I do know many Christians who are all about love and tolerance, the problem is, they aren’t the ones going onto Fox News to declare they’ll be shouting how much “Jesus loves you, but only if you’re straight!” at your local university…
They’re the ones quietly living their lives according to Jesus’ teachings…
A few of these friends have taken to calling the kind of Christians the Alt-Right claims to be 'Xtians", for they have taken the “Christ” out of “Christians”
Chriskmee@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I think calling Atheism a religion does degrade its value. It brings atheism into the same category as religion, it promotes the idea that atheists need just as much faith as religious people, it basically turns science into a religion.
Just to be clear, I define Atheism as “without belief in a God”, that would include anyone saying they are agnostic.
Jackeoh@lemm.ee 1 year ago
How you define it is irrelevant. How is it defined in society? We can only trust to established dictionaries to track the usage and meaning of words.
The OED defines ‘atheist’ as ‘a person who does not believe that God or gods exist’.
Chriskmee@lemm.ee 1 year ago
At least among most Atheists it’s defined as lack of belief. It’s also arguably the most correct definition based on the parts of the word itself.
Theist is usually defined as “with belief”, so it makes sense that A-theist means without belief. Adding that A to another word usually means without, like asymptomatic (without symptoms) or amoral (without morals).
The same thing can be said with Agnostic, Gnostic is with knowledge, A-gnostic is without knowledge.
Agnostic/Gnostic answers the question of “do you have knowledge that a God exists”. Atheist/Theist answers the question of “do you have belief that a God exists”.
phx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s a great explanation of the terms. Thanks for that.
Given this, can you think of a word that would describe those who are hostile to the concept of a deity? Antitheist, perhaps?