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| Author |
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bjorn
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A question of religous grammar
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Aug 23 02:06 UTC 1998 |
Just out of curiousity: if "theos" means "god" when did the word Atheist stop
meaning "no god" and start meaning "no religion"?
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| 31 responses total. |
md
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response 1 of 31:
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Aug 23 12:54 UTC 1998 |
I think atheist still means "one who believes there is no god,"
just as theist means "one who believes there is a god." No god
equals no religion for most people, although I know Unitarians
and pantheist types who really are atheists.
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jazz
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response 2 of 31:
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Aug 23 13:22 UTC 1998 |
Mirriam-Webster says:
Main Entry: athe7ist
Pronunciation: 'A-thE-ist
Function: noun
Date: 1571
: one who denies the existence of God
- athe7is7tic /"A-thE-'is-tik/ or athe7is7ti7cal /"A-thE-'is-ti-k&l/
adjective
- athe7is7ti7cal7ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
I don't think that's too far from "no religion".
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bjorn
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response 3 of 31:
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Aug 23 18:15 UTC 1998 |
One does not have to believe in a god or in gods to qualify as having a
religion. That's why we come up with things like calling Bhuddism an Athestic
Religion, that is, a religion which has no god.
Secondly, capitilization of "God" suggests one god in particular: that of
Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam . . . but I realize that most people don't
realize that little intricracy of grammar.
To explain my first paragraph further, Shinto is a religion, but Shinto
believes in spirits, not gods.
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brighn
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response 4 of 31:
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Aug 23 20:51 UTC 1998 |
That depends on how you define "religion". From Webster's New Universal
Unabridged (Dorset and Baber 1983):
(1) belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers...
(2) expression of this belief in conduct or ritual
(3) any specifc system of belief, worship, conduct, etc., often involving a
code of ethics and a philosophy... loosely, any system... resempling,
suggestive or, or likened to such a system...
(4) a stateof mind or way of life expressing love for and trust in God...
(5) [Irrelevant]
(6) the practice of religious observances...
(7) [Irrelevant and obscure]
By (1), (2), (4), and (6), atheism isn't a religion, but then, by (1), (2),
and (4), neither is Shinto, etc. (at least,m (4)).
By (3), atheism is a religion.
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kami
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response 5 of 31:
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Aug 23 22:15 UTC 1998 |
What's the difference between theism and deism?
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bjorn
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response 6 of 31:
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Aug 24 00:58 UTC 1998 |
Oops, I realized too late that Shinto was a bad example. I forgot that they
see what I call spirits as gods. I don't think my definition of religion fits
anywhere in that Dictionary's 7 definitions. I also think dictionaries should
say the same thing 2 different ways in multiple definitions (i.e. 1 & 4).
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jazz
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response 7 of 31:
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Aug 24 13:17 UTC 1998 |
Sinto is animistic, so the lines are somewhat blurry - spirits are
gods, in a sense, but not God in the Christian sense, or gods in the
polytheistic sense that most people are familliar with. Rocks, trees, rivers,
all had their own spirits, and powerful rocks, trees, and rivers were godlike.
I love codes 5 and 7. :)
I'd disagree about athiesm, since athiesm itself implies a set of
ethics running from DeSade's universe-as-absurd-machine to Dada's
universe-as-just-absurd, to Secular Humanism.
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bjorn
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response 8 of 31:
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Aug 24 14:41 UTC 1998 |
Shouldn't that be Dada's universe-just-as-absurd?
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jazz
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response 9 of 31:
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Aug 25 11:57 UTC 1998 |
Dada lives! Watch your overcoats!
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bjorn
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response 10 of 31:
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Aug 25 14:07 UTC 1998 |
I was wondering when this item was going to lose its seriousness and wander
off to drift world.
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robh
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response 11 of 31:
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Aug 25 16:16 UTC 1998 |
They all do, eventually...
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brighn
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response 12 of 31:
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Aug 25 19:22 UTC 1998 |
da-da-da
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jmm
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response 13 of 31:
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Aug 25 21:01 UTC 1998 |
Kami, a theist is somebody that believes in a personal god, someone out there
who hears your prayers, does good things for you, really cares about what's
going on with you. A deist -- this would be something out of the French
revolution, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and that era -- says that there's
definitely a god, but you wouldn't want to call him or her a person. In fact,
it wouldn't even have a gender. And it wouldn't care about what happened to
you. A pantheist thinks everything is god, everything is divine. A panenthist
-- according to one theologian who invented the word, Charles Hartshorne,
thinks this impersonal divinity is in everything. These classifications go
on and on. It's how you get tenure if you're teaching in a religion
department.
