I Am An Atheist

@softspokenman Really? I would strongly recommend that you get out more.

@room101 You assume a lot.

@softspokenman I assume nothing at all.

You say that you have never heard of an atheist that was a hypocrite. Whilst labeling a given individual a hypocrite may be rather harsh, I would argue that the original post and pretty much all of the responses by atheists in this discussion are hypocritical in the extreme.

@room101 Hypocrite: Phony, deceiver, liar, Etc. A person who says/preaches one thing and does the opposite. like raping young boys for their own sexual gratification, or raping women that go to them for counselling. And the church/religion covers it up, hides it, so others don't see or hear of the hypocrisy. Where are the atheist who do that in the name of atheism ? I never heard; When you die your soul will go to hell and be punished/burn for eternity if you don't agree with atheism. ???

Many atheists are hypocrites. Many atheists are stupid. Just like many religious people are hypocrites, and many religious people are stupid. That's because these are qualities of human beings, not of the people we disagree with.

@room101 Question: How was my original post hypocritical? I'm genuinely curious about your opinion, because I don't see hypocrisy in my post, and I like being challenged.

@room101 What is your definition of a Hypocrite and Extreme Hypocrisy ?

@softspokenman Why restrict yourself to my definition. The Oxford Dictionary defines hypocrisy as:

[i]"The practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case."[/i]

As RoboChloe has stated, this is not confined to neither atheists or theists.

@RoboChloe: Your original post takes the stance that atheists are fully aware, fully rational, fully cognisant of themselves and the world around them. It further asserts that theists are not any of these things.

To me, that stinks of hypocrisy. And is grossly inaccurate.

@room101 It certainly doesn't. I simply quote an atheist (One who I actually don't agree with much, though this quote is quite good), and vaguely mock the idea that atheism is a religion (and the people that think that). I made no statement about atheists, only about those who believe that atheism is a religion, and the statement that one group of people have a misconception is not inherently imply that another is always right.

@room101 I understand the definition, I gave an example of it. You haven't given ANY examples of an atheist being a Hypocrite.

@RoboChloe Perhaps I misconstrued your quote and your intent. I fully agree that the notion that atheism is a religion is nonsense. However, that does not preclude atheism from being a belief.

@room101 Atheism isn't a belief. By definition, it is a lack of belief. The beliefs of atheists are more nuanced, as I said in my other response, saying atheism is a belief system is like saying theism is a belief system, it just doesn't work that way. Atheists do have belief systems. Atheism itself isn't one.

@softspokenman actually I did. I said that all of the posts in this discussion are hypocritical.

@RoboChloe That is an accurate statement.

@room101 I think there is a fundamental disagreement about the definition of hypocrisy here. You gave the definition:
[quote]"The practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case."[/quote]
Whereas the definition I am more familiar with is:
[quote]"A feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel."[/quote] (My definition taken from the Merriam-Webster English dictionary)

Not entirely dissimilar, but certainly different enough to cause issue.

@RoboChloe I repeat what I said below.

[i]Atheist (from the ancient Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s))[/i]

Clearly, the original Greek meaning of the word has been expanded and embellished. But how do any of these expansions and embellishments detract from the simple fact that an atheist [b]believes[/b] that there are no gods? That they are without gods?

@room101 The original meaning is absolutely irrelevant to it's current use. People use a word to convey what it means right now, so it should be taken to mean that. Building an argument on the semantics of etymology is a futile waste of time.

An atheist may very well believe there is/are no God(s). I don't believe that, because I refuse to hold a belief either way. My response the the question of "Is there a God" is "I don't know". I'm an atheist because the default null state is no religious belief. I have no evidence to believe, which is my evidence to not believe. This of course may not be true of all atheists, because once again atheism is in no way a cohesive group of people who agree about things, especially about religion.

@RoboChloe If the current meaning of the word "atheism" is full of ambiguity and controversy (which it is) then how can we possibly discuss it if not by going back to its original meaning. Otherwise we're going to be tying ourselves up in knots trying to figure out just what the hell we're talking about!

I never said that atheists are a cohesive group of people who agree about things.

@room101 "Expanded and Embellished" ???

@room101 Atheism is very clear. It is the lack of belief in God. Not more, not less. Some atheists have other beliefs and practices, but those are separate from the basic meaning of atheism.

👍 @RoboChloe: Simple. 8)

@RoboChloe I'm sorry but the word atheism (in its current form) is far from clear. We have implicit and explicit atheism. We have positive and negative atheism. We have pragmatic atheism (the argument put forward by NewJanine.......I believe. Not too sure). We even have impermanent atheism.

@room101 Those are types of atheism, yes. That doesn't change the meaning of the word "atheism". Just like the existence of Christianity or Islam doesn't change the meaning of the word "theism".

@RoboChloe I'm confused. What are we arguing about here? The use of the original Greek meaning of the word or some other definition of the word?

If I'm talking about Christianity or Islam, then I talk about those belief systems. Not some ambiguous theistic system that may have absolutely no relevance to either.

@room101 The definition of atheism is, as I stated, the lack of belief in God. These other types of atheism you specified are all parts of the atheist community, but their mere existence doesn't have an effect on the overall definition of atheism, just like the existence of types of theism (religions) don't change the definition of theism. Atheism is clear. The types of atheism are not as clear, but that has no effect on the clarity of the definition of atheism itself.