Reasonable said:
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. |
All atheism is, is a lack of a belief in a God or gods. That is all it is. That is the definiton, and tells nothing about. It is a LACK of belief in something, and thus consists of describing an attribute that is missing. Just like humanity doesn't believe that in something call Fuoai, which I haven't defined, has ZERO impact on anything human beings do or believe, so it is with atheism. There is nothing there to be proud of missing, or magically makes one more educated or informed, believe in evidence or science. Now, one's belief in science and evidence, and rationalism (for the lack of a better word) can cause one to NOT have a belief in a God or gods, the lack of belief itself isn't anything.
What I see in what you wrote, is an attitude I read about in the book "Skipping towards Gommorah", where the write, who was homosexual, wrote that the homosexual community tended to have an attitude that just because someone was homosexual, it somehow made others their "brothers" or had elements that by being homosexual, you ended up with attributes because of sexual orientation, that rationally shouldn't exist. There is no such thing as "modern atheism". Being an atheist doesn't make you anything at all. That is the point here. Now, do you want to say your faith in science, or something else, like western rational thought makes something? That is fine. But don't presume that just because you lack a belief in something it means anything. It isn't. Your lack of belief, just like the belief others have in something, is a byproduct of something, and in and of itself isn't worth anything. I would say that the positive belief in something actually does have an impact because it gives something someone to move towards. A lack of a belief doesn't provide anything.
