Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 03/ 3/02 11:37am
In reply to:
Ben
's message, "I'll discuss it with you (why don't we kill our babies?)" on 02/28/02 5:57pm
>One example I have considered recently of this
>religious permeation is our language. If someone
>doesn't believe in God, he has a name: "atheist".
>But if someone doesn't believe in the god I made up,
>Baboo, does he have a certain name? No. He just
>doesn't believe in something that I have no evidence
>at all for. Yet our society has such far-reaching
>religious roots, everything is measured in relation to
>people who _don't_ believe in God. "Atheist".
>"Non-Christian". These words are relative... they
>assume that believers in God are right and others are
>wrong.
None of these terms assume that Christianity is correct, nor do the terms assume that any deity really exists. An “atheist” is simply one who does not believe in the existence of any deity, whether it be Baboo, Yahweh, or whatever (though some people for reasons of practicality define it as “the belief that God does not exist”). Not believing in the Christian deity does not necessarily make one an atheist (e.g. deists), and I don’t think I’ve seen usages to any significant extent that indicate the contrary. I personally have used the term “non-Christian” for practicality, merely to denote one who was not an adherent of the Christian faith (curious, how many others besides me have you seen use that term?). Instead of, “A question for the non-Christians,” suppose I put, “A question for the atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Confucianists, Sikhists, Animists, Satanists…” The latter seems rather verbose to me. What if I used new words in place of terms like “atheism”? How about I use “quompsnrugism” to denote the belief that deities do not exist, or “Pxyztlk” to denote those who are not adherents of the Christian religion?
Perhaps you are reading into these terms a little too much if you think these words automatically make such assumptions. But if you wish, I can use “those who are not Christians” instead of “non-Christians,” but I prefer the latter because it is more concise. Or do you think the former also assumes that Christianity is correct? In that case, how do you suggest that we Christian theists (or non-non-Christian non-atheists, if you prefer) communicate with the quompsnrugists and Pxyztlks?
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