Question160

What are the connotations of the word 'atheist' among atheists? Does what the word itself implies to atheists themselves stop at a belief that there is no God?

• Besides the obvious, the word atheist, for me, carries the connotation of a person who does not incorporate superstition and magical thinking within their view of reality. (Liz Huth #658)

• To me the term "atheist" says nothing more than a persons disbelieve in deities and I think it's important here to be inclusive in stead of exclusive, because it's a very roomy term, and we already have a problem with religious people reading too much into the word. Besides the last thing we need is to get a "more atheist than thou" on our hands. We should have room for many different kinds of people. (Nikitta #1759)

• To me, the word 'atheist', means one who lacks belief in god(s).

  I am also a skeptic, in the modern commonly used sense, that is I reject that for which no evidence can be shown, which includes all paranormal and supernatural phenomena. (John Hachmann #1782)

• Strictly speaking it only means a lack of belief in god. But, in the US culture at least, atheism to me means a willingness to go against what "everyone" knows, and a bit of bravery in being willing to admit to something considered as a disease by the majority. (Scott Davidson #1045)

• Given how many atheists I've seen who have ideas strongly different from mine, even seemingly incompatible with atheism (e.g. the recent bickering over mind/matter duality) I have learned to limit the term "atheist" to refer only to lack of profession of belief or profession of lack of belief. I would consider most agnostics to be atheists, by the lack of profession of belief part. (Chaos Theory #1354)

• As far as I am concerned, an atheist is one who does not believe in god(s). That's it. It tells me nothing about what a person thinks, how that person thinks or what kind of individual he or she is. To fill in those blanks, I need more information than how that person answers the god/no god question. (George Ricker #146

• atheist: someone without theism, specifically someone without belief in one or more deities.

  Subsets of atheists -

  1. Implicit atheist - someone who has not yet been contaminated by the snares of religion

  2. Weak atheist - someone who "just don't believe"

  3. Strong atheist - someone who on grounds of reson solidly rejects the existance of deities

  Agnostic: Someone who either has a misconception on what it is to be an atheist - or rightfully uses the word to describe their knowledge about gods, not their faith or lack there of in them.

  But what am I?

  I don't know if there are any gods, but I don't think so, and frankly all the gods that have been suggested to me so far are so ridiculus[1] that I can only laugh at the superstition they represent.

  So I guess I am no longer a weak agnostic atheist of the huxley kind with bad atitude, but a strong gnostic bad assed atheist with a bone to pick and an axe to grind with established organized religion.

  Or something like that. I'm just tired of stupid fundies. (Ichimusai #769)

• Atheism is not a belief system. If you tie it in with many other things... skepticism, freethought, cynicism, utilitarianism, punkism, tolerance, etc. then you start to have an outline of some sort of individualized thought system. If someone has a general name for all of these constituents then by all means fill me in.

  The point being atheism only needs to stop at "there is no god" for it to fulfill it's purpose. Far from being a religion that outlines a set lifestyle, laws, morals, history, submition to authority, hatred of the unknown, etc, atheism is just a statement, "there is no god." (Hendrix Fan #1692)

• With regard to the first question, I am amazed by the variations that appear in passing in this group, and my observation would be that the primary implication seems to be along the lines of rejection of the myths that have founded the jewish, christian, and muslim cults. My personal view is that as the word is a derogatory label that replaced the word heretic at the time of the reformation and is as uncomplimentary as the word dago, or wop, or whatever, I do not address myself as an atheist for that very reason to anyone at all until it becomes necessary in rejecting their demonizing of people who do not belong to their particular cult. So far, outside of newsgroups, that hasn't happened.

  As to an answer to the second question... I feel that even discussing the word 'god' especially when the G is capitalized, is as absurd as discussing whether or not Mickey Mouse was a real character or not. The fictional creation is known by millions, and from that perspective exists, but all of Mickey is as synthetic as the the 'G' god is to the franchises of the commerce of religion. (Kerry #1773)

• Depends on context, strange as this may sound. There was a time when I had not yet met certain people. Here is what "atheist" meant to me at the time: its denotation is relatively clear, someone who is not a god-beleiver. Its connotation--I agreed with what a bunch of people have already said: a freethinker, someone who uses logic and considers evidence to reach conclusions rather than just blindly believing some kind of dogma. Most liley someone who is interested in an reasonably knowledgable about science in general and biology, geology, astronomy, and physics in particular. Probably someone you could have a stimulating discussion with on a multitude of topics. Etc.

  This was what I felt before I had met certain people.

  Then, I went to Egypt as an exchange student for three months. There, I met a number of other people from various European countries, including several from former socialist countries. I got to know two of those people quite well. One was Slavo, an atheist Czech (sp?). The other was Andrzej from Poland, who was a theist but did not subscribe to any organized religion (and in fact explicitly rejected Catholicism, which would have been the defaul religion for him).

  Slavo was a very dogmatic fellow, who believed every word Marx and Engels had ever written, and bought every piece of propaganda that his socialist party had fed him. He was totally inflexible and impossible to argue with.

  Andrzej was a delightful fellow, who had an interest in diverse topics, and was great to talk with.

  This made me realize that the correlation I expect between being an atheist and being an intelligent, logical, and interesting person holds only in environments where theism is the social norm, the default position for non-thinkers. Where atheism is the official and/or socially accepted position, many fools may be atheists.

  Once you notice this, it is so very obvious that you feel dumb for not realizing it before.

  Having said this, now that I live here in the States where theism is the default position, I have more or less restored my initial expectations. In fact, there is a little game I play with myself: when I meet someone new and get to know them reasonably well, I sometimes make a bet with myself that they are likely to be atheists. This happens when I feel some great ihntellectual presence and flexibility, a particular way of looking at and discussing things, and so on. So far, I have usually guessed correctly--though sometimes the people involved describe themselves as agnostics instead of atheists. This feels good too: I don't have to worry about choosing atheists to be my best friends, it happens the opposite way. Many people I feel comfortable with and admire intellectually turn out to be atheists. Happened with my wife too. By the time I found out she was an atheist, we were already married. Somehow it was never necessary to ask. It just had to be, given what kind of person she was! (Orhan Organ)