Silent movie actress Florence La Badie, when questioned on this subject, called herself an “indifferentist”–she just didn’t care.
you might want to read it a little more carefully:
No, I think I got it. It’s Deism, after a fashion, and I’m not a Deist. I’m not interested in avoiding atheism on a theoretical level- that’s what I actually am.
IANAA, but …
Hey, if thats what you want more power to ya.
What I am trying to point out is that the context provided a hefty price for someone claiming to be an athiest in Epicurus’ day. Today in our nice country, you dont have to worry about being killed for saying you are an athiest.
It seems to me that a totally irrelevant god is, for all intents and purposes, non existant.
The thing I like, and perhaps the point of this thread, is that he teaches there is a lot more to life without god than simply life without god.
It still strikes me as a weasel-y way of stating your convictions, as if you don’t want people to know what they actually are. It’s dishonest on two levels: you’d be employing the term because you know people don’t know what it means, and because you’re implying belief in an irrelevant god when you don’t think one actually exists. This sounds like way more trouble than it’s worth.
hey, 2300 years ago it was an important part, but Im not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The gods were there in context to appease the powers of the times, and their treatement was evidence. IANAE but I bet you CAN be a full fledged card carrying athiest AND identify with the majority of Epicurus and his ilk.
Besides, how do you know some super intelligent, powerful being isnt living on some planet 50,000 light years away minding their own business? The point is, its irrelevant either way.
I’ve been using the term “shrugnostic,” meaning that the whole God-issue is irrelevant to my life.
I recently came across the term ignostic (not agnositc). Although not an entry in the dictionary, it has a wiki page:
Godfreyist.
Har har. But if anyone is pushed to enquire I just say Jesus and I have a mutual non-interference pact. Then while they work through the syllables I run to the buffet table. (I have no problem with ‘atheist’ and use the term for myself.)
And upon seeing this term, I think I like it more.
I recently thought of possibly a new word: MEPTIC
a combination materialist and skeptic
Aha. So it’s your fault. Sick of “school”, so you say “attendance center”. Sick of “hospital” so you say “Health care facility”. Sick of “jail”, so you say “correctional institution”. Sick of “gay” so you say “LGBT”.
“Non-religious” or “Non-believer” probably sound the least egregious, so as to not single out the Christian god, but any god.
I once had a co-worker, with long white hair & beard and in his 70s, tell me he told visiting JWs that he was a druid. He invited them in and told them all about druidism, which on the surface sounds more quaintly fun than sacrilegious.
Dan Simmons had one of his characters say “Waiting to believe” when asked if he believed in God. I’ve used that a few times.
“Nihilist” maybe, to express a deeper cynicism than atheism, but that would just lead to more questions, so it’s not worth it.
Whatever it is, make sure it’s easier to spell.
I’d just like to point out that atheist just means not believing in gods. Antitheist would be being against belief in gods, and misotheist means hating gods. And deicide means killing a god; can’t get much more anti-god than that.
I’ve always liked apatheist myself. I don’t know if there’s a god or many gods or no god, and I don’t particularly care.
That said, “heathen” is a term used by several groups of neo-Pagans - I personally associate it with the nordic reconstructionist groups, who while generally okay on purely theological terms, tend to attract the white-power crowd, so are generally looked at askance.
The nice(?) thing about these arguments is that a decade later they’re still not old. Very tired, yet not old.
And it’s still a provocation to call yourself an “atheist.”
I tend to use “non-religious” on first take. That’s either understood or leads to a discussion of “atheist,” which I will concede is a synonym.
Agreed. I’m one too and the word has acquired[sup](When? Discuss.)[/sup] an antagonistic aura that’s, strictly speaking, inappropriate.
The antagonistic label is not one I’m eager to wear in public. Though I’d dearly love to live in a society where “agnostic” or better yet “disinterested” was the cultural norm and safe cultural assumption about other people.