Windwalker
If we don't look deeper than common use, we lose meaningful understanding. Which furthers our understandings, which then eventually becomes common usage. If we just follow the lowest common denominator, which dictionary definitions generally represent, then knowledge and growth halts.
Clarity through common usage is not "the lowest common denominator, that makes no sense, and accepting that there is a common usage doesn't stop anything, that is demonstrably false, since that is how dictionaries have always functioned and yet words and language still evolve. What we are talking about here is
current common usage, that doesn't mean we can't examine other nuanced or deeper meanings.
You do realize that language evolves, don't you?
You do realise atheism has evolved into it's current definition because most people use it to mean a lack or absence of belief, don't you?
words and their means are not fixed and static things, defined by the average lay person?
Straw man, since I have never claimed they do, they are however derived from common usage, and dictionaries are reference tools to aid clarity. And it is clear that current common usage defines atheism as a lack or absence of belief. That definition also encompasses all nuanced positions atheists hold, whereas defining it as a belief demonstrably excludes atheists like myself, so whether we use the dictionary or reason here I'm not see how your claim makes any sense or is progressing our knowledge here.
Dictionaries are not the Word of God. So why treat them as such? A hangover from fundamentalist Christianity?
Another straw man I haven't remotely claimed, and that last sentence is hilarious. Your sophistry aside here, I could not have gone to much more trouble to explain the rationale of why the current definition makes sense. Though some people have resorted their absolute arbitrary opinion here, I certainly have not.
Why do you persist in assuming I'm a theist?
My apologies for the error.
I do understand atheism quite well, as I called myself one for at least 10 years of my adult life.
Ok, but you don't understand my atheism clearly, or that of many others here, as they have taken great pains to explain it does not involve a belief that no deity exists, and they and I have taken great pains to explain why?
It was around 10 years ago now that I dropped that label, as I realized the it did not reflect where I had grown to in my understandings. It was limited to the theistic question, which I now consider moot.
Well I am happy for you to believe or disbelieve as your reason dictates, ironically it is you and others who are not extending me that courtesy.
I see both theism and atheism as flip sides of the same coin. They're both looking at the same thing, using the same language, one in favor, one opposed.
Which you're entitled to, as I am entitled to
not see it that way.
I don't have any problem however in recognizing such things as 'strong atheism', or 'weak atheism', or even 'agnosticism'. Yes, there is a spectrum that self-identified atheists will fall upon. I respect that. However, I absolutely reject such fallacious arguments that says all people who are not theists, are by default atheists! That is bogus. Children are NOT atheists. Babies are not atheists. Cats and cows, trees and rocks, are not atheists either. That's ridiculous.
Well they may seem ridiculous, but it is clear that atheism in its broadest sense encompasses anyone that lacks theistic belief. However if you disagree that's your call, but where we part company is when you insist my atheism is a belief as if I don't know my own mind, or how I arrived at my atheism.
The love of truth. Wishing to accept and face reality. Logic. Reason. Rationality. Language. I wouldn't call that desperation. I call that insistence.
If I tell you
I do not believe in any deity or deities, and that
my atheism categorically does not involve a belief no deity exists, which by the way would be an absolute, and you seem to arguing strongly against absolutes, then how is it a love of truth for anyone to deny that, as if you or they know better than me what I think?
an atheist claims any of the above as matters of integrity, then they need to follow them, not lie about their disbelief as somehow not a belief,
So you love truth so much, you even know what I consider to be true, even when I tell you categorically that is not the case? That doesn't sound like a love of the truth to me, that sounds like a closed minded bias, insisting you know better than me what I think.
I see all of that as an allergy to the word belief, and dishonest rationalizing to try not face the facts.
You're wrong, as that is not my rationale at all, and I think I know better than you or anyone else what I think, and how I arrived at my lack of belief.
There is nothing wrong is accepting atheism is a belief.
Well I disagree, and have explained exhaustively the reason is that it would exclude me and many other atheists from atheism, even though I and they,
don't believe in any deity or deities, that is what is wrong with it, and again I am demonstrably not alone in that rationale. In this thread the majority of atheists have resoundingly pointed out you are wrong in labelling their atheism a belief.
It's nothing to be ashamed of. Own it. Embrace it. I did. Certainly other atheists do.
I'm not ashamed of anything no matter how many times you misrepresent me as such, and I have a mind of my own, and don't need to parrot the beliefs or rationale of others.
My atheism is not a belief. What other atheists think or believe is up to them.
So why are you so desperate to deny it?
I am not desperate, but I deny it because it isn't true, since
my atheism is not a belief. Why are you so desperate to tell me what I think? I don't tell you what to think. Again since this isn't sinking in,
my atheism is not a belief. I get to decide that, not you, or anyone else. The desperation here is manifestly others trying to label me in line with what they think and believe, and in direct contradiction of what I have told them I think and believe or do not believe.
You're not taking me at my word. You keep saying I'm a theist, when every time you say it, I tell you I don't identify myself as one. Nor do I identify as atheist anymore for the same reason. Why don't you accept that?
I do accept it, I was mistaken and have apologised for the error.
As I said, all of that is just flipsides fo the same coin. "They're theists by default! No! They're atheists by default!" See?
Oh understand it, I just don't agree. A baby isn't born believing in anything, therefore it lacks theistic belief, ipso facto it is an atheist, it just didn't arrive at that lack of belief, as I and others have.