| Jay520 said: 1.You've already agreed that you searched and found some conflicting definitions so I don't think I need to search for anymore. 2. Yes, atheism is broad. It's simply a lack of belief. When you focus on atheists who believe God doesn't exist, then you're focusing on a specific group within athiesm. This group is called explicit atheists. Either way, you must recognize that they are a specific group, not all atheists. You can read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism 3. Yes, they are different. As stated above, there are exclicit atheists to define the latter, while there are implicit atheists to define the former. Here, if you want I'll break it down even further.
Also the two are not two different claims. The latter category falls into a more specific category than the former.
As you can see from doing a few quick searches, there are many conflicting definitions of what atheism is. Some say it's only people who reject a deity. Others say that those people are a specific kind of atheists (explicit atheists), and the general term atheists covers anyone who lacks a belief in a deity. Which definitions is more valid than the other? I'm not sure I can change your mind on that, but at least you recognize that your definition isn't unanimous.
I may not change what you think atheism is, but at least you now know that all people who consider themselves atheists DO NOT believe God doesn't exist. At least now you know that person who says "I'm an atheist" doesn't necessarily believed what you once though s/he believed.
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Well, I'll stick with the scholars on this one. As I said, it just leads to a lot of of unneeded confusion to use agnosticism as a synonym for skepticism and leads to a whole mess of issues....particularly that all people who lack belief are now called atheists......which just seems misleading and confusing. Its something the video actually just laughed off with the whole rocks and dogs comment. The point is, people who have never even thought about God ot just don't care are now considered atehist, which seems wrong to me.
There's a reason why scholars use the definitions they do:
1. As I mentioned, its just misleading to use the defintions you do.
2. Your defintions are not mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive, which is a huge problem when defining catgeories.
3. They don't have an objective to shift the burden of proof, which these defintions are clearly intended to do, as can be seen with your first video. The definition is clearly intended to shift the burden to the religiious believer by making atheism the default position....which as I said is a misleading use of the term because of the fact that atheism is now ascribed to everyone who has never even thought about the issue. As the artcile I gave you said, atheism is the rejection of theism......its actually pretty standard etymology.
I'll just say this in closing.....I never even claimed the final sentence. My point was that people use the term in a misleading and confusing way....one that I would also argue is inaccurate. I never thought all self-proclaimed atheists believe God does not exists. I think they identify as atheists when they are actually more accurately classified as agnostics, as I made clear throughout my posts.
