DavidMcC wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:Your use is not the sole use, our use covers pretty much all uses so is more correct. Your preference is a limited and subjective definition that is really only a subset of our better one.

Why is a definition that is open to misunderstandings a "better" one? This is the real irrationality.

What are you having trouble understanding?

The fact that some people have a poor grasp on a language or have insular views on what words mean (i.e. somebody who thinks atheist only applies to the Christian God) shouldn't dictate language to the rest of us who can actually comprehend it.

I find the funny thing to be that he was upset about words having their meanings changed, which is what use based meanings does.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I find the funny thing to be that he was upset about words having their meanings changed, which is what use based meanings does.

Ha! Think Darwinian evolution. The change has to be GRADUAL, otherwise it doesn't work.

purplerat wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:Your use is not the sole use, our use covers pretty much all uses so is more correct. Your preference is a limited and subjective definition that is really only a subset of our better one.

Why is a definition that is open to misunderstandings a "better" one? This is the real irrationality.

What are you having trouble understanding?

The fact that some people have a poor grasp on a language or have insular views on what words mean (i.e. somebody who thinks atheist only applies to the Christian God) shouldn't dictate language to the rest of us who can actually comprehend it.

No, it's you who has a poor grasp of how language gradually evolves.

Asserted DavidMcC so it must be the truth.


No wait he is still wrong since both uses are in use. His preference for one over the other doesn't change that.

DavidMcC wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I find the funny thing to be that he was upset about words having their meanings changed, which is what use based meanings does.

Ha! Think Darwinian evolution. The change has to be GRADUAL, otherwise it doesn't work.

If we use your analogy of evolution then your argument amounts to:

"if humans evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys!"

DavidMcC wrote:Also, stop trying to pretend that the definition of "atheist" I have given is somehow unique to me.

I'm not trying to say that at all.
Lots of people try to push narrow definitions for one reason or another, some narrower than yours.

If we're on the topic of 'pretence', you clearly are trying to pretend that someone following 'usage' of the word would have to agree with you, even when usage is in reality frequently broader than your definition suggests.
Indeed if no-one used the word in its widest sense, then no-one would be disagreeing with you.

DavidMcC wrote:Stop with the BS, ffs! Many thinking religious people aren't theists. They are known as deists, because their "god" doesn't answer prayers, I suspect. Eg, A. Einstein was a deist.

Again, that comes down to how narrow a definition of 'theist' one chooses to adopt.
Some definitions include all forms of belief in gods.
Some include only beliefs in interventionist creator gods.
Etc.
If someone claimed only one definition was correct, they would be wrong. Much depends on context.

DavidMcC wrote:People who haven't thought much about what they believe (or don't) are neither theists nor atheist (nor even deists).

Actually, deists are a subset of theists. They believe in a sitting around doing fuck all god, but a god nonetheless. If they didn't believe in a god, they would be atheists.

redwhine wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:People who haven't thought much about what they believe (or don't) are neither theists nor atheist (nor even deists).

Actually, deists are a subset of theists. They believe in a sitting around doing fuck all god, but a god nonetheless. If they didn't believe in a god, they would be atheists.

OK, but I've never heard of Einstein being clled a "theist".
Perhaps I should have also mentioned "agnostics" (mainly used to refer to those who are agnostic about "god" - again, by use, not etymology).

Agnostics are a different set, you can be an agnostic atheist or theist and that is based on use and etymology. You are still wrong about atheists, oh so wrong.

DavidMcC wrote:

redwhine wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:People who haven't thought much about what they believe (or don't) are neither theists nor atheist (nor even deists).

Actually, deists are a subset of theists. They believe in a sitting around doing fuck all god, but a god nonetheless. If they didn't believe in a god, they would be atheists.

OK, but I've never heard of Einstein being clled a "theist".
Perhaps I should have also mentioned "agnostics" (mainly used to refer to those who are agnostic about "god" - again, by use, not etymology).

Nothing to do with belief. It refers to knowledge.

DavidMcC wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I find the funny thing to be that he was upset about words having their meanings changed, which is what use based meanings does.

