Is There a Better Word Than ‘Anti-Theist’?

I’ve always liked “godless”.

What about this tongue twister, anti-theismist. A person that is only against theism, not the theist.

Nah, too complicated.

I agree. Anti-theist is explicitly meaning against theists. There are a million alternatives that are more accurate [for most]:anti-religion; anti-myth; anti-god(s); or simply, anti-theism.

How about going for “pro”: Pro-reality; Pro-secularist; Pro-human, for god’s sake 🙂

First of all, I reject the characterization of “bigot” whenever I hear it. Valid criticism of religion is never bigotry, and I bristle whenever I hear the characterization. One popular celebrity cult uses that thought-stopper at every turn – it’s obnoxious.

I agree that I don’t like “anti-theist.” I’m not against theists. Part of the reason why I’m so vocal is that I care for theists. If someone were to call me an anti-theist, I would correct them. I’m an a-theist.

Beyond that, I try not to get too bogged down by terminology. A lot of time can get frittered away in that debate, but in the meantime, quick-to-offense religionists will hear what they want to hear no matter how careful you are. *shrug* As kind and accurate as you try to be, someone will always get ticked off. (I’m fresh off being told how nasty “humanists” are. Paul Kurtz would haz a sad)

What about the common phrase Humanist? Isn’t that the point of humanism after all?

I’ve always been a fan of Post-theist. We’ve moved beyond those beliefs. As Laplace put it when asked by Napoleon where god fit into his system of the universe: “Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis.”

~R~

“Contra-theist” or “counter-theist” make sense as a term for someone who expends effort trying to counter the claims of theology.

An “anti-theist” to me would mean someone who believes in god but rejects god’s rules, such as a Satanic cult member…

How about “skeptic” or “pro-skepticism”? I’m not against religion, per-se, I am against the ignorant, uneducated following of dogma in a way that is ignorant to the damage it causes, and religion is not alone. Any sort of superstition, alternative ‘medicine’, or quackery is game.

She has a good point. Anti-religionist would be more accurate. It’s the institution of religion that’s the problem.

Many atheists don’t necessarily have a negative view of religion and that’s fine. But, if you want to express a view that religion is a negative force in the world (as I do) you need to do more than say your “pro-secularist” or something-or-other. You need to specifically target the thing you oppose.

I second the use of post-theist if another label other than atheism is needed. I think this is a positive term because it suggests that theism is a thing of the past, not in terms of adherents unfortunately, but in terms of utility and rationality.

Although non-theist is also a decent, neutral term.

Humanist works. If we’re anti-anything, in my experience, we’re anti-church; religion on its own, practiced privately, rarely has such unfortunate or widespread or dangerous ill-effects as organised, hierarchical faith.

I very much agree with the Claduia. There’s not much to say, and it’s not just a language / word-looking-bad type thing — the word is easily misconstrued to be “a person who is anti-theism” (correct, but still scary sounding) or “a person who is anti-theists” (which is very wrong, and quite scary).

The right word would probably be something that is anti + superstition | myth | knowledge. None of that sounds right, though. “Skeptic” is nice, but it’s not strong enough, in my humble opinion.

A more fair term would probably paint the strong characteristics of an atheist in a way that wasn’t dependent on other terms. Obviously, in this case, it’s very difficult — what is the positive way to say no-god, no-myth, no-superstition?

Pro-reason

When posts like this come up I am reminded of the loss of language of the movement over the last 100 years (approx)

theism – the beliefs and practices surrounding a specific deity (or deities)

deism – the belief in the existence of a deity (supreme being that is above the known laws of nature, or having influence directly over nature).

atheist (anti-theist) encompassed all deists, agnostics, pantheists, omni-deists and Atheists

Atheist – There is no god and religion is bad (anti-clericalism)

Humanist – a Renaissance cultural movement that turned away from medieval scholasticism and revived interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.

Secularist – ‘of the world’ summarized by let’s leave earths affairs to the earthlings.

Which is why the en Vogue American term “The Secularist Agenda” bugs me to no end.

I am more in favor of secularist than humanist since secularist gives everyone the power to state “keep thine religion out of thou politics” but considering the negative connotation it has collected I will firmly support the use of humanist for all sensitive situations.

I’m particularly fond of the label “freethinker.” It’s both positive and easy to explain in terms of what we really don’t like vis-a-vis religion. But more than that, I think we should focus more on clear and concise explanations rather than catchy new joy-joy labels that might end up just causing more problems (like, say, the “Brights”).

