I study about religions at a swedish university. I am an atheist myself and the way I speak has been formed by the show Atheist Experience. I have a teachers license, and can teach about religions.
Through all schools I gone through I have never seen the word atheist being used as the way the show sometimes do. Which is the distinction that atheism mostly is the skeptical position.
weak atheism according to iron chariot wiki http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheism
I only meet the definition in sweden, even in dictionaries that atheism is not the skeptical position, its rather the stance that there is no god.
Many people in sweden say that they are agnostic, what they mean is the same thing as weak atheism, as the iron chariot wiki describe it. The show also often speak of agnostic-gnostic as being a secondary quality over being atheist-theist. Just like most google images show when only searching the word agnostic. No professor about religions at this university has heard of this use of the word.
I am in search for material that validates the cause of arguing those definitions here, that atheism is "actually" "mostly" the skeptical position, rather than being the position of no gods can be.
And search for material that agnostic “actually” is used in the way the show/google images use it.
I might face resistance that the current use here is the correct and what I have been thought online is irrelevant, or even if it was the original way it would be pointless since the words are set in stone already. I am considering to study if they are set in stone already, if the population understand the words differently.
**I hope that you guys can provide more than your experience or anecdotes**, rather show something, **papers, sources** for the academics in Sweden to consider that this weak atheism definition is not just a modern invention to legitimate itself. And something to show that “agnostic” is really correctly used in a different way than being the sceptical position in between the position that there is gods and the position that there are no gods.
Are there papers that shows that "atheist" definition has changed over time, if its original roots was “weak atheism” or “the sceptic position” and that it has changed from there?
Linking new online dictionaries wont help here, only if we gather them all and compare them to old dictionaries.
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IMO, it makes little difference. Words typically just do not have hard and fast definitions. And as you know, they change over time.
Perhaps the best thing to do is ask, e.g., “When you say you identify as atheist, what does that mean for you?” Just as it makes sense to ask a theist in which god they believe, it makes sense to ask an atheist what the word means to them.
Seems to me this would take a lot less energy that a vain attempt to cattle-shoot everyone into narrow definitions.
I see it as simply negative of theist. Theist and then atheist. A bit like, sexual asexual. And other words where the letter a is added in front of it to indicate negative of.
But yes, like most words, especially controversial ones, the meaning and definitions can and do change and can mean different things to different people.
I think most atheist folk here need to (repeatedly) point out to religious apologist that frequent here that: atheist is not a religion, there is no belief or faith, it is simply the negative of. A simple: do not believe in god(s). Of any type.
YES:
Everyone is Agnostic - The religious as well as the atheists. "There is no knowledge concerning the existence of God or Gods. A = Without Gnosis = Knowledge A Christian has no more knowledge about their god than does the man claiming to be God in the psych ward. Admittedly and anti-theist has about 10,000 years of failed gods and failed apologetics on which to base his or her opinion that God or gods do not exist. Still, the assertion can not be made with 100% acceptance without being fallacious.
I really hate the term "Weak Atheism." There is Atheism which is never weak - "I do not believe in God or gods." Then there is Antitheism - often referred to as strong Atheism - "God does not exist and religions are BS."
People that call themselves "Agnostic" are attempting to evade the question, "Do you believe in a God." Agnosticism is about Knowledge. Atheism is about Belief.
"Do you believe in a god?"
"I'm agnostic."
"I did not ask you if you had any knowledge concerning god or gods. I asked if you believed in one? What do you believe? Do you believe there is some kind of knowledge? If so, you are not agnostic. Agnostics believe there is NO KNOWLEDGE. That is what Agnosticism is. You can not think there is some sort of evidence (knowledge) for the existence of a god and call yourself agnostic. So... Do you believe in the possibility of Gods or not! It is a yes or no question.
Matt Dillahaunty of the Atheist Experience has written many articles on Atheism. You may want to watch "The Atheist Experience" from their site or on YouTube. Atheism is the NEUTRAL position.
