Thread by @EveKeneinan

[THREAD]

This is not a thread about race. I'm going to use race as an analogy to make a point. I'm also going to use a censored form of a racial slur to make the point more strongly, namely n***er.

I would not use this term except in fiction or a thought experiment like this.

Suppose a white supremacist group declares their position is "anti-n***er." They then go on to make their position into a DOCTRINE, which they call "antin***erism." This is obviously the teaching of being "antin***er" (whatever that is—nothing good, surely).

Later on, white supremacism falls out of public favor. So the antin***erists decide, as a P.R. move, to say "Our doctrine of antin***erism isn't based on our antin***er stance! Look at the WORD! We are merely ANTI - n***erism."

The continue: "We don't TEACH people to be antin***er! We are just in opposition to teaching n***ism! See the anti-? That's just what the word MEANS!"

Would we buy this? I hope not. It would, in effect, be to give the white supremacist "antin***erists" much more credit than they deserve, allowing them to repaint themselves as MERELY an oppositional movement to something else, rather than the teachers of a DOCTRINE.

Even though a DOCTRINE or TEACHING is what they formulated.

This is EXACTLY what recent ATHEISTS have done.

It's a good trick, made up by philosopher Antony Flew in 1972.

But it IS a trick. "Atheism" is from "Atheos" + "-ISM."

It is the position of Godlessness, that there is no God or that God should be opposed and rejected, then turned into a DOCTRINE or TEACHING.

ATHE-ISM is the "THE TEACHING OF GODLESSNESS," the doctrine that there is no God.

Maybe that was too charged. I don't know. What about a men's group who are against marriage, which position they call "awifed" from "being without a wife and against having one." They turn their position into a teaching, and "awifeism" is born.

"Awifeism" is the teaching that wives are bad and men should not take wives. But when sentiment turns against them, they switch and PRETEND "awifeism" is just a synonym for "bachelorhood."

"Look at the WORD," they say, "It is just the negation of wifeism! A-wifeism! It's clear!"

Now, there is obviously a great difference between "awifeists', those who TEACH the DOCTRINE of not having a wife, and bachelors, those who happen not to have a wife, even those who don't want one.

So again is it with "atheism", which is a TEACHING of the DOCRINE of GODLESSNESS.

Yet, the atheists would DEARLY LIKE to include all those who are not or not yet believers in God as "atheists."

But this is simply false. "All atheists are non-believers on God" is true, but not "all non-believers in God are atheists."

That is the same as "all awifeists are bachelors" but "not all bachelors are awifeists."

To be an "awifeist" is to TEACH the DOCTRINE of BEING WITHOUT A WIFE.

To be an "atheist" is to TEACH the DOCTRINE of BEING WITHOUT GOD.

But alas, a large number of atheists today have realized that Flew's trick SELLS WELL, rhetorically. So they dishonestly pretend that "atheism" means only "without God" and they argue to the mere FORM of the word, claiming it is "a - theism." This is NOT how the word was made.

"Without theism" is

1 Not how "atheism" was coined
2 Not how it is used by academics
3 Not how it is used in ordinary language (87% of English speakers use "atheism" to mean "believing there is no God.")
4 Not how it is historically used

This entirely new use of "atheism" as "a-theism"—and you see that Flew was well-aware he was using the word in a wholly NEW sense, and tries to defend it (unsuccessfully, as it turned out, even by his own standards)—is dishonest, self-serving, muddies the waters, and cowardly.

Now one CAN, like Humpty-Dumpty, use any word to mean anything one wishes. But redefining words does not affect the truth of things. I can DEFINE "atheists" as "people who are totally wrong about God" and, even though this is true, I can't show it is BY DEFINITION.

It's a cheap trick and while it is within one's rights to employ cheap tricks, it still makes you a vicious person.

This cheap trick can ALWAYS be done when you have a position AGAINST something.

If you want to expand your numbers, you can always attempt to claim "without X" equates to "a specific doctrine in opposition to X."

It would be like saying the Proud Boys are Antifa, since the Proud Boys do, in fact, reject FASCISM. They are not fascists (far left propaganda to the contrary), but that hardly makes them part of "Antifa."

If YOU are not a fascist, that doesn't make YOU a member of Antifa.

Similarly, if YOU are not (yet) a believer in God, that does NOT make you an atheist.

Atheism goes well beyond a mere "lack of belief" in God. It is an active, oppositional rejecting disbelief in God. The intellectual conviction is secondary at most to the willful conviction.