@JoshBA

I recognize there is a difference, I myself am an Atheist, and a humanist. But if the movement is to push forth under a less confrontational front then a more agreeable word might be chosen. Sure some meaning will be lost but so will the confrontation. It would be like a Catholic calling him/herself such to his Anglican neighbor, but referring to him/herself as a Christian in general discussion to prevent uncomfortable situations.

I don’t mind using atheist and anti-theist.
Anti-theist means you are explicitly against theism in all its forms, as someone who is, say, anti-smoking is against smoking in all its forms.
Atheist means that you do not follow a religion (and to me that is all that it means).
It’s unfortunate that the two terms get confused so much, and that because of the confusion we have to start looking at different words to use.

I guess you could use ‘humanist’ in place of ‘atheist’ if you want but IMO they really should be treated as seperate philosophies. Though I suppose if you’re looking to avoid using the term ‘atheist’, ‘humanist’ works alright in its place.

But it’s sort of a weird discussion for me, I’m lucky enough to be somewhere where religion holds very little significance (at least, where I am) so I don’t have to worry over the term I use.

@Raiki: I guess in a way all atheists are post-theist; we were theists, but we’re not now. To each their own, though.

“Independent”

Politics: a person who votes for candidates, measures, etc., in accordance with his or her own judgment and without regard to the endorsement of, or the positions taken by, any party.

Religion: a person who acts in accordance with his or her own judgment and forms his or her own beliefs without regard to the endorsement of, or the positions taken by, any religion.

Maybe the way to go about it is to use it as an adjective, rather than a noun.

Rather than saying:

I’m an anti-theist.

Say:

I’m anti-theism.

No-one says they are a ‘pro-choicist’, do they?

Also, I think some people are possibly slightly missing the initial point of the question – it isn’t to relabel atheists, but rather to relabel people who are completely against theistic religion, or ‘anti-theists’.

Labels are fashion statements — suit ‘em to context

I am the anti_supernaturalist to emphasize that atheism is too limited a response towards all forms of self-indulgent supernatural thinking. Also, I have no interest in being “friendly” to dedicated members of any of the so-called great monotheisms: zoroastrianism, judaism, xianity, and islam.

But words containing ‘a-’ ‘anti-‘or other privative prefixes do give too much credit to dominant mythic humbuggery.

Perhaps the best extant choice is ‘secularist’ since ‘secular’ enjoys a long history of being a clear antithesis to ‘sacred’ — and it is very important to emphasize that our Constitution creates a secular government.

‘Humanist’ also works because of its deliberate use by revolutionary thinkers to reclaim the works and rationality of Greek and Roman minds which xianity willfully destroyed between the 5th and 15th centuries of the common era.

And then I’m fond of ‘skeptic’ and ‘skepticism’ which have a positive connotation of being self-reliant, hard-headed . . . with a Bogart-like twist of noir. The ‘Maltese Falcon’ still enjoys an audience of otherwise conformist Americans.

Here is a fragment from that ill preserved scepticism of Xenophanes of Colphon, 500+ years before ‘Christ’ was invented:

The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men; then horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle. . . Xenophanes (ca. 570–475 BCE )

Once someone had thought that; then “God” was dead, as a cultural fact.

Sadly, most self styled atheists are as ignorant of Xenophanes as are fundies — there is no doubt that high culture can be erased. Nor can there be any doubt that today’s political scum like Palin et. al. want to destroy science, secular thought, and an open society. Religion can not be refuted; it can only be dismantled.

No matter what you call yourself — the de-deification of western culture (including the sciences) is our task for the next hundred years.

the anti_supernaturalist

A lot of the terms being thrown around (especially Humanist) are unsuitable. The definition we’re trying to pin a word on is something like “someone who thinks religion is a bad thing” or “someone who thinks we’d be better off without religion.” It’s quite possible to be a humanist, a non-theist, a religious independent, an activist, a secularist, and/or a freethinker while still thinking that religion isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

All of those words suggest that someone is (at least probably) not religious themselves, but have nothing to tell us about whether said person thinks religion is good, bad, or neutral.

The clearest term I can think of would be anti-religion. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but if we need a label for the group (which I think we do, since people are so likely to equate “atheist” with “anti-religion”) then I don’t see a better alternative.

As long as religion is priviledged, what you are asking is not going to happen. Questioning religion, a core belief of many (most?) is going to be seen as a personal attack. This may or may not be deliberate. So any term you use is going to attract a negative connotation.

