evidence and people that believe there is no god.
Theres a difference believing there is no god without evidence is a form of faith.
Which leads to confusion and is partially why theists try to tell you atheism is a religion.
Im thinking just plain skeptic would be a good word for people that dont believe in current religions due to no evidence.
Maybe antitheist would be more fitting for those that believe there is no god.