21% of American atheists don't know what "atheist" means

[Elok]

Originally posted by GePap
I think many people who self-classified as Aethists have the same misunderstanding of Aethism as Elok and other people on this board do who continually claim Aethism to be a religion of sorts.

Excuse me? Can you quote me trotting out that "atheism is a religion" nonsense anywhere on this board? I doubt it. I think you have me mixed up with another believer.

EDIT: To be fair, I was thinking of titling this thread, "See, Atheism IS a religion!" But that's just because that particular malarkey is an extremely reliable troll. It's highly offensive to most atheists and you can count on at least one of ours launching into a category five hissy-fit whenever it's brandished. But I wouldn't have meant it.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by GePap
Anyone can claim unclaimed land.

That doesn't make it valid though.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by GePap
People who not only don't believe in deities but who are driven to try to disprove there being any dieties should best be thought as Antitheist.

But, that would be a sub-category of atheism, just like Christianity is a sub-category of monotheism.

But you don't get to decide what words mean.

Sure you can, you just have to convince others that that's what they mean.

No, it can't, anymore than polytheism can be called a religion. A religion can be monotheistic, polytheistic, even aetheistic, but monotheism, polytheism, and aetheism are just stances on a single idea (existance of diety(ies)), not worldviews.

I use the word worldview to describe something that could be/include a religion or not. Would you prefer the term Weltanschauung?

Atheism, monotheism, etc. are an integral parts of a worldview. No, they don't completely describe it, but it is an attribute of a world view that can be compared to other worldviews.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Elok

EDIT: To be fair, I was thinking of titling this thread, "See, Atheism IS a religion!" But that's just because that particular malarkey is an extremely reliable troll. It's highly offensive to most atheists and you can count on at least one of ours launching into a category five hissy-fit whenever it's brandished. But I wouldn't have meant it.

Apparently, you didn't have to do it for that result.

[Elok]

Oh no, atheism=religion gets a much more violent reaction. Especially once BK gets in on the argument. The worst I've seen here is Impaler's cat-two, maybe a cat-three and that's pushing it.

[DaShi]

People invest too much of their identity in religion or supposed lack of it.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Elok
Excuse me? Can you quote me trotting out that "atheism is a religion" nonsense anywhere on this board? I doubt it. I think you have me mixed up with another believer.

You are my favourite theist.

[MOBIUS]

So 21% of Atheists are idiots...

That's still better than the fact that 100% of religious people are idiots by definition!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Elok
Rufus, ask one of our philosogeeks to explain Spinoza. His vision of God is stupid and pointless to me, but IIRC he still called it a God. There seems to be a whole movement in philosophy circles and liberal religious movements to turn God into some hippy-dippy cosmic force or thought process. Not to mention Hinduism; the standard Hindu conception of God is definitely a deity, but not personal after the western fashion.

No need; I've read Spinoza. But I was unaware that the question of how to define God had been settled once and for all by a 17th Century Jewish philosopher. Or, if that's not the case, I note that the report isn't honest enough to label a column "NET Belief in God, If We Accept Spinoza's Definition of God, a Definition We Didn't Tell Respondents We Were Using."

Look, I know a bit about theology and philosophy, and quite a bit more about polling. What you've got here are pollsters who've asked subjects to self-identify without defining their terms (I guarantee that there was no extended discussion, and probably no discussion at all, of what was meant by "atheist"), and then impose interpretations on their answers that contradict their self-identification. Political pollsters play the same game all the time, generally to show that self-identified conservatives are really liberal. It's clever, but clever and true are rarely the same thing.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly

What you've got here are pollsters who've asked subjects to self-identify without defining their terms (I guarantee that there was no extended discussion, and probably no discussion at all, of what was meant by "atheist"), and then impose interpretations on their answers that contradict their self-identification. Political pollsters play the same game all the time, generally to show that self-identified conservatives are really liberal. It's clever, but clever and true are rarely the same thing.

Do you need to have atheism defined when people are polling you? C'mon...
Elok is right with his thread title when 21% simply doesn't know what it means, whatever reason they have. Because atheism is a term around which a consensus exists. You can't just say oh I'm an atheist, but I also believe in some 'force' or other gobbledygook. That's just playing the uneducated or rather ignorant fool. They probably don't even know what that 'force' or whatever is

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Traianvs



Do you need to have atheism defined when people are polling you? C'mon...
Elok is right with his thread title when 21% simply doesn't know what it means, whatever reason they have. Because atheism is a term around which a consensus exists. You can't just say oh I'm an atheist, but I also believe in some 'force' or other gobbledygook. That's just playing the uneducated or rather ignorant fool. They probably don't even know what that 'force' or whatever is

But some 'force' isn't exactly a deity, now is it?

For the record I don't believe in any of this non-sense, but arguably an atheist is anyone that doesn't believe in a deity. Belief in things like karma isn't belief in a deity.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Traianvs

Do you need to have atheism defined when people are polling you? C'mon...
Elok is right with his thread title when 21% simply doesn't know what it means, whatever reason they have. Because atheism is a term around which a consensus exists. You can't just say oh I'm an atheist, but I also believe in some 'force' or other gobbledygook. That's just playing the uneducated or rather ignorant fool. They probably don't even know what that 'force' or whatever is

Rubbish. The whole point is that thereisn't consensus around atheism -- that not believing in something in no way describes what you do believe. Buddhism in its original form, for example, is atheistic -- it does not in any way acknowledge the existence of a deity. Yet the pollsters separate Buddhists from atheists.

If the pollsters had asked: "Are you an atheist -- and by that we mean, do you have absolutely no belief in any sort of higher intelligence, any kind of human transcendence, or any notion of the human soul" -- I suspect a lot fewer respondents would have self-identified as atheists. Then you'd have some better data with which to work. But that's by no means the "true" definition of atheism (ask a Buddhist), and failing to define the terms but imposing that definition ex post facto tells you nothing, or at least does not tell you what this thread title supposes.

[Uncle Sparky]

Every day I thank God I'm an atheist.

[Agathon]

On the subject of religion, I'm with Stalin.

[BeBMan]

You go against the church and bring in your own cult?