If the goal is to lessen offense, it’s going to be difficult because people will find ways to be offended if they want to be. That said, what is wrong with using terms like skeptic or rational? Religious belief clearly is antithetical to those things. And a theist shouldn’t have any issue with that. It’s the whole point of faith.

“Secular Humanist,” “Bright,” “Freethinker,” and “Skeptic” are not good ideas. These are words that have different connotations than an opposition to religion. Perhaps you just assume all Secular Humanists, Brights, Freethinkers, and Skeptics are anti-theists — this is not necessarily true, AND it does not negate the fact that we need a term specifically for “anti-theist,” without all that extra baggage.

Whatever pet word you like to describe yourself with won’t work here. If we want to avoid the “anti-Semite” connection, don’t make it a noun. Say, “I am anti-religion.”

@NH

I don’t know. I’m a huge fan of Hitchens and I’ve always read his criticisms as being much more aligned with the idea that God himself and the actual beliefs of believers are harmful and immoral despite what these people claim.

These labels aren’t just a matter of conveying what you believe, but also what you think about what others believe (e.g. fundamentalist Christians) about multiple issues.

No single word can ever successfully convey the answer to all the following questions:

1) I agree with / disagree with / am ambivalent towards the moral positions of religion X.
2) I agree with / disagree with / am ambivalent towards others adopting the moral positions of religion X.
3) I agree with / disagree with / am ambivalent towards the “truth claims” made by religion X.
4) I agree with / disagree with / am ambivalent towards others believing the truth claims made by religion X.
5) I do/don’t tolerate individuals who identify with religion X.
6) I do/don’t eat babies. 😉

The core problem is (1) knowing who you’re talking to and how they define “atheist”, “humanist”, “secular”, etc. and (2) which of the above questions they’re trying to find answers to.

My advice: It’s plainly a bad idea to even try to summarize your positions on a range of issues (e.g. morality, claims about reality, tolerance of fundamentlism, etc.) with a single word. We would all be better served by trying to use complete sentences instead of one-word, ambiguous labels. 😉

The hate the sin love the sinner comparison to homosexuality doesn’t really work imo.

One’s sexual orientation is something you’re born with, whether you are a theist or not isn’t.

No matter what you do, you can’t alter who a person is, whereas you can change what a person believes.

Also, religion is an entity in a manner that sexuality isn’t.

Whilst there are things called Christianity, Islam, and the like, there is no thing in the same way corresponding to being gay.

I think religious people will see it as a personal attack, no matter how you phrase it. I’m not sure it’s inaccurate, either. The way I see it, an anti-theist is against religious people, that is, they are against people being religious. If a person stops believing, they cease to be a religious person.

Let’s proclaim loud and proud with a smile that we are atheists. It’s not a bad word.
The more we come out of the closet and make our presence known the more we will become accepted. We are not the bigots here!
Yes, some of us will be discriminated against or shunned but we will be the trailblazers for a future where reality rules.
Atheists are everywhere!

Anti-religion is negative and ugly and mean. Imagine the header of this blog with Hemant with the lovely smile if the title were “ANTI RELIGION BLOG”. Doesn’t really fit. Your name needs to say what you stand for. Otherwise you project a reactionary image, sounding like a political ad thrashing your opponent instead of offering your own proposals. Being anti something should be a consequence, like “oh, so you’re a *insert-word-here*… you don’t like religion very much, right?”

Rationalist. Using reason to interpret the world is the opposite of attributing it to supernatural forces.

Yeah but it excludes excitement, happiness, passion, love, and vision.

Overall, the arguments against humanist sound unconvincing.

it mostly doesn’t matter. they’ll call us whatever they want, and the theist-friendly media will go with their definitions, and not ours. look at the reproductive freedom movement. when was the last time you heard it called that, by a major publication or news programs? no, it’s “pro-choice” or more polemically “pro-abortion” (even though what reproductive freedom folks are about is way, way more than just abortion rights) vs “pro-life.” which is the most ridiculous and hypocritical term imaginable, given that the same people who are most vocally anti-choice in terms of abortion freedom for women also oppose birth control, and funding for actually birthed and alive babies who happen to have poor mothers and need things like medicine, food, and education. nope, to heck with those kids! those people say. if they were properly gawd-fearing from conception, they’d have had the good sense to be born out of xtian parents with big trust funds, and then xtian taxpayers wouldn’t be “forced” to pay $0.01 of their tax dollar giving them formula and a jack and jill book for school.

