semantics, agnosticismSome atheists claim that anyone who doesn’t “actively believe” in God is an atheist. Some theists claim that an atheist is a person who believes there is no God.
Which definition is accurate, and has it always been that way?
Both can be correct depending on your definition of god. See Negative and Positive Atheism, though I prefer the terms Strong and Soft Atheism.
If I don’t actively proclaim that I don’t believe in unicorns, does that make me a believer in unicorns? Most people have been exposed to religious ideas at some point in their lives to the extent that they have an opinion one way or the other, but a person who has never been exposed to the idea of god, or hasn’t given it any thought, would have to be considered an atheist, or we are all saddled with the assumption that we believe any proposition we haven’t heard or considered.
Atheism - from the Greek word atheos, meaning “without gods”. Theism is a belief in a deity or deities, and the “a” prefix means “without”. An atheist is simply lacking belief in a god or gods. Atheism does not make any positive assertions about gods, or lack thereof, it is WITHOUT.
A positive assertion or belief in no gods is a subset of atheism.
http://joreth.livejournal.com/185251.html
I have always used it to mean “an absence of belief”. It seems intuitive that it cant exist by itself, ie. everyone will have their own bias following their claim of atheism as to whether or not a god exists. Thats why it is qualified by strong / weak, negative / positive, etc…
The accurate definition is that an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in a god or gods. No more, no less.
I don’t know the history of the word, but I don’t know of it being used to describe anything else except when people use it as rhetoric.
Agnostic atheists merely lack belief; the position can best be summarized as “I think the question of the existence of gods is irresolvable, therefore it makes sense not to believe any exist.”
Gnostic atheists assert that gods do not exist.
But if someone does not qualify the term “atheist”, all you can know is that they lack belief.
Religious folks tend to characterize all atheists as gnostic, because it’s a much more emotional appeal – “how can you deny the existence of god? You can’t prove a negative!” The agnostic position is much harder to argue against, and therefore often gets ignored or hand-waved away.
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