There are some semantics at play, reflected in your link. Many atheists take the label to mean simply: absence of belief. That is: atheists require evidence before making a claim. As such, those that “believe” in nonexistence wind up falling into another category: anti-theists. There’s hubris involved in making the leap to belief, so I wager many just want to illuminate the distinction.
Many atheists take the label to mean simply: absence of belief. That is: atheists require evidence before making a claim.
Well, yeah: that’s weak atheism (including “explicit weak atheism”, going by that Venn diagram’s categories). I don’t see any contradiction between that and what I wrote; weak atheism certainly still counts as atheism.
Are people getting offended because they think me calling their atheism something other than “strong” is some sort of judgement against them and not simply a categorization?
As such, those that “believe” in nonexistence wind up falling into another category: anti-theists.
Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed.
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Antitheism has been adopted as a label by those who regard theism as dangerous, destructive, or encouraging of harmful behavior.
In other words, antitheism isn’t so much about the question of god(s) existence directly as it is about considering the behavior of those who answer in the affirmative to be harmful and dangerous. It’s more of an ideological or even political position than a purely philosophical one.
I certainly goofed on my lazy definition of ‘antitheism’. Certainly more logical it’d be predicated upon ‘disbelief’ (webster, 1913). I think I picked up my lazy “belief in absence” from elsewhere on the net where people were defending atheism and, mostly, railing on antitheism. I should be more careful.
I was thinking the response more folks that just didn’t check your link and were operating on their own definition. I do think it a useful link. I’ve only heard these concepts using ‘(a)gnostic’ qualifiers. I should update my vocabulary. My concept of atheism has long been a simple binary: believer | disbeliever.
There are some semantics at play, reflected in your link. Many atheists take the label to mean simply: absence of belief. That is: atheists require evidence before making a claim. As such, those that “believe” in nonexistence wind up falling into another category: anti-theists. There’s hubris involved in making the leap to belief, so I wager many just want to illuminate the distinction.
Thanks for replying!
Well, yeah: that’s weak atheism (including “explicit weak atheism”, going by that Venn diagram’s categories). I don’t see any contradiction between that and what I wrote; weak atheism certainly still counts as atheism.
Are people getting offended because they think me calling their atheism something other than “strong” is some sort of judgement against them and not simply a categorization?
That’s not quite what antitheism is. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism :
In other words, antitheism isn’t so much about the question of god(s) existence directly as it is about considering the behavior of those who answer in the affirmative to be harmful and dangerous. It’s more of an ideological or even political position than a purely philosophical one.
I certainly goofed on my lazy definition of ‘antitheism’. Certainly more logical it’d be predicated upon ‘disbelief’ (webster, 1913). I think I picked up my lazy “belief in absence” from elsewhere on the net where people were defending atheism and, mostly, railing on antitheism. I should be more careful.
I was thinking the response more folks that just didn’t check your link and were operating on their own definition. I do think it a useful link. I’ve only heard these concepts using ‘(a)gnostic’ qualifiers. I should update my vocabulary. My concept of atheism has long been a simple binary: believer | disbeliever.