there are so many terms the american media, and public in general, utterly slaughter it’s just sort of pathetic at this point. in our case? we’re on the order of “anarchist” and “marxist.” which is to say, the people who throw those terms around, along with “atheist” like it’s some sort of “insult?” never read Marx (and certainly not in German); couldn’t tell you the first thing about the anarchist movement as a political history topic, and certainly have only read parts of their own holy books where most of us have read them all, or at least the relevant critique.

we could call ourselves “lovers of helpless babies-ists” and they’d still call us “satan worshipping baby eaters.” indeed, isn’t that the original intertube joke about atheists = “baby eaters?” the people in question are happily, willfully, arrogantly ignorant of fact, history, reality and are mostly addicted to a media stream like religious TV or a right wing newspaper.

stop trying to placate them. do you know the “Overton Window” concept? if not, look it up. by agreeing to their terms, you automatically begin the first step in the direction of losing the game.

i am an atheist. i am also a woman, a person of color, a “commoner” and a radical. i am ashamed of NONE of those labels, no matter how many ignorant TV watching know-nothings want to “slur” me with those labels.

if you share any of my views, or any that are unpopular with believers, you shouldn’t be either. be ashamed only makes it that much more easy for them to oppress you. MLK had something to say about that, as did Gandhi, and Susan B.

If this is a duplicate, so be it. I think it can’t be said too strongly. A rose by any other name….. No matter what name you come up with you will still be anti-theist. There is no excuse for folk that do not care or bother to understand words they are unfamiliar with.

There is no reason to sugar coat the truth, nor try to make it palatable to the most sensitive intellects.

Godless does not describe anti-theism. In fact, I can think of no term which does a better job.

Education is the answer to many of the ills brought by myth and delusion. Start with the name. The education of those who don’t know what atheism and anti-theism are is the right place to start. If you want them to understand your point of view by simply stating your ‘label’ then I think you’re going about it the wrong way.

I have yet to find a situation where I could simply say atheism or agnosticism and add to the conversation. Seldom, if ever, do I find believers capable of speaking in terms of large concepts, so the conversation necessarily has to be done in baby steps at their level. You can’t simply say that Pascal’s wager is hogwash; most often you have to first explain what it is.

Given the level of education/knowledge that I find in most believers, it is irrelevant what name you come up with as it will soon be stigmatized by ignorants, and a new name will be required so as not to offend the deluded with phrases they don’t want to take the time to understand.

I am the anti_supernaturalist to emphasize that atheism is too limited a response towards all forms of self-indulgent supernatural thinking.

I like that term, and “self-indulgent supernatural thinking” is spot on. Anti-supernaturalist seems like a good choice to me. I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as an anti-theist (it sounds so hostile), but I do think religious belief is a bad thing for the individual and for society. However, I have a broader focus on supernatural beliefs in general. Anti-supernaturalism is a much larger tent and includes not just gods, but also things like psychics, reincarnation, and healing crystals.

I use “freethinker”, as everyone is an anti-theist; Xians disagree with Jews and Muslims, and vice-versa in a wonderful three-way, and all religions disapprove of the wacky practices of all other religions.

It’s so not the same. As said above, gay people don’t choose to be gay. They can’t do anything about it.

In comparison – despite the indoctrination of children – religion is an entirely chosen mindset and behavior. People can lose it. It sometimes takes a lot of time and effort, but “ex-religion therapy” would actually work.

So of course this being a question I posed I was naturally out of the house for most of the conversation,*sigh*.

Lots of really good comments. I’ll just add a few thoughts:

– RE: It doesn’t matter –> I disagree (obviously). Words are made to communicate concepts and there are better and worse ways of communicating concepts. I think “anti-theist” is a terrible way of communicating opposition to religion because a person of perfectly good will can easily interpret it as personal dislike of theists. Controlling terminology can help define a movement. I think it’s legitimate to question the capacity of pro-active redefining (as the anemic “Bright” movement shows) but I still think it warrants discussion because if we don’t want that term defining us (and I sure don’t) we need to have another to respond with.

– “Humanist” –> Humanism is a philosophy that says that morality and human fufillment are possible without supernatural beliefs. So far as I’m aware it does not explicitly or neccesarily require anti-theism. I think you can be a Humanist without being an anti-theist and vice versa.
– Secularist –> I think this may be the closest fit. It exists in implied opposition to religion but it’s construction is more conceptual and therefore harder to interpret as personal against individuals. It’s not quite perfect because it doesn’t neccesarily carry with it the core opposition to the concept of faith-thinking, but no term is perfect.

And who said anything about gay?

