Atheist: from a- and theist (from the Greek “theos”, God.) The E comes before the I for God’s sake! I’m so damn sick of people - in the endless threads about Christianity and atheism and invisible pink unicorns - arguing about “athiests”! It is not a superlative form. There is no “athy, athier, athiest”. No, gobear is not the athiest poster here; he’s not athier than Polycarp. It’s got the same “-ist” ending as Buddhist, Daoist, Animist, and Unitarian Universalist. It’s not that fucking hard to spell!
This irrational foaming-at-the-mouth grammar rant brought to you by a very large cup of coffee and nothing to do at work.
After typing that, now they both look wrong to me.
I wrote that under that defintion, you can include babies as atheist. I believe it too. They are born without a belief in god. To see how not to defend your position, learn from my mistakes.
And now, I can’t seem to find the link to the thread. A :wally is me.
This makes me think of a theoretical question. If a person was brought up in isolation from the concept of a deity (I.E. No one ever mentioned God, Religion, to that person) and when that person asks existential questions, the only answer given was “I don’t know” then would that person Likely be an Atheist in adulthood?
It is an underlying unconscious question (I imagine) behind a few of my long-past atheism threads, which try to argue that on a very broad and generalised level - religion still exist because childrend’s minds are highly suggestable, and adults minds are not… And that children led to believe in deitys will likely be deists as adults if never exposed to opposing views (atheism) A bit like “If the wind changes your face will stick like that” (paraphrased)
On a seperate note. I saw the logic in Polycarp’s OP. I know him too well to think that he would actuallly argue that I am not an Atheist.
It’s not that difficult!