Just out of curiousity: if "theos" means "god" when did the word Atheist stop
meaning "no god" and start meaning "no religion"?

31 responses total.

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.

        
        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".

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.

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.

What's the difference between theism and deism?

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).

        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.

Shouldn't that be Dada's universe-just-as-absurd?

        Dada lives!  Watch your overcoats!

I was wondering when this item was going to lose its seriousness and wander
off to drift world.

They all do, eventually...

da-da-da

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.

<ponders how he's ever going to remember the difference between theist and
deist>

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.

        Zen itself is pretty athiestic, but try getting a Zen Buddhist to say
that.

What about Tibbetan Buddhism/

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).

        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.

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>

Those aren't "personal definitions," though, those are fairly standard ones.

        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.

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. 

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?

No.
Well, I think many people are sort of talking about the same thing, but that
doesn't mean that "angels" are the same sort of beings as "spirit guides".
It's like they come from different places- you know, like saying that a
"personal trainer" is the same as a physical therapist- they both want to help
you work better, they may give you similar advice, but their scope and depth
of knowledge and frame of reference are all different.

I was taught as a Catholic child that guardian angels prevent
bad things from happening to you, while spirit guides (from my
understanding) tell you how to deal with difficult situations.
Doesn't sound like the same thing at all, IMHO.

        The definitions can vary.  Crowley's Holy Guardian Angel sometimes
represented his own "highest self", and at other times he insisted it was
a seperate entity who guided and instructed him.  Both are roughly analogous
to spirit guides and allies in the Castanedan sense.

        Whatever y'all happen to think of Crowley and Castaneda. :)

*my* spirit guide protects me from bad things

The point, I think, is that both guardian angels and spirit guides are like
personal deities... they protect a specific individual from danger AND offer
advice when it's needed. I don't think it's a fair generalization to say that
spirit guides only do the latter and guardian angels only do the former.

        I concur.

eeps =} Jazz agreed with me, I must be communicating better. =}

        I'm sorry, I didn't do it intentionally. ;)

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss