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You’re not an atheist, you’re agnostic
By RickMeasham | October 4, 2007
At some point in the last 20 years, we’ve gone from having to dodge ‘Crazy Christians’ on street corners to having to dodge virulent ‘atheists’. The very people who used to get annoyed by anyone talking about faith have now become militant. They are more keen to convert you to their apparent way of thinking than Christians have ever been since the inquisition. And yet they don’t see the irony.
I think the only thing that annoys me more than their virulence is the fact that most of them do not believe the message they preach. Which means that they’re not only trying to force everyone to their way of thinking, but they’re doing so without fully understanding what it is that they think they’re thinking.
What do I mean? Try this: find a reasonable, thinking person, willing to admit when they’re wrong, who has claimed to be an atheist. Then quiz them on what that actually means to them*. Have they totally and forever excluded the merest possibility of there being a higher being? Are they so convinced that it would be something they’d die before recanting? Thought so. Most people (not all) that claim atheism don’t truly believe it. They’re actually agnostic.
a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god – M-W dictionary
Once they’ve realised they don’t hold to atheism quite as strongly as they first thought, offer them an alternative: agnosticism. The view that they don’t know and probably never will know. Maybe then they’ll stop the proselytizing.
* Should regular quizzing not produce the desired results, try the rack, the iron maiden, or even .. the comfy chair
Edit 2007-10-05: Fixed typo in the title. Thanks Chicken Girl!
Edit 2007-10-06: Fixed another typo. Thanks Hon!
Topics: Issues, Religion | 14 Comments »
October 5th, 2007 at 10:41 am
You’re right, I’m not an “athiest”. I’m an atheist.
And I’m afraid I’m going to have to correct you about what that word means, because you clearly are not up on your Greek roots.
The word “atheist” comes from the Greek roots a, without, and theos, deity/god. An atheist is someone who is without any belief in a god. Someone who is godless. If I ask you whether you believe in any gods, and your answer is not “yes”, then you are an atheist.
But you are right that most atheists are agnostics. We are atheists AND agnostics. We don’t believe in any gods, but, being reasonable people, we acknowledge that we have no way of knowing for sure whether we are right. We do know that our own five senses and everything we know about the universe makes the idea of a magical sky fairy seem extraordinarily unlikely at best. We know that there are approximately as many different belief systems as there are people on this earth, that they all believe that only they are right, and that they all have exactly the same amount of actual, solid evidence (that is, none at all) going for them.
Frankly, you can hardly blame us for being skeptical.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:06 am
@Chicken Girl: Thanks for the typo warning
The word atheist, as you say, would etymologically mean to be “without god”. However, the modern meaning is “one who believes that there is no deity” (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=atheist) and therefore you cannot be both agnostic and atheist.
.. and yes, skepticism is healthy. My problem is with militants of any persuasion.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:19 am
@Rick:
If Merriam-Webster said that Christians believed in a purple platypus that created the universe and will personally give everyone their very own magical pony if they hop on one foot three times and say “ooga booga booga!”, should I believe that’s what Christianity is? Even if actual Christians find it laughably wrong or even insulting?
Because most self-described atheists find dictionary definitions like that Merriam-Webster one laughably wrong or even insulting.
You won’t find militancy or support of same from me, or most atheists. Some atheists are assholes. That is because some people are assholes.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:26 am
But M-W *doesn’t* say that. When we use language, we assume it’s read with the commonly understood meaning of a word, despite it’s etymology. And that’s how the post means it.
My football team was decimated by the opposition on the weekend. But they weren’t cut into ten parts. I other team was terrific. But they didn’t cause terror.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I’m going to guess that one-in-ten of them weren’t executed either.
M-W’s definition reflects the opinions of the people who wrote M-W more than anything else. dictionary.com lists a bunch of variations on the theme of “an atheist is someone who disbelieves or denies the existence of god”. One verb comes from the people who use this label for themselves, the other comes from the people who are dominant in this culture and feel the need to characterize people who disagree as hard-headed deniers of something that is perfectly obvious to everyone else.