You did. You know exactly where that ridiculous concept is applied to 99% :rolleyes:

In comparison – despite the indoctrination of children – religion is an entirely chosen mindset and behavior. People can lose it.

People can lose it, but they can’t choose to lose it. They only lose it by being convinced otherwise. I would argue that religion is not a conscious choice, particularly not since the vast majority of people are taught to believe in gods before they’re even out of diapers. I suppose losing religion takes a certain willingness to open your mind to new ideas, but it can happen even against one’s wishes. There are lots of stories of atheists who fought tooth-and-nail to hang on their faith, but ended up losing it anyway.

That said, I disagree with Robert’s comparison to “hating the sin, but loving the sinner.” I don’t hate religious beliefs. There are certain religious beliefs I find immoral, but I have no moral objections to their supernatural origin. I simply think the beliefs are false. And I find even the benign ones (like belief in a warm-fuzzy afterlife) to be childish and self-indulgent. Because of that, I think humanity would be better off without them.

Anna,

People can lose it, but they can’t choose to lose it.

It is my contention that once you are exposed to the information and take a stand on it- either to believe or disbelieve, you are making a choice. For example, when you say people hold on to their beliefs and then ultimate it is lost, at some point they decide to let it go once and for all. That is a choice on their part.

Antheist?

Change the prefix.

Counter-theist.

I think Claudia’s observations are right on the mark. Many times when I tell people I am an atheist immediately the defense of religion or religious beliefs comes into play. The believer immediately assumes I am anti-religion and seeking to convert them away from their beliefs.

Atheist, simply put, means a disbelief in a god, higher power, or supernatural being.

When we bring into the conversation religion or structured belief system, the assignment of terms and its assumptions becomes convoluted.

As the “new” atheist movement continues to unfold, there will be greater attempts by the theist world to divide and conquer the godless movement. One of those ways of doing so it to change the semantics and labels of those associated within the movement.

How often is “anti-theist” used by atheists in reality. A non-scientific Google search shows 255,000 results for “anti-theist” and over 8,000,000 for “atheist”. Is this actually more of a solution in search of a problem?

…and we’re back to this. I wonder why we don’t accomplish much.

I haven’t had the chance to read through all the comments, and likely won’t.

But I do like her letter and premise. It sounds like a good idea. It would be nice to be clear that most of us are mostly focused on the bad ideas and the harm they cause.

Not that I claim to have any good ideas offhand. Something about being anti-irrationality?

I too wish that there was a word representing anti-religion without the “anti” – However if enough of us rally behind it , then the same negative connotations will get transferred to it. For e.g. calling ourselves pro-choice hasn’t prevented the nuts from saying we murder unborn babies.

Theophobe?

To expand on what MV states, it actually does not matter because whatever new word you come up with, it will quickly obtain negative connotations.
Moral – immoral – amoral
the A in atheist never stood for anti, it stood for not.

example:
Once emancipate meant a boy child of 14. Then it was a released slave. Later it became a female who was permitted to make her own decisions about marriage/work/life. In the German language, it is now an insult. Females call other females an emancipate as an insult!
I believe the equivalent in American English would be a ‘ball-breaker’? (Sorry if that is a very bad phrase). The result is that young women are cautious about referring to emancipation, for fear of being misunderstood, as in: Oh yes, I am a brain surgeon, but I am not (shudder) emancipated!

Moral of the story – not until enough people are willing to shout “yes, we are atheist – you have a problem with that?” will the emotivity become positive.

I use Humanist, Naturalist, Realist and Atheist in conversations. Selection depends on the person to whom I am speaking.

Atheist suits me just fine until it gets labelled a religion, then I’ll call myself Non-theist.

I loathe anti-theist and consider secular humanism a nontheistic religion that they can just shove. It’s just so GD phony. Bright is as bad as anti-theist; well, not quite; just snobby instead of downright hateful.

I like freethinker and rationalist but let’s face it 9 out of 10 people in the nonthinking world don’t have clue one what these words mean. I also like Greydon Square’s Ex-tian but that only applies to some of us. I can use it to honestly describe myself but my daughter couldn’t.

We would all be better served by trying to use complete sentences instead of one-word, ambiguous labels.

Well said.

Right on, Boomer Chick!! Back in the ’70’s I was the only woman shooting baskets in the local Y and the guys tried to run me out of their gym on a rail. I did not allow this to happen and won most of their respect for standing my ground. Now we’ve got the WNBA. Things change. And being a trailblazer can feel pretty damned good. (Does it show that I’m proud that I stood my ground?)