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orinoco
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response 14 of 31:
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Aug 25 21:03 UTC 1998 |
<ponders how he's ever going to remember the difference between theist and
deist>
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jmm
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response 15 of 31:
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Aug 26 13:03 UTC 1998 |
I was talking with a friend, a Zen Buddhist priest, last night, and he says
Buddhism is not atheistic. If you're going to be an atheist, you're going to
be denying the existence of god. But, he says, Buddhism is not into denial.
It's positive, affirming. At the same time, he doesn't talk about god. As for
me, I suppose I'm a polytheist, but these classifications don't tell you much
about your own experiences, which are the real thing in any real religion.
I don't count unitarianism as a real religion, because it's so suspicious of
religious experience. Atheism isn't a religion, for the same reason.
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jazz
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response 16 of 31:
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Aug 26 14:04 UTC 1998 |
Zen itself is pretty athiestic, but try getting a Zen Buddhist to say
that.
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mta
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response 17 of 31:
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Aug 26 15:41 UTC 1998 |
What about Tibbetan Buddhism/
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brighn
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response 18 of 31:
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Aug 26 19:15 UTC 1998 |
it sounds more like Zen is agnostic. There's a difference, and a huge one.
An atheist says, unequoivocally, "There is no God."
An agnostic says, "There may or may not be a God, and faith either way is
irrelevant."
there is, in my mind, no such thing as being "pretty atheistic." That's like
saying "pretty dead" or "fairly pregnant"... either you're an atheist or you
aren't. but you can be shades of agnostic (from believing that there probably
isn't a god to believing there probably is a god, and all point in between).
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jazz
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response 19 of 31:
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Aug 27 02:29 UTC 1998 |
Well, in your personal definitions, I'd call Zen agnostic too.
Agnostic has the added tone of a-gnosis, though, so it occupies more of a
narrow middle ground for me.
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kami
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response 20 of 31:
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Aug 27 03:28 UTC 1998 |
Um, John, did you give him a teacher app?...
There are Japanese folktales in which Buddhas meet gods- and generally mop
the floor with them. We're being limited in our concept of gods, perhaps,
by the usual image of God. My sense is that, for some Buddhists, there are
gods, the gods do specific jobs or are in charge of specific locations, but
are far from omnipotent. In addition, there are more than one Buddha,
although there are not many and may not be concurrent, and the Buddhas and
their followers gain in potency through their meditations and practices while
the gods may lose power through neglect, leading folks who are or were human
to be stronger, in some cases, than those who were created divine. Or some
such. Now, that's folklore, and if I were a Buddhist practitioner talking
to the average, monotheistic American and looking at such complex notions of
divinity, I'd probably punt and just say; "nope, we don't worship God", too.
Anyway, thanks for the definitions. Let's see if I can recall them for more
than 10 minutes this time...<sigh>
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brighn
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response 21 of 31:
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Aug 27 17:08 UTC 1998 |
Those aren't "personal definitions," though, those are fairly standard ones.
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jazz
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response 22 of 31:
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Aug 27 19:30 UTC 1998 |
Buddhism is fairly flexible in that regard, though ... it incorporates
vastly different traditions (Hindu gods, Chinese gods, Sinto kami) into it's
stories and legends.
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jmm
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response 23 of 31:
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Aug 28 18:21 UTC 1998 |
Buddhists are as varied as any religion can be. Right here in Ann Arbor, you
can choose among Zen Buddhists on Packard, Tantric Buddhists out on Liberty,
Tibetan Buddhists at Jewel Heart, downtown. I studied with Alan Watts, who
had once been an Episcopal priest, and his version of Zen fit in best with
San Francisco's beat culture, much better than D. T. Suzuki's Zen -- and that
was adapted for Western tastes. Another person wanted to start a Buddhist
church here in town, but he seemed more stiff-necked than any of these. The
point is that we don't want to say simply "Buddhism is atheistic," but we have
to look at what's going on with the individual Buddhist.
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bjorn
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response 24 of 31:
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Oct 2 17:39 UTC 1998 |
Here's something else I've been pondering: Pagans refer to spirit guides where
Christians refer to guardian angels. When we get right down to it, aren't
we all just talking about the same thing?
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