Hguols,
Atheism is an opinion held, therefor a belief.
Again with the equivocation; it's not an atheist's opinion that he lacks belief in gods; he simply lacks belief in gods. And lack of belief isn't a form of belief, it's the antithesis of belief.
Absence of an opinion is not a form of opinion - it is the antithesis of an opinion.
The believe definition included "to hold an opinion; think". Lets rephrase that....
Why? Why drag in another meaning of 'belief' to muddy the waters? As Aga said,
If you are sincerely trying to learn about atheism, then you are going to have to drop these ridiculous semantics games. Not thinking about X is a form of thinking about X.
I can see why you say that makes no sense - and it doesn't.... That is a correct general statement, and I agree with you in the way you put it.
Good. Glad you agree.
.....but there's one small problem.
And what's that?
When someone says "I'm not thinking about X", in effect, they are. Its impossible to mention X without it being somewhere in the brain.
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sigh> This is by far the worst of your equivocations so far. You're now trying to say that if someone asks you if you believe in fairies, you can legitimately answer 'Yes' because you believe in the word 'fairies', which does undoubtedly exist. That is a deliberate misinterpretation of the question which fools no-one.
Example:
"I have no opinion of Twangdillo" can only be true if:
- I don't know what Twangdillo is
- I've never heard of Twangdillo.
If Twangdillo was the name of the latest album by modern pop-combo Extreme Noise Terror, then I can legitimately say that
I have no opinion of it on the grounds that I haven't heard the album, even though I've heard of it and know what it is. Thus proving you wrong.
It's almost like asking, "Is fiction true?".
It's not fact, but its true that a fiction story is a story, and it does exist.
Same trivial semantic equivocation.
You seem to be asserting that atheism is a philosophical perspective which encompasses a particular worldview, as religions tend to do. If so, then please describe it briefly.... your answer will need to encompass the worldviews of such atheists as Lenin, Carl Sagan, Pol Pot, Jean-Paul Sartre and Donald Trump....
There are no gods. or We deny the existence of gods.
Is that brief enough?
That's too brief. Agreed, 'we don't believe in gods' is a defining characteristic of (agnostic) atheism.
So what other characteristics are there?
For the five categories I gave examples of, communism, environmentalism, fascism, existentalism and capitalism, I could give you five defining characteristics of those world-views.
So give me another four for the agnostic atheist worldview - bearing in mind that all those five people were atheists, so your characteristics must apply to all of them.
That's one of the trademarks of a cult - a group of people who define and redefine their own words.
We are not defining our own words. We're simply using encylopedia definitions because they are more comprehensive than ordinary dictionaries.
Don't you see what's seriously wrong with that statement? Anyone can redefine WIKI for one....
So what? There are other encyclopedias, I've got my own copy of Britannica, but it's convenient to use the best on-line one. And no-one's saying Wiki is perfect.
for another, it just looks like brainwashing
Now you're being silly. Using Wiki as a guide is brainwashing? Please. And who is doing this brain-washing, exactly?
or a super inflated ego
And now you're just being rude.
Gnu.
