I loved your Starry, Starry Night piece. Especially loved your logic on the Three Wise Men: “…if they lived to the east and followed the Star to the east, they’d get further from Bethlehem rather than closer.”

I’m gonna go check out Ariane’s blog now, thanks for the link.

Theism, has its etymological root in Greek; particularly the word “theos” or “theoi”. If the time was taken to research the term, it is not necessarily even indicative of “god”, but just as often it indicates the first principles of divine presence.

Therefore, “theism” meaning anything other than “god”, “diety”, plurals, or principles of such, is in error. As another note, had you searched around, the term first arose as a philosophical position to countermand deism.

On another note, there is “monotheism”, which shouldn’t need to be explained. So why is there the necessity of having two words, of the exact same etymological root, for one thing?

First, what makes you think 21st Century writers and readers should be expected to understand and accept 17th Century meanings?

Living in the current era, with all the technological advents that make research/discovery possible, makes it such that not doing the “footwork” is no longer an excuse. That’s why; the information is there, at the fingertips, and your question is simply a copout, an excuse for apathy. The meanings were already established, period.

You seem not to consider yourself a mental gimp. Does that mean you are not human?

Oh yes, the agenda of absolute literalism. You understood the inference created.

Back on task: I notice you didn’t bother to take issue with the fact that I made certain points regarding the actual blog entry, and instead, went tangential.

It’s good to see neither of us have anything useful to say of atheism.

First, what makes you think 21st Century writers and readers should be expected to understand and accept 17th Century meanings?

Second, are you sure the term was “bastardized” in the 17th Century? Dictionary.com says it *originated* in 1670-80. If it originated then with the meaning you prefer, it must have been bastardized almost immediately to make it under the 1700 deadline.

Actually, without specifying which definition came first, the source gives both the one you like, “belief in the existence of a god or gods (opposed to atheism)” and the one you object to, “the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism).”

You seem not to consider yourself a mental gimp. Does that mean you are not human?

Fence sitters? Who cares about that sort of mind? If you can’t make determinations, you’re useless anyways.

Let’s go over this again: theism: the term is improperly used, all too often by so called “atheists”. Theism does not mean monotheism or deism. Theism means belief in gods. Deism is belief in a “supreme being” and monotheism is the belief in one god, particularly from the Judea-Christian or Abrahamic traditions, which also includes the Islamic faith.

The term theism was bastardised during the 17th century, and has never been rectified because … well, primarily because humans are mental gimps.

Atheism has become about mindless bashing of monotheistic doctrines in grossly asinine displays of near lunatic behavior. I wonder if anyone remembers the atheist group from Washington State last season, who made the big “todo” about having a Christmas tree in the court house? Those f*n fools went on television to ask for an official holiday that “honored the winter solstice” …. that’s called P-A-G-A-N-I-S-M, you cretins. Virtually every polytheistic, ancient religion celebrated some form of festival around particular solstices, the winter being one of them … and it was about GOD worship!!!

The bottom line: atheism is replete with idiocy, and quite rather pointless beyond making a fool of itself and its “membership”.

If you don’t support any belief of god/gods/religious doctrines, its better to just label yourself a godless heathen. Lumping in with