Quote:
Originally Posted by MidnightViper88
Semantics
Atheism does not always equal anti-theism; That's what I'm trying to get at, since people throw around the term "Atheism" loosely as a generic description of such by generally being anti-theistic without even being specific with their outlook on the existence of a deity, understood that if they're anti-theistic, they also disbelieve in a god, or their opinion of the existence of a god is a non-issue in the first place, being generally anti-theistic first and last.
|
Granted, we are in complete agreement. They are distinct terms, and you can certainly be either one without being the other. I think this might tie into the belief some people seem to have, that there are no real atheists, just people who hate God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MidnightViper88
The core of an Atheist is to deny the existence of a god.
|
Disbelief is enough, denying it is not a necessity. Most atheists are also agnostics, on some level. The terms strong and weak atheist are also thrown around at times, strong atheism being people who claim they know for certain that there's no God. Most reasonable atheists just think there's no evidence to support the claim, and live their life assuming there's no God.
But yeah, this is all semantics. I think it's important to figure out what kind of definitions we're working with, though, otherwise it'll be hard to have a meaningful discussion.
Edit: Also, none of what I'm saying is in defense or relation to anything Makkusu may or may not believe. If he indeed just dislikes Christianity, that would not make him an atheist, but I'm not going to put any words in his mouth.