2008 Woodie Awards
Ask an atheist!
What is an atheist? What is an agnostic? What is the difference?
Ken Ueda, Columnist, kueda@smu.edu
Issue date: 8/28/08 Section: Opinion
There has been much confusion on what an atheist is: many straw men that have taken part in sophist arguments, and an overall bad public relations job. In fact, atheists are the most distrusted minority in all of America. A study done by the University of Minnesota revealed that out of Muslims, homosexuals, Jews, and other minority groups, atheists were deemed to not agree at all with the applicant's vision of an American society by 39.6 percent of all applicants. The same study showed that atheists scored 47.6 percent when asked if they would disapprove if their child wanted to marry a member of this group, which the choices included homosexuals and blacks. Persecution is not exactly alien to the atheist experience in America: people have often lost their jobs or have become publicly ostracized after revealing that they are atheists. It's practically unimaginable for a politician to be an atheist here.
Atheism sets its roots from the pre-Socratics. The etymology of atheist can be traced to Ancient Greek from the word atheos meaning without (a-) god (theos). Around late antiquity when monotheistic religions began to flourish, the word sort of acquired the connotation of "denying the gods" or "ungodly". This is probably the source of the negative connotation that is associated with atheist. Considering the fact that religion and the state were entwined, if one is going to be hostile to the beliefs of the state, the connotation of "traitor" "lawlessness" "radical" would presumably be part of official discourse. In fact, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, it was considered an insult, much like the word communism was during the McCarthy era.
What is the modern definition of atheism? Well for some reason there has been a great deal of misconception that atheism means the opposite of theist. Mainly, as theists are certain God exists, atheists are certain that God does not exist and so the implication is that atheism is just another religion. This is a straw man and greatly misrepresents what atheism means. Atheist simply means one who does not believe that God exists. This of course says nothing about the certainty or knowledge that God exists. Some atheists would say that they know God does not exist but the greater whole of atheists would probably be hesitant to say this, simply because the word knowledge is a bit ambiguous when it comes to theists. Most atheists would not go so far as to say, with the same level of certainty that religious people claim, that God does not exist and it is somewhat scientifically indefensible to say with that level of certainty, since there may be a God in the far corners of the universe, just like there may be a unicorn or leprechaun or flying spaghetti monster. Yet we tend to use the word "know" a little more loosely, in the sense that since we do not have any evidence or justification for a claim, we reject it. We do not have any evidence for the existence of unicorns or Zeus but we all tend to be a-unicornists or a-Zeusists.
Atheism sets its roots from the pre-Socratics. The etymology of atheist can be traced to Ancient Greek from the word atheos meaning without (a-) god (theos). Around late antiquity when monotheistic religions began to flourish, the word sort of acquired the connotation of "denying the gods" or "ungodly". This is probably the source of the negative connotation that is associated with atheist. Considering the fact that religion and the state were entwined, if one is going to be hostile to the beliefs of the state, the connotation of "traitor" "lawlessness" "radical" would presumably be part of official discourse. In fact, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, it was considered an insult, much like the word communism was during the McCarthy era.
What is the modern definition of atheism? Well for some reason there has been a great deal of misconception that atheism means the opposite of theist. Mainly, as theists are certain God exists, atheists are certain that God does not exist and so the implication is that atheism is just another religion. This is a straw man and greatly misrepresents what atheism means. Atheist simply means one who does not believe that God exists. This of course says nothing about the certainty or knowledge that God exists. Some atheists would say that they know God does not exist but the greater whole of atheists would probably be hesitant to say this, simply because the word knowledge is a bit ambiguous when it comes to theists. Most atheists would not go so far as to say, with the same level of certainty that religious people claim, that God does not exist and it is somewhat scientifically indefensible to say with that level of certainty, since there may be a God in the far corners of the universe, just like there may be a unicorn or leprechaun or flying spaghetti monster. Yet we tend to use the word "know" a little more loosely, in the sense that since we do not have any evidence or justification for a claim, we reject it. We do not have any evidence for the existence of unicorns or Zeus but we all tend to be a-unicornists or a-Zeusists.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Ian Bushfield
posted 8/28/08 @ 9:10 AM CST
Awesome article. It's great to see an articulate defence of one's own position.
A-leprechaunist
posted 8/28/08 @ 10:42 AM CST
In my experience, the reason for the distrust of atheists is that religious believers can't fathom where one would get their morals if not from a supernatural authoritarian parent figure! Atheists are therefore assumed to be less ethical (and less trustworthy) than their religious counterparts. (Continued…)
Reginald Selkirk
posted 8/28/08 @ 3:42 PM CST
"but we all tend to be a-unicornists"
Blasphemer! Mr. Ueda defies the Great Unicorn.
Rhys
posted 8/29/08 @ 6:58 AM CST
Very well done. Now if only more people could understand this. I'm an atheistic, antitheistic agnostic. I think god is fairly unlikely perhaps less than 5% likely and if your talking about a particular god such as the abrahamic god it drops to the tiniest, tiniest, fraction of a fraction of a percent. (Continued…)
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