I've got my helmet on so I'm ready for action! Or perhaps I should just drag out my sock puppet for this sort of rant. Folks from Street Prophets might remember Mr. Semantics.
I keep having the same conversation in the boggy blogs. I keep wandering off on my pathetic rant about the definition of "atheism" the many definitions of "atheism". I thought that finally, to save some time I'd toss my thoughts, cut and paste a few of my comments, into diary form. Now I can just link back to this whenever I feel the urge to cough up another hairball coming on. So I can get this out of my system definitively and just learn to shut up finally.
And then I'll coin a new definition of "atheism".
I write stuff like this all the time:
When I define atheism I don't rely on some pimply faced lad (does it ever end? the acne I mean) who tossed up a blog. I get out a good dictionary and dig through the etymology of the word. If I start saying that "blue is the color of an unripened tomato" it doesn't change the definition of 'green' it just means that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Same goes for words like 'atheism' and 'agnosticism'; if enough people start using the wrong definitions somehow we've changed the definition? In the case of these two words there are definitive definitions. The common use argument just muddies the waters and makes real communication about complicated subjects impossible. Folks who are confused about what atheism means should learn the history of the word and not just make up new definitions that go against etymology (which is a science dagnabbit!). Folks who are confused about what agnosticism means should read Thomas Huxley's thoughts. After all, the man invented the word he should have some idea of why and what it means. But he knew that people would eventually screw it up. Sigh...
"People are a problem." - Douglas Adams
Giving me a Wiktionary link... grumble, grumble, get off my lawn, grumble, froth, fret, fume...
I don't mind a little wiggling room. What I object to are people who put the word together wrong. There is a Greek root to the word that existed for whotheheckknowshowlong before the French got their hands on it to add an "-isme" on the end which turned 'atheos' into athéisme making 'atheos' a belief. Not many ancient Greeks around to describe what 'atheos' was used for when they were kids.
First there was 'without god' and then someone made it a belief. You can argue whether the French or Italians got their mitts on atheos first but we're still left with a word that existed for a damn long time before it was made into another word by some crazy Latins.
It can't be "without' belief"--because the root is "without god". The root existed for thousands of years before the -ism was tacked on in the 16th century.
Or look at is this way-- you have three parts to the word:
A- Greek "without"
theos Greek "gods"
ism A 16th century French or Italian addition to many words that made beliefs out of simple nouns.
Now, first put the Greek bits together "without gods". It's a noun for people who don't have any gods, or who were abandoned by the gods, the god-less. They live in a world 'without gods'. As in "Oh look Mavros, at that poor atheos."
Now make that a belief.
Atheism is a belief that there are no gods.
Here's a Wiktionary link for you as a peace offering. Which dates the addition of -ism to the equation at 1587. According to Wiktionary "theism" as a word didn't exist until 1678.
So it's not a lack of belief but a lack of gods that defines atheism.
And if you're an atheist that doesn't at least believe in the science of etymology-- well, heaven help you.
Anyway, my little rants never make me any friends. My sense of humor always manages to find unappreciative folks who think I'm trying to be some sort of pedantic authority on language purity. They take me more seriously than I do.
I just can't get behind the common usage argument. Since when do I have to accept misuse of English? Just because some people believe it doesn't make it right. They've accepted a new definition. That makes it an accepted definition right? I guess so. I'll try to live with it. None of my old pulp based dictionaries accept atheism as meaning "a lack of belief in god". Heck, even Wiktionary as of this writing agrees with me on this at least in the etymology. Yeah, I know-- I know, I'm old. My brain is an ossified chunk of decaying garbage and I can't keep straight all of the "weak, strong, implicit, explicit..." forms of atheism. It all seems to me an artificial and unneeded complication.
For me there are three labels that cover the whole field. And it all comes down to belief. If you believe that gods exist then I'll, ever so generously, let you put your own sub-label on your belief. If you believe that there are no gods then I'd call you an atheist. If you believe that you don't have (or even can't have) enough evidence to decide definitively one way or the other then you're one of those scientifically minded agnostic people (or perhaps just confused by the whole mess and don't want to take sides in the grand pie fight). I'd never say that beliefs can't be changed. I can be an atheist if I believe that there is no God and when I'm proven wrong (or make a leap of faith in the opposite direction) I can change my label to reflect my new state of awareness.
It just seems wrong to an old, inflexible fart like myself to have to tack "strong" onto my "atheism" just to attempt to clarify what I mean by a word that has become meaningless within my own lifetime. Some doofus broke up the word wrong and called it "a-theism" and now I've got to bumble around as the Keystone Cop of the language police?
I'm not such a moron that I can take an interest in linguistics and etymology and not realize that words do change meaning as cultures change. Some of the most interesting Bible discussions for me to read were about how the original meaning of the words could have been entirely different from what most people learned given what we have learned about the cultures of that region.
I want my old, simple atheism back. How can I label myself a "strong atheist" if my little inner scientist thinks my belief is a sign of weakness? How can I be a "gnostic atheist" and maintain my respect for Thomas Huxley? Why'd he invent a new label when he could've just stuck a 'weak' on an old label? 'Cuz he was smart. But mostly in those days people didn't have all the new definitions muddling up conversation. And they are new. I blame the internets. The internets have become the driving force behind the rapid change of the English language. And in choosing labels for yourself it can be a confusing time. I've even heard some politician is calling himself santorum. Ewg, who'd want to be named after something like that? I wonder what he thought it meant. But it's okay. I know a few things about labels too. Labels are crap. I wrapped myself in a label decades ago and I guess I'm ready to throw it away finally. It's meaningless so why fear to get rid of it. I dunno, it was pretty comfortable. Now it's just tattered and stained. The language has changed, moved on without me, Good Bye Cruel Label!
Now that atheism has changed I've decided that I should use the word "atheism" like "baptism" -- it's not a belief either. I think from now on I'll use "atheism" to mean "a right of passage in which one dunks ones own head in porridge"
5:30 AM PT: Thanks to Nance for pointing out the lousy poll question. Somewhere along the way "What do you think 'atheism' means?" wasn't preserved through all of my edits before publishing. Sigh. Sorry folks.