Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Well that is a definition I have not seen before. Dictionaries of theological terms tend to define theism as a belief in a personal or interventionist god. Not all conceptions of God are theistic. Those people who limit their definition of theism to revealed religions with creator gods would be reflecting a broadly understood definition.If you take theism at its broadest sense, theism means belief in 1 or more Gods. Some people might limit their definition of anti-theist to revealed religions with eternal creator Gods though.
Most of that was some strange, misguided generalised attack on anti-theists, not an argument.Anti-theism therefore means hostility towards the belief in Gods. I personally find it a bit of a silly belief, and one that is far less rational than most of its adherents believe it to be.
To rationally be against something requires evidence that it is harmful. To be against theism requires evidence that all types of theistic belief systems are harmful, this is an almost impossible task without relying on huge 'leaps of faith'. Most anti-theists therefore rest their claims on these basic arguments instead:
1) Gods don't exist therefore all of these stories about them are lies. Believing things that are objectively false is stupid and irrational and delusional people harm our society. Unicorns, pixies, flying spaghetti monsters etc.
2) Theistic beliefs cause obvious harm such as wars, stoning of gays and bigotry. Any benefits are far outweighed by harms. This is self-evident and requires almost no proof save quoting the odd verse and saying '30 years war' or 'al-Qaeda'.
3) If there were no Gods we would all be wonderful happy rational people with secular humanist values (or at least closer to this goal).
Anti-theism generally requires absolutely no knowledge of theism, and most anti-theists, including the famous ones, will happily admit to having almost no knowledge of theistic belief systems (I stopped reading fairy tails when I was a kid...) and instead base their views on a stereotype of what they think theism is and a superficial, literalist reading of sacred texts (ironically akin to that of the fundies who they despise). it is one of the few subject areas that people actually boast about being ignorant of and see it as not being any kind of impediment to discussing the topic as an expert.
Anti-theism is a faith based position anyway, just as theism is. It is based on assumptions that are, arguably, less rational than many theistic belief systems (humanity is essentially 'good' and evil acts are a distortion of man's true nature, society is 'progressing' towards a more advanced and moral state, humans are made in my image thus are rational and want to be more rational and humanistic, 'rational' non-Religious beliefs couldn't be worse than what we have now, etc)
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