Strictly speaking, derived from the Greek "atheos", atheist means "without God."
Atheism
noun
1. The doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. Disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Both dictionary definitions are predicated on belief. Disbelief is not absence of belief,... it's believing one can decide
whether or not there is a God or gods, which is obviously a belief.
Not having a belief about whether God exists or doesn't exist because of a lack of proof is called agnosticism.‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/Though there are a couple of references in The Oxford English Dictionary to earlier occurrences of the word ‘agnostic’, it seems (perhaps independently) to have been introduced by T. H. Huxley at a party in London to found the Metaphysical Society, which flourished for over a decade and to which belonged notable thinkers and leaders of opinion. Huxley thought that as many of these people liked to describe themselves as adherents of various ‘isms’ he would invent one for himself. He took it from a description in Acts 17:23 of an altar inscribed ‘to an unknown God’. Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe. Thus he seems to have been more like a Kantian believer in unknowable noumena than like a Vienna Circle proponent of the view that talk of God is not even meaningful. Perhaps such a logical positivist should be classified as neither a theist nor an atheist, but her view would be just as objectionable to a theist. ‘Agnostic’ is more contextual than is ‘atheist’, as it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it. In this article I confine myself to the use of ‘agnostic’ in a theological context.
"Trust those who seek the truth, but doubt those who say they found it."
woodman (30th September 2012)
Agnosticism, and being "agnostic" are mis-used terms. While it is true that most people (improperly) equate this with the idea of "not knowing if there is a God or not", the actual originally intended meaning is different. I'll let the above citation elaborate:
The actual meaning that was INTENDED for the word "Agnostic" is a person who does not believe THAT IT IS POSSIBLE to know whether or not God exists.... Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe. Thus he seems to have been more like a Kantian believer in unknowable noumena...
As for the dictionary definitions cited for the word "Atheism", well... they are quite obviously incorrect. The word Atheist is a compound word, comprising the latin prefix "A-", meaning without (as in Asexual [without sex], Amoral [without morals], Abiotic [without life], etc.) and the root "Theism", which means a belief in God. Put the two together, and you get "Without belief in God", not "The belief that there is no God". Again, it's a HUGE difference... and I'm surprised and dissappointed that a mainstream dictionary entry would get it so obviously wrong.
Actually, I'm not all THAT surprised... our culture and minds are under attack, and one of the surest ways to attack the mind is to muddle and confuse the meanings of words (concepts), which are the very fabric of the mind!
There are two kinds of people in this world:
People who just want to be left alone, and
People who won't leave them alone.
No coercion, no fraud. Let rationality and liberty prevail! A=A
Love with your heart... for everything else, use your brain!
"Gold is very patient. Are you?" -mamboni
"Government has NO business being in the 'business' business" -Gaillo
BrewTech (30th September 2012),Shami-Amourae (30th September 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NihilismNihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for example, Jean Baudrillard and others have called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch, and some Christian theologians and figures of religious authority have asserted that postmodernity and many aspects of modernity represent a rejection of theism, and that rejection of their theistic doctrine entails nihilism.
End Times (13th December 2018)
"A man is to be held accountable for the thoughts he chooses to entertain." --Richard Alan Miller
"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable-what then?" --George Orwell
"It's not a matter of what is true (reality) that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true (reality)." --Henry Kissinger
Neuro (13th December 2018)
BrewTech (13th December 2018)