Refusing to label myself as anti-theist isn’t because I’m placating them. I call myself Atheist loud and proud and always with a capital A. If I say Atheist and they hear anti-theist, that defines their bigotry, not mine. I’m not letting them define me. I am defining me. I am not someone who hates someone just because they believe in some kind of deity or deities. I can’t control their reaction. But I can control how I define myself. Besides, it’s hardly every theist who hears Atheist and equates it with anti-theist. If it were, I wouldn’t have any theistic friends.

I disagree that religion is a choice. No, it’s not like being gay in that it can change over a lifetime but, seriously, even when it is thought about, either a thing is credible to a person or it’s not. They either find it believable, probable or not.

If there’s one group who’s going to willfully misunderstand everything they possibly can about atheists and our opposition to religion’s corrupting influence on society, it’s theists. So I say screw ’em. They’re going to scream and moan and throw a fit no matter how many times you try to change your label.

Axe Girl,

I don’t want to hyjack the thread started by Claudia’s question but I will answer yours.

If coming to conclusions is simply a ‘choice’, then you’d have to say that you could have chosen to believe that the plane is safe…..in the face of evidence to the contrary

I don’t disagree with this statement. It is a choice either way in my opinion. Just as an atheist chooses not to believe in God despite the evidence and as a believer chooses to believe based upon the evidence.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that everyone is always consciously aware of the choice they are making but nonetheless it is a choice because once you have been exposed to the information you must take a stand on it and that in my view is the choice. People who don’t believe want to couch it as a passive process when it really isn’t.

The problem is that the argument is being twisted.

From a linguistic standpoint, “anti-theist” would be a definition for Satan – the one who opposes God. (Admittedly, that’s how some theists view all freethinkers, but that’s their problem, not ours.) “Opposing God” implicitly indicates a belief in said god.

Taking the viewpoint that there is no god isn’t the same thing at all. That’s why the term is “atheist” (from the Greek ????? (atheos), meaning “without god”).

If the goal is to emphasize that you are opposed to religion rather than simply define your lack of belief, then I would suggest anti-dogma. (Unless Alan Rickman is involved.)

I use the term nontheist to describe myself. Atheist is a term, in my mind, that has connotations of absolutely knowing there is no god. I cannot make that statement any more than I can absolutely state there is a god. Agnostic doesn’t do it because that gives the religious the hope that I will change my mind about joining them in the pew once I see the “evidence.”

I choose not to follow religion or a religious lifestyle. If incontrovertible evidence was presented to me tomorrow of a god I still would choose the my current world-view. I have no use for the crap peddled by religion and, thus, want nothing to do with the movement, no matter if deity exists. I’m a nontheist and I live my life that way: free from religion.

Robert,

It is my contention that once you are exposed to the information and take a stand on it- either to believe or disbelieve, you are making a choice. For example, when you say people hold on to their beliefs and then ultimate it is lost, at some point they decide to let it go once and for all. That is a choice on their part.

Yes, I know. You keep saying that, but that doesn’t make it true. I never made a choice not to believe in gods, and I couldn’t start believing in them even if I wanted to. The same is true for you, by the way. If you’re honest, you should admit that it’s impossible for you to choose to believe in other deities. Why is it impossible? Because you don’t think they’re real. You can’t choose to believe in something you don’t think is real. There’s no way you could choose to start believing in Shiva, for example.

exorcist

“nullifidian”

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nullifidian

I use nullifidian for myself when I can’t escape labels altogether. And I’m pretty vocal about my position. I’m not exactly militant though. I don’t understand how it would be possible to be anti-imaginaryfriend.

Realist works for me.

I wrote:

If coming to conclusions is simply a ‘choice’, then you’d have to say that you could have chosen to believe that the plane is safe…..in the face of evidence to the contrary

Robert W replied:

I don’t disagree with this statement. It is a choice either way in my opinion.

So, when there’s evidence that a plane is unsafe, it’s a ‘choice’ to believe it’s unsafe?

How is that a choice Robert?

Robert W wrote:

Just as an atheist chooses not to believe in God despite the evidence and as a believer chooses to believe based upon the evidence.

You only phrase it that way because your criteria for ‘evidence’ is different (and less rigorous) than ours. If i had a nickel everytime I heard a theist offer something like “the trees” as ‘evidence’ for ‘God’….

A good relacement for Atheist would be Transtheist: as in transcending theism.

I disagree ‘The name is Steven’. An atheist has no belief in gods. Someone opposed to religion is as much an atheist as a person who doesn’t care about gods or religion.