Ha! Think Darwinian evolution. The change has to be GRADUAL, otherwise it doesn't work.

Bullshit - in practice changes have tended to be gradual, given how languages tended to change and how communication systems worked.
Since the development of methods of mass communication, it has become possible for new words and new usages of existing words to become commonplace in very short spaces of time, as well as for once-obscure old words to be rapidly learned by large numbers of people.
That process works fine, being really just a more synchronised/faster version of what used to happen more slowly.

tolman wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I find the funny thing to be that he was upset about words having their meanings changed, which is what use based meanings does.

Ha! Think Darwinian evolution. The change has to be GRADUAL, otherwise it doesn't work.

Bullshit - in practice changes have tended to be gradual, given how languages tended to change and how communication systems worked.
...

Umm.... isn't that EXACTLY what I just said? I said changes needed to be gradual!

Read the rest of the post and find out why you are wrong. Again.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:Read the rest of the post and find out why you are wrong. Again.

I was not wrong, because tolman is interpretting slow and fast to suit his own purposes. In reality, as in evolution, the sped required is relative. So, actually, YOU are wrong again.

Well, now that we've wrapped up that silly red herring, how's about you start presenting arguments, rather than dismissal and assertions for your definition?

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Well, now that we've wrapped up that silly red herring, how's about you start presenting arguments, rather than dismissal and assertions for your definition?

It's merely what I've always understood the word to mean. I suggest you go and find an atheist, and ask them if they have thought about the subject of whether there are gods or not.

DavidMcC wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Well, now that we've wrapped up that silly red herring, how's about you start presenting arguments, rather than dismissal and assertions for your definition?

It's merely what I've always understood the word to mean.

And you've been repeatedly corrected in this thread. So why do you persist in asserting your definition if correct, if an appeal to personal ignorance is all you've got?

DavidMcC wrote: I suggest you go and find an atheist, and ask them if they have thought about the subject of whether there are gods or not.

1. I am myself an atheist, as I've repeatedly pointed out to you, as well as that my atheism has been 'present' since birth.
2. The vast majority of my friends are atheists. They all disagree with your definition.
3. Most atheists I've talked to online also don't fit your definition.

Que, No True Scotsman in 3, 2, 1, ....

DavidMcC wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Well, now that we've wrapped up that silly red herring, how's about you start presenting arguments, rather than dismissal and assertions for your definition?

It's merely what I've always understood the word to mean. I suggest you go and find an atheist, and ask them if they have thought about the subject of whether there are gods or not.

Lol, how do you think Thomas would know they were an atheist? Could it possibly be because they've said 'I'm an atheist'? You want Thomas to go and ask someone who self-refers as an atheist if they have thought about the subject of whether there are gods or not in order to show that atheists are those who have thought about the subject. Of course they fucking have, that's why they call themselves atheist. You're already flopping about with your assertions, because you previously declared an atheist is someone who has thought 'sufficiently' about the existence of gods. Now it's just that they have thought about it. The problem with your idiotic comment here is that it spectacularly fails to deal with the central issue you disagree with, which is that the term 'atheist' applies to people who don't believe in gods even if they've never thought about it and have never self-identified as atheists, a set which you straight up refuse to include in your self-serving definition. That's the entire fucking point.

DavidMcC wrote:
It's merely what I've always understood the word to mean.

And now you're what, lacking in the necessary humility to admit your understanding was wrong?

DavidMcC wrote:I suggest you go and find an atheist, and ask them if they have thought about the subject of whether there are gods or not.

And whether they have thought about gods or not is irrelevant to their being an atheist.

Atheist = someone who has no belief in deities, because they've never thought about it.
Atheist = someone who has no belief in deities, because they've thought about it and concluded that the position they held prior to thinking about it is still valid.
Atheist = someone who had no belief in deities, then did believe in them (probably because of muddled parenting), then as an adult thought about it some more and decided that, on balance, didn't believe in deities.

The important thing David, which you need to grasp, is that atheist = someone who has no belief in deities.
How they got to that point is fucking irrelevant.