If we want to know what “the people” think the word means, we might as well consult Wiki. Wiktionary lists the “disbelief” definition first, citing Dawkins, and points out the POV difference. Wikipedia goes into a sickening amount of detail about “weak” and “strong” atheism, practical, theoretical, history of…
But for me, the bottom line is: “agnostic” doesn’t describe my position on the existence of gods. “Atheist” is the right word. What word would you have me use instead? The Latin equivalent? “Godless”? (Which I like to use sometimes anyway because I like being all contrary and in-your-face like that) They all mean the same thing and would all be vulnerable to the same reinterpretation by theists who, by and large, don’t get it because they have their cultural blinders on.
If Christians were a tiny minority in a culture dominated by atheists, I bet Merriam-Webster would have some pretty wacky ideas about your religion. That wouldn’t make you wrong about what “Christian” means, from your perspective.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Rick, I think the problem is that your juxtaposition of religion and atheism is not valid. Religion, being based in faith not evidence, implies a level of closed mindedness. After all, you can’t really argue with faith and probably wouldn’t want to. Atheism on the other hand does literally mean “without (faith in a) god”. As an atheist myself, I am quite happy accept assertions made by religious types if they are able to support them with evidence, ie. I am completely open to being convinced. But if their assertions are based in faith alone then they are welcome to them, but I ain’t interested.
The irony in _your_ post is that if you apply the same blowtorch to the religious person’s belly, in most cases you will find that they are also “agnostic”. First because they too will renounce their faith at the pointy end of the sword. But less dramatically, as you say, find a “reasonable, thinking person, willing to admit when they’re wrong” who happens to be religious and they too will admit that _they don’t know_ but they have a faith… There is no right or wrong when it comes to faith _except_ when it begins to intrude on our rational, scientific understanding of the world.
Cheers,
Pete
P.S. Where are these militant, virulent atheists? I’d like to recruit them into my facebook ninja army. Maybe I can convert them?
October 17th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
This is exactly why I hardly ever talk about any kind of religion or belief system. I think religion(and ideas of such) need to stay personal thoughts. It might make the world a happier place, if religion was a personal choice again.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Point is, it is only in recent history that it *is* a “personal choice”. Up until the last couple of centuries, the religion of the monarch was the religion of the people, and going against this was punishable as heresy or other such religious crimes.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:32 am
I stumbled across this post by accident, but found myself interested enough to read it all along with the comments. I would offer something in response to post, but nearly everything I have to say has already been said quite well by Chicken Girl. She mentioned that atheists find many dictionary offerings for “atheist” to be inaccurate. I’m an atheist, and I do.
One thing I might can add to this is a quotation from a now unknown source (I forgot). “Words are our servants, not our masters.”
It’s fine to begin dealing with the terms of language assuming the common usage, or what is in a handy dictionary. However, when we communicate with each other, we should take the time to ask and understand what one actually means. I’ve found, over and over again, that it’s better to ask someone about their word usage than to force him or her into the confines of dictionary text.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
I found this article because I was looking for the etymology of the word platypus…..I think that says it all for this topic.
All of you, go and do something useful with your time.
Best wishes,
April 18th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Rick, the reason atheist have become more virulent recently is because religion keeps infringing upon their lives: 53% of Americans will just not vote for an atheist presidential candidate; the ban on gay marriage is supported mostly by religion organizations, and that’s how it won even in California; stem-cell research is confronted with all sorts of obstacles from religious groups; to give just a few examples.
More about why atheists are so angry at http://delicious.com/dandvd/angry
April 18th, 2009 at 8:41 am
G’day Dan,
Thanks for your input, and I couldn’t agree more as to the reasons behind the increased virulence. Though at the same time I need to insist that it isn’t only ‘atheists’ who are appalled by these things.
April 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
> the religion of a country’s leader, unless it’s a theocracy, is totally irrelevent
When the US president Invades Iraq in part because he hears the word of God, I’d say religion is at least somewhat relevant.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Just because some president somewhere believes he hears the word of God doesn’t make it any more relevant (as you know). All it means is that some kooky group of people, professing to be followers of Christ, ignore Christ’s teachings in favor of doing whatever they want to do with the excuse that said president told them God said it was OK.