• Gandalf the Gorsed@feddit.org
    0·
    4 months ago

    Atheism isn’t really a belief system by itself. It can refer to a lot of things, including positive atheism (the claim that there is not/cannot be a god/supernatural entity), negative atheism (the lack of belief in a deity due to lack of evidence), the absence of religion and many other things. Militant atheism, on the other hand, definitely counts and is susceptible to all the failings you mentioned.

    • edible_funk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      It’s not called militant atheism, you’re describing anti-theism. I’ve never heard of atheism claiming definitively that there are no deities or higher powers either, just that since there’s no evidence the claims aren’t worth consideration and can be dismissed as nonsense.

      • mrbutterscotch@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        I believe what you are describing is Agnosticism, which questions the existence of God but doesn’t claim there isn’t one either.

        Atheism afaik does claim that something like a God can’t/doesn’t exist (or Anti-theism).

      • ikt@aussie.zone
        1·
        4 months ago

        I’ve never heard of atheism claiming definitively that there are no deities or higher powers either

        Maybe this will help?

        This definition is also found in multiple encyclopedias and dictionaries of philosophy. For example, in the Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, William L. Rowe (also an atheist) writes, “Atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” (2000: 62). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy recognizes multiple senses of the word “atheism”, but is clear about which is standard in philosophy:

        [Atheism is] the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in god and is consistent with agnosticism [in the psychological sense]. A stricter sense denotes a belief that there is no god; this use has become standard. (Pojman 2015, emphasis added)

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

        Maybe you will understand the picture I posted in the other comment as well now?

        • edible_funk@lemmy.worldEnglish
          01·
          4 months ago

          It’s not surprising that academic theological philosophy uses atheism as a strict position that there are no gods, inferring the claim, but even your source states the widely accepted definition is simply the lack of belief in a god or gods before choosing the previous definition for the purposes of the paper. Academic usage that acknowledges they’re not using the widely accepted usage isn’t super relevant unless you’re having academic discussions with academics in academic contexts. I understood the picture fine, it’s just wrong.