Quote:
Originally Posted by
greenhavoc
Well I just
assumed wiki was correct, perhaps you should let em know they aren't.
Well lets take a look at what the wiki says, shall we?
Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4][5]
The second definition does indeed state that atheism is the position that there are no deities. But lets look at the citation, which states:
Rowe, William L. (1998). "Atheism". In Edward Craig. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415073103.
"As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. Another meaning of "atheism" is simply nonbelief in the existence of God, rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God. …an atheist, in the broader sense of the term, is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology.".
We're given a few definitions of atheism from the same source. One asserts that it is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God, another is that it is simply a nonbelief in the existence of god (which seems to be reiterated in both the wiki writer's definition, and the source's definition). But we can look at the other sources used in defining atheism, and they all seem to say the same thing: it's the position of the rejection of God. Whether an atheist affirms that there is no God is secondary. Unfortunately, as William L. Rowe says, the "commonly understood" definition is that atheists affirm the nonexistence of God.
Maybe that's just from a general ignorance of the term, who knows. But it's certainly not how most of the atheists on this forum use it, and thus trying to pin a definition on us even though we don't accept it just doesn't work.