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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

My understanding from theology classes a long, long time ago is as follows:

- Atheist: Believes there is no God.

- Agnostic: Doesn't know/isn't sure/doesn't care if there is a God.

- Anti-theist: Is against the mere idea that there is a God.

That may have changed in the intervening decades, and with the rise of the internet, the term "atheist" seems to have changed in popular culture, often to suit a particular person's views or vocabulary. A lot of internet atheists strike me as anti-theists. But that's not a common term.

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Absolutely not.

Atheism is about belief, agnosticism is about knowledge.

They are complementary.

You can be atheist/agnostic, theist/agnostic, atheist/gnostic, theist/gnostic. It's a matrix.

Also there are two flavors of atheism: those that believe there is no god (a minority in my opinion, and that position requires a burden of proof).

And there are atheists who simply reject the claim that there is a god. They say there might be a god, or maybe not, but that people who claim there is a god have not presented enough evidence for that claim to be accepted.

If I look at a grass field and tell you there is an even number of blades of grass in that field, you are not going to accept my claim.

Does that mean you think that number is odd?

No. You're just saying I have not provided evidence for my claim, and therefore, you do not accept it. But you are not taking any position yourself.

That's atheism.

This is a common set of colloquial definitions; nothing wrong with that. Philosophical writing, particularly with regards to theology, refers to atheism as the belief that there is no God [1]. As such, it is easy to interpret the article as saying: "the belief in no God [rather than the lack of belief in God] is inconsistent with the scientific method."

1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

This doesn't match any dictionary I have.

Atheism: belief there is no god.

Agnosticism: we don't, we can't, know whether a god exists or not.

> They say there might be a god, or maybe not,

This by definition is not atheism, it's agnosticism.

Not a dictionary, but how about an encyclopedia? Wikipedia shows that there is a distinction within the group of people who can be called "atheist", regarding how strong/affirmative a claim they are making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

Again, you are bundling together the concepts of belief and knowledge.

Knowledge is a subset of belief. Both are defined by different words: (a)theism is about belief, (a)gnosticism is about knowledge.

The first dictionary hit I get on atheism matches my claim:

"disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods."

The OED and M-W both disagree with whichever dictionary you’re using.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheism

You also seem to be strafing your dictionary claim and then ignoring anyone who shows that you’re incorrect. That’s a poor way to debate.

There is a difference between rejecting a claim and not accepting a claim, yet you use both expressions to describe the position of an atheist. Which one is it?

I was about to say more or less the same thing. The way people define the word "atheism" has changed.

Traditionally, most people understood "atheism" to mean a positive disbelief in God – either, you are certain God doesn't exist, or at least you think the non-existence of God is significantly more likely than God's existence. People who are close to 50-50 on God's existence would call themselves "agnostics" not "atheists".

In the last few decades, there has been an increasing tendency to define "atheism" as a mere absence of positive belief in God, so that the 50-50 folks get classified as "atheists" as well.

To read Geisler's remarks charitably, I think we have to keep in mind that he is likely using the older definition of "atheism" rather than the newer one.

No, atheism does not mean: I have proof of gods non-existence. This is a position put forward by theists who wish to push the burden of proof off of their side.

Theists put forth a claim: god exists. They need to prove that claim. It's not up to anyone else.

Atheism is simply looking at the evidence that has been provided for the claim. It is non-existent. Therefore it cannot be said that god exists. You need to prove the claims you put forward.

Note, it's not 50/50 (like agnosticism says). Atheism doesn't say: one side says a teapot exists out in space, and another side says it doesnt.. so it's 50/50. If there's no evidence of the teapot, there's no reason to believe it is there. That's atheism.

The dictionary definition of atheism is a belief that there is no god. This is a long lasting definition.

You posted this all over the thread. I already responded to one of your other posts.

They need to prove that claim

No, they don't. The whole point is believe without proof. It's called "faith."

The problem is that the common meaning of "atheist" has always been someone who does not believe there is a God. "Anti-theist" is a specialized term. It's sort of like the issue with "hypothesis" and "thesis" meaning different things to scientists than they do to the rest of us.

Athiest: Believes there's no god because the hypothesis was "god exists" and insufficient evidence has been put forth to prove it.

It's completely consistent with the scientific method.

"Doesn't care" now seems to be considered Apatheism.

Said to be coined around 2003: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/489221/word-for-...

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