Imagine a jar of jelly beans. You see the jar and tell me that the number of beans in the jar is even. I look at the jar and disagree with you. After all, if you have not counted them, how would you know? I did not assert that the number was odd. I only stated that I did not believe you. This is the Atheist position with regards to God claims. We do not believe you.... but it gets worse.
Every time a Christian opens their mouth with another God claim or another argument for the existence of their god they base their arguments and assertions on fallacies of logic. Nothing they say stands against critical inquiry. This serves to mount evidence against the Christian claims. So we now have 10,000 years of failed gods and thousands of years of failed claims. It only serves to strengthen the atheist position that you are not providing evidence sufficient to the claim and the anti-theist position that a god probably does not exist.
There's also selective atheism. The early Christians were called atheists in the Roman Empire because they didn't believe in the Roman gods or deified emperors. Christians today are atheists in relation to the Hindu gods. Even among Christians, there are many conflicting ideas of what god is, so every Christian is also an atheist about somebody's Jehovah/Jesus.
The atheists on this website have gone just one step further than Christians by rejecting all gods.
Christians are also agnostic in the sense that they have no real understanding of the thing that they call god. It's just some vague grandfather figure in the clouds. From the small child saying it prayers to the famous theologian, they know nothing.
There is no such animal as a "correct" definition! A definition is merely a declaration by an individual or group as to what they mean by a certain word. It is not a statement that can be falsified; true or false does not apply. There is such a thing as a bad definition, which may be bad because it is needlessly confusing or suffers some other practical defect. If a "definition" involved a contradiction it would not be a definition at all.
A good dictionary is useful for listing the more popular definitions. My own definition is that an atheist rejects the idea of a supernatural being(s) in charge of the universe. This is not the same thing as claiming that such beings do not exist, which would carry a burden of proof. Rejection may be on account of a lack of evidence or involve no argument at all. By analogy, I reject the Easter Bunny hypothesis. If that rejection is not in the form of a claim (that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist) then there is no logical requirement for me to present evidence.
An atheist may do a little of both. I claim that the god of the Bible is absurd, which I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in the best scientific tradition. But in general, especially given that hardly anyone attempts to rigorously define their gods, I am content to cite a lack of evidence. If somebody wants me to buy into their god belief, then they have to make the sell, to come up with the goods.
For a lot of people in the U.S., an atheist is simply someone who lacks a theistic belief. Thus, babies are counted as atheists. Again, for me an atheist is someone who has made a decision to reject theism. Thus, I would not count babies as atheists. It's a matter of correct translating, not a matter of correct definition.
Gladeflower,
The French Catholics created the word "athéiste" as a curse word for the French Protestants in the 1570s during one of their religious wars. They modified it from the Greek. The French Protestants were fighting for their religious freedom, sort of like the Israelites were doing when Moses came down from the mountain, broke the stone tablets, and killed 3,000 of them. In religious issues it doesn't matter if you worship a god, you have to worship the right god or the other guy will kill you. That's what King Asa and Jehu did.
So even if a person does believe in a deity the other nut case will consider him to be a godless heathen worthy of death. If he's nice he might call him an atheist before jabbing him with a knife. The Catholics and the Protestants worshiped the same God but that wasn't good enough.
Call it what you want! I openly say "There is no god!". Even atheists say I can not prove that. I do not give a shit. I say it anyway!
I agree with Chimp3 here, That's why I tend to consider myself a naturalist in that every phenomena has or can be explained with a naturalistic rational.
To call myself atheist acknowledges that theism even has a horse in the race, but perhaps it offers even a single shred of objective evidence then I shall change my opinion and give it some credence.
Looking at the etymology may be somewhat helpful.
"I study about religions at a swedish university. I am an atheist myself and the way I speak has been formed by the show Atheist Experience."
If you're using the information from the Atheist Experience, you're getting a very unconventional and distorted view of the world. It's like learning about Islam from Reza Aslan.