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Question160

What are the connotations of the word 'atheist' among atheists? Does what the word itself imply that atheists themselves stop at a belief that there is no God?

To me, the word 'atheist', means one who lacks belief in god(s).

I am also a skeptic, in the modern commonly used sense, that is I reject that for which no evidence can be shown, which includes all paranormal and supernatural phenomena. (John Hachmann aa#1782)

Atheist in my own mind means everything from lack of belief in god to free thinker, scientist, philosophical. Willing to think about things and not take anything for granted. One who questions the words from authority, and weighs all the advice they get based on who is giving it to them. That is I am not about to accept advice on how to live my life based on some guy who is a celibate old man who has not experienced any joy outside of his own mind. I also see atheists as largely unjudgemental people who are far more tolerant than any theist I have ever met.

Of course, if I use it to define anything it is merely Lack of beleif in god. Of course if someone tells me the above I would be inclined to lean towards the above.

When I apply the label to myself, it stops at lack of belief in god. Simply because I know all the qualities I possess. But when using it to form a tentative appraisal of a new aquaintence I will more likely appraise atheists in a kinder light than I will a theist. Though of course I respect everyones right to believe what they want. My experience tells me theists are not predetermined to posess most of the qualities in the first paragraph of my response. of course I can qualify that by saying some atheists don't posess any of those qualities and some theists posess those and them some... in a certain kind of way of course. (Evil Bob aa#1856)

Strictly speaking it only means a lack of belief in god. But, in the US culture at least, atheism to me means a willingness to go against what "everyone" knows, and a bit of bravery in being willing to admit to something considered as a disease by the majority. (Scott Davidson #1045)

I can't answer for all atheists, so I couldn't exactly say what the connotations are "among atheists". But for me the word carries a little cloud of related assumptions.

I assume that an atheist is going to have thought his or her position through--because most people are religious by default thanks to a rather heavy bias towards religion in North America (though less so, I think, here in Canada than in the US), and therefore most atheists are going to have come to their belief after considerable mental effort. So I therefore assume that an atheist has some degree of honest introspection--that they have the mental acuity to think a position through. I assume further that an atheist is not likely to believe in the supernatural and the paranormal; I would be *extremely* surprised to meet an atheist who honestly believed in the validity of telekinesis or astrology, or in the existence of ghosts, though I concede that such a thing is possible.

I also assume, with a little less certainly, that an atheist is less likely to be bigoted against the normal variation in human affairs than the average person. There may be atheists who are flat-out racist, there may be atheists who are anti-gay, there may be hide-bound conservative atheists. I just don't think there are very many of them.

Depending on their location (the American south!), I assume that someone who is willing to be publicly identified as an atheist has a spark of bravery in their soul--more than I do, I guess.

And finally, although I freely allow that there are intelligent religious people out there, I can't help but notice that the more religious someone is, the more likely they are to carry a fierce strain of know-nothingism--the sort of attitude that if a book contains knowledge that contradicts the Koran, it's heresy, and if it contains knowledge that supports the Koran, it's superfluous, so let's burn all the books that aren't the Koran. So I assume that the more vociferously religious a person is, the less intelligent they are likely to be, and that therefore an atheist is probably somewhat more intelligent than the average religious person.

But, people being people, I know that none of these things might be true. So in the final analysis, despite all these mild assumptions, when someone declares themself an atheist, all I really know is that that person is saying they don't believe in the existence of any gods. (Robert Matthews aa #1801)

Given how many atheists I've seen who have ideas strongly different from mine, even seemingly incompatible with atheism (e.g. the recent bickering over mind/matter duality) I have learned to limit the term "atheist" to refer only to lack of profession of belief or profession of lack of belief. I would consider most agnostics to be atheists, by the lack of profession of belief part. (Chaos Theory aa#1354)

"Atheist" is one of those words that is linguistically relative depending on who is using it. It's also an emotionally charged word; not only can it connote different things to different people, the connotations are often strongly felt. What is important about the affective meaning of the sign of a thing (a word such as "atheist") is, as it was to our ancestors, is the thing good or bad for us (is it an antelope or a sabre-tooth tiger?), is it strong or weak with respect to us (is it a sabre-tooth tiger or a mosquito?), and is it active or passive with respect to us (is it a sabre-tooth tiger or a pool of quicksand, which I can merely walk around?). To many thiests, "atheist" has the same affective meaning as "evil," "sinful," "lost" or "immoral." That is, it's generally a bad thing, and strongly bad at that. It's also moderately active, meaning that it represents a clear threat to them. OTOH, to most atheists, the word has the same affective meaning as "smart," "logical," "practical" or "freedom." The differences are clear: an atheist views the word as generally a good thing. Like the theist, s/he also rates it highly on the strength scale. But, unlike the theist, rates it low on the activity scale. End of answer. ---------------- A related aside: Believe it or not, the affective (or connotative) meaning of words can actually be measured. Charles Osgood (not the TV commentator) of the Univerisity of Illinois developed an instrument for doing this in the 60s, which was modified and expanded in the 70s by Richard League. Called the Semantic Differential, words are rated by subjects on scales such as good/bad, strong/weak and active/passive. The resulting scores are tabulated and placed in a multidimensional projection. The importance of the instrument is that it permits linguistic cross-cultural comparison of the affective meaning of words; languages as diverse as English, Hopi, Farsi and Cantonese can be *calibrated* to one another, which permits greater and more accurate cultural understanding. (chib [lecture over])

