At 15:24 11/26/2002 -0800, Erik Dahl wrote: >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. Someone once said that Madalyn Murray O'Hare, the noted atheist activist, in fact believed in God, she just had an argument with Him. I went hunting once for a word to describe lack of belief in any Deity (including active non-belief in a Deith) and failed miserably. I always wondered if "infidel" fit? It's got a lot of baggage, unfortunately. We need something that not only says "there is no God", but says, "and I don't care if there is one or not". -- Regards, Pete pgranzeau at cox.net