Doktor S wrote:timberlandko wrote:My point of contenton with both the religionist/deist and areligious/atheist belief set is the exclusionary absolutism inherent to embracing either proposition; both are purely, and equally, assumptive constructs.
What exactly is it you think 'the atheist belief' is?
Sounds like you've talk to one too many apologists to me.
In fact, there is no
atheist belief, and when you look closely you can see how ludicrous the idea of an a-theist
belief is.
Simply, an atheist is someone that lacks a belief in god. The lack of belief can not itself BE a belief, as per the
law of non contradiction.
Atheism and theism are not oposite sides of the same polemic fence, that is just something christians like to forward to advance their argument.
A theist is making a claim that something exists.
An atheist is not making a claim at all, an atheist is simply 'everyone else' that doesn't accept claims of spiritual boogeymen.
Poppycock; mere sophistic word gamery. A deist believes in a deity concept, an atheist believes any affirmative deity concept is founded in error - such is the nature of the two paradigms; indeed they are opposite sides of the same coin, both are belief sets, by definition. They are neither more nor less than what their respective proponents believe.
Quote:And pre-emptively, please do not go gather a bunch of dictionary references from christianized dictionaries that define atheist the wrong way.
Trust me, partner, that's something you'll not likely see me do.
Quote:Simply more misinformation.
Precisely.
Quote:The OED is the only one worth anything.
For your edification, and to refute your assertion via the source to which you yourself ascribe ultimate authority in such issue, here is the OED
* definition of atheism:
* OED (Second Edition), Vols I-XX: Simpson, J. A. and Weiner, E. S. (Eds)
(1989) Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
ISBN: 0198611862
Quote:atheism
ay' thee-iz'm
Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god or gods.
(emphasis added by timber, just in case anyone might for some reason otherwise miss or skip over the first word of the defintion).
Whether to the affirmative or to the negative, to believe in or to not believe in a thing, state, or condition involves the excersize of that aspect or atribute of intellectual activity defined as belief. One believes the way one does, regardless how one cares to characterize one's beliefs, and regardless as well whether or not that which is believed is consistent with fact. A disbelief is itself every bit as much an expression or endorsement of belief in its own particular foundational proposition as is any other belief in its own paricular foundational proposition.
Here is what the online Oxford has to say:
Quote:ATHEISM
/
ay'/thi-iz'm/
noun the belief that God does not exist.
Quote:And for the record, I am not an atheist.
Neither am I. I am, however, areligious.
