Misrepresenting Atheism

Serpent257 Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - It seems to me that your problem is not with the definition of atheist, (which is nothing more and nothing less than that of not being a theist), but rather that of the nature of dictionaries. Dictionaries are not purveyors of truth, but rather they are lexiconographs. They record what many if not most people *THINK* a word means and how these people use and possibly misuse a word. That is, they record popular lexicon, and if they are gracious enough, also include etymology. Serpent

gklr Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - "Not X" is not a thing, not a property, is not anything at all. There is no such object, it does not exist... no matter what X is. Humans are things, by thing I mean "something". Not nothing. Humans exist, thus they are things. Not X is not a thing, and does not exist. Lacking X is nothing, and saying atheism is a lack of belief is saying atheism does not exist. Atheism is the belief there is no god, with the negation on god, not on the atheist.

gklr Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - Not being a theist renders a nontheist, not an atheist. Nontheist refers to that which we are not, not to that which we are. Dictionaries do not define words, correct, they list definitions as per popular use whether they make sense or not. Most dictionaries give contradictory accounts of what atheism is, saying both that atheism is a belief and is a lack of belief. The lack of belief definition is retarded logically, makes no sense and is false, it refers to nothing at all.

Afterthoughtbtw Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - Jeez, this reminds me of another conversation we had. I guess I'll try to skip ahead. I have said this before, but let's try again: The prefixes 'a-' and 'non-' have an IDENTICAL meaning. Non- coming from greek, is used with greek derived words, a- coming from latin is used with latin derived words. Theism is latin. The best word for what you are talking about would probably be imtheism. The prefix im- (or in-) (from latin also) has a negative force, as opposed to a contrary one.

AustralianAstronomer Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - Good comment.

AustralianAstronomer Says:

Nov 2, 2009 - Your definition of atheism as a "lack of belief in a god" does fall short off the mark. Julian Baggini - "Atheism is in fact extremely simple to define: it is the belief that there is no God or gods." (from Atheism: A Very Short Introduction) Doug Krueger - "Atheism - the belief that there are no gods." (from What is ATHEISM?) Paul Edwards - "An atheist is a person who maintains that there is no god." (from Encylopedia of Philosophy)

wojovox Says:

Nov 3, 2009 - THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!!!!!

adamg06rsn Says:

Nov 5, 2009 - CYA around

SRobacker Says:

Nov 6, 2009 - The word "belief" means that you have a conclusion based on what you consider facts. So you believe something like everyone is stopped in traffic and you hear on the radio that there is a crash ahead. So you believe there is a crash without seeing it. So being an Atheist, you have to "believe" that there is no God. lol. And Atheism has the "ism" at the end so it is a belief.

NathanWubs Says:

Nov 7, 2009 - No, being an atheist is not believing in anything. It is a nul state. Did you even see this video? Or are you just randomly commenting. So you being an atheist toward Odin is a belief that odin does not exist. So not asserting that there is an invisible dwarf in front of me, means that you belief that there is no dwarf in front of you. lack of believe = believe is not correct That is the same as saying. bold = hair. Being bold is the lack of hair, not hair do you agree?

Joeli086 Says:

Nov 7, 2009 - Grab a dictionary, or do what Nathan is saying and watch the video. The dictionary definition is that atheism is lack of belief. We didnt decide it, thats how it is. Don't argue with us about that, go shout at the people writing dictionarys. REAL dictionarys. Next. Atheism. A-theism. "ism" is on the end because of the word "theism". It isnt a suffix seeing as "Athe" isn't a word in its own right. You could have worked that out with Google...

amminadab2010 Says:

Nov 7, 2009 - a pussy fart CAUSE HIS TO SMALL FOR HER THAT'S WHY

SRobacker Says:

Nov 7, 2009 - I was mostly joking, but atheism is a belief because the word belief means that you have a conclusion based on information that you have. And an atheist has the conclusion that there is no deity or anything like that.

SRobacker Says:

Nov 7, 2009 - I think you are making a definition for the word "belief" that does not exist. see my reply to Joeli086.

NathanWubs Says:

Nov 8, 2009 - non-belief is not belief, you should know that,.

NathanWubs Says:

Nov 8, 2009 - just like a non-stampcolecter is not a stampcolecter. An atheist does not have a belief, an atheist has a non-belief or dis-belief which is the same in god. There is no shred of belief in it. Just like you have a non-belief in odin and other gods.

jmwinter1 Says:

Nov 8, 2009 - Nice piece, with one exception... Ignorance is not the inability to understand, it is a lack of knowledge of a specific subject.

SRobacker Says:

Nov 8, 2009 - look up the word believe or belief. Yes it has one definition that means a religious view, but mostly it means what I said.

ChairmanKiel Says:

Nov 13, 2009 - @SRobacker: watch?v=Bt1wDNRkllQ Explains why your argument is fail.

SRobacker Says:

Nov 13, 2009 - I don't know if you mixed up the address, but you just pasted this video's id. I watched it all the way through already. I just looked at the definition of the word believe or belief. And to be an atheist, you have to have the conclusion based on what you see that there is no deity. So an atheist believes there is no deity or any thing like that. Believe can mean to think or suppose. Belief can also mean to trust on confidence.

ChairmanKiel Says:

Nov 13, 2009 - Ah shit, I forgot what the video I wanted to show you was. No, what you are saying is incorrect. Atheism is the the stance that there ISN'T ANY belief in a god(s). To tell me that a "lack" of belief is a belief is like telling me that the off button on the tv is a channel itself. That's just silly and dishonest. If you ask any real atheist, they will flat out tell you that they don't "conclude" that there's no god. They just don't have a belief in one or many, because there isn't any proof.

SRobacker Says:

Nov 13, 2009 - So if they do not conclude there is no God then they may have thought about it but after having an "attitude problem with God" They did not reach a logical conclusion. stance - a physical position, or to have an emotional or intellectual attitude. Because they do not conclude anything about it, then what ever they say is from as if blindness. The fool has said in there heart "There is no God". - Psalm 14:1

ChairmanKiel Says:

Nov 13, 2009 - Lol. Your logic here is sad. You make assumptions without providing any evidence to support them; and then you use the dictionary term stance to try and attack my position; when I was using it merely in passing. It doesn't change the fact that atheism is the lack of a belief, and it doesn't change the fact that your "belief" is based on baseless assertions that you couldn't possibly prove or know. And I have no idea how your quote at the end makes your fail argument better. Just more fail.

SRobacker Says:

Nov 14, 2009 - yeah, okay. I guess if you don't want to use the meaning of words that are as they say, then you can just make up whatever and get no where because no one will know what you are talking about. The quote at the end is for the fool because when they don't know what they are talking about, I don't feel that they pose any threat. Good bye.

Key2daUnderground Says:

Nov 15, 2009 - "...to be an atheist, you have to have the conclusion based on what you see that there is no deity. So an atheist believes there is no deity or any thing like that". Wrong. there is a different between seeing that there is no god not seeing that there is a god. 1 is an assertion that there is no god, the other is a disbelief that there is a god because we dont see one.