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> "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever@sprynet.com> <extropians@extropy.org> Fw: Debunk All Religiosity Equally (D.A.R.E.)Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 10:20:24 -0700
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>> J.R. Molloy wrote:
>> Thanks for the accolade, but actually, I don't refer to myself as an
>atheist,
>> but rather as a non-theist, because it seems to me that belief is the
>problem,
>> not what is believed, and an atheist is one who believes that god
>(whatever
>> that means) does not exist. So, it's still a belief.
>
>It seems to me no more a belief than the word "asymptomatic," which means
>"without symptoms." Borrowing Thomas Edison's quote, if I say "I don't
>believe in Mother Goose" (and therefore call myself an amothergoosist) -
>it's an informal use of the phrase "I don't believe..." used colloquially,
>not meant to imply a "belief system." I call myself an atheist sometimes
>and a nontheist sometimes - for the life of me I can't detect much
>difference (only in other people's reactions, when I've been asked to repeat
>the word "nontheist" a few times as they'd never heard the word before). I
>must say I've been tending to use the term nontheist more and more lately,
>only because some people think atheism means "against..." (not
>"without..."). But in any case, I don't see how it's a belief.
>
Yes, atheism is an absence of a belief in the existence of a god, not a presence of a belief in the nonexistence of a god.
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