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setsunatenshi on 29 August 2011
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Reasonable said:
setsunatenshi said:
Runa216 said:
richardhutnik said:

Atheists can have morals.  ATHEISM, however, is a lack of a belief , and contains nothing except a negation.


This is the kind of statement that's so faulty I honestly don't know where to start explaining it.  


actually I have no idea what problem you see with this statement. i honestly don't know where you could see something wrong with it

Because Atheism isn't a negation, and the implication it is is insulting.  Although to be fair part of the problem is the standard definition of Atheism and the fact, like Agnostic, it is a word the developed to define something besides being religious - i.e. if you're not religious your an Atheist.

The problem is your modern Athesist sees the situation reversed.  We are educated, informed and believe in what has been proven to be the case - i.e there is no negation because we don't even consider ourselves compared to religious people.  We believe in evidence and science.  There is no "disbelief" involved.  Religion to a modern atheist is simply something that either has been disproven enough in terms of flaws in religous tracts, etc. or is so general and "unprovable" that it is simply ignored unless some evidence is provided.

The problem IMHO is that the technical definition of an Atheist now lags well behind what an Atheist actually is.


Well... I don't find anything insulting with the fact Atheism is a negation of a positive claim (there is/are god/s). If the positive claim for the existence of those gods  didn't exist, atheism wouldn't exist as well, it would be a meaningless word. You see the point, right?

Also 1 thing... being atheist doesn't mean you're not religious... case in point: Buddhism. There is no god claim in that religion, thus making each and every buddhist an actual atheist. Doesn't make them rational or secular humanists or anything else for that matter... but they are still religious atheists.

What you proceed to define after would be considered a 'rationalist', and that's fine. I consider myself exactly that :). Being an atheist doesn't define me, it's merely a position that i'm forced to take due to a lot of people posing the ridiculous idea that there's some god or gods out there ;)