"Peter H. Granzeau" <pgranzeau at cox.net> writes: > 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". We don't need that combination *for me*. Anybody who doesn't *care* if a being with the characteristics asserted for the Great Sky Father exists is -- well, a long way from me, anyway. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/ John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info