Besides the obvious, the word atheist, for me, carries the connotation of a person who does not incorporate superstition and magical thinking within their view of reality. (Liz Huth aa#658)

To me the word atheist refers to someone who has no belief in any type of god. I don't read any more into the word than that. I will admit though that I think a lot of people do read a lot more into that word. Most people I know think it means one or more of the following:

1) atheists believe that no god exists (certainly this can be
      true, but its not necessarily true).
   2) atheists hate god (this is a huge fallacy.  if you hate
      something, you obviously believe in it and therefore cannot
      by definition be an atheist).
   3) atheists are afraid to be moral (another fallacy.  i know
      this because i'm the proof that it isn't true).
   4) atheists are just resisting god (another fallacy.  i tihnk
      a good god would be a good thing -- but i don't believe in
      one). (Brillig)

Depends on context, strange as this may sound. There was a time when I had not yet met certain people. Here is what "atheist" meant to me at the time: its denotation is relatively clear, someone who is not a god-beleiver. Its connotation--I agreed with what a bunch of people have already said: a freethinker, someone who uses logic and considers evidence to reach conclusions rather than just blindly believing some kind of dogma. Most liley someone who is interested in an reasonably knowledgable about science in general and biology, geology, astronomy, and physics in particular. Probably someone you could have a stimulating discussion with on a multitude of topics. Etc.

This was what I felt before I had met certain people.

Then, I went to Egypt as an exchange student for three months. There, I met a number of other people from various European countries, including several from former socialist countries. I got to know two of those people quite well. One was Slavo, an atheist Czech (sp?). The other was Andrzej from Poland, who was a theist but did not subscribe to any organized religion (and in fact explicitly rejected Catholicism, which would have been the defaul religion for him).

Slavo was a very dogmatic fellow, who believed every word Marx and Engels had ever written, and bought every piece of propaganda that his socialist party had fed him. He was totally inflexible and impossible to argue with.

Andrzej was a delightful fellow, who had an interest in diverse topics, and was great to talk with.

This made me realize that the correlation I expect between being an atheist and being an intelligent, logical, and interesting person holds only in environments where theism is the social norm, the default position for non-thinkers. Where atheism is the official and/or socially accepted position, many fools may be atheists.

Once you notice this, it is so very obvious that you feel dumb for not realizing it before.

Having said this, now that I live here in the States where theism is the default position, I have more or less restored my initial expectations. In fact, there is a little game I play with myself: when I meet someone new and get to know them reasonably well, I sometimes make a bet with myself that they are likely to be atheists. This happens when I feel some great ihntellectual presence and flexibility, a particular way of looking at and discussing things, and so on. So far, I have usually guessed correctly--though sometimes the people involved describe themselves as agnostics instead of atheists. This feels good too: I don't have to worry about choosing atheists to be my best friends, it happens the opposite way. Many people I feel comfortable with and admire intellectually turn out to be atheists. Happened with my wife too. By the time I found out she was an atheist, we were already married. Somehow it was never necessary to ask. It just had to be, given what kind of person she was! (Orhan Orgun aa#1867)

With regard to the first question, I am amazed by the variations that appear in passing in this group, and my observation would be that the primary implication seems to be along the lines of rejection of the myths that have founded the jewish, christian, and muslim cults. My personal view is that as the word is a derogatory label that replaced the word heretic at the time of the reformation and is as uncomplimentary as the word dago, or wop, or whatever, I do not address myself as an atheist for that very reason to anyone at all until it becomes necessary in rejecting their demonizing of people who do not belong to their particular cult. So far, outside of newsgroups, that hasn't happened.

As to an answer to the second question... I feel that even discussing the word 'god' especially when the G is capitalized, is as absurd as discussing whether or not Mickey Mouse was a real character or not. The fictional creation is known by millions, and from that perspective exists, but all of Mickey is as synthetic as the the 'G' god is to the franchises of the commerce of religion. Kerry aa#1773)

atheist: someone without theism, specifically someone without belief in one or more deities.

Subsets of atheists -

1. Implicit atheist - someone who has not yet been contaminated by the snares of religion

2. Weak atheist - someone who "just don't believe"

3. Strong atheist - someone who on grounds of reson solidly rejects the existance of deities

Agnostic: Someone who either has a misconception on what it is to be an atheist - or rightfully uses the word to describe their knowledge about gods, not their faith or lack there of in them.

But what am I?

I don't know if there are any gods, but I don't think so, and frankly all the gods that have been suggested to me so far are so ridiculus[1] that I can only laugh at the superstition they represent.

So I guess I am no longer a weak agnostic atheist of the huxley kind with bad atitude, but a strong gnostic bad assed atheist with a bone to pick and an axe to grind with established organized religion.

Or something like that. I'm just tired of stupid fundies. (Ichimusai aa#769)

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