>From: rone at ennui.org (definitely what) >To: SKZB List <dragaera at dragaera.info> >Subject: Re: Damiano's Lute >Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:37:09 -0800 (PST) > >Erik Dahl writes: > I find this recent trend towards defining atheism as a religion of > non-belief very disconcerting. Instead of maintaining that atheism > is "belief in no god," or "belief there is no god," can't we say > instead that it is "no belief in god?" For me, at any rate, it is > more about not believing in something than believing in something > opposed to something else. > I'm aiming for accuracy of the term; I don't wish to offend anyone. > >That's traditionally called agnosticism. > >rone Let's have some fun with this shall we? I just love looking things up that aren't that important --I'm just sick this way--, sometimes it answers loads of questions and other times it opens up others, but generally everyone is at least then on the same page. So: AGNOSTIC: 1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. 2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism. 3. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something. WORD HISTORY: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things” hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals“ists,” as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870. ATHEISM: 1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being. Atheism is a ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness. --R. Hall. Atheism and pantheism are often wrongly confounded. --Shipley. 2. Godlessness __________________________________________________________- (Hummm, wonder if this means that my prof. and that writer of that horrible book were full of it or if this just fails to give a complete definition. Oh, I should point out there was a second book in that course that wasn't nearly as horrible, but it wasn't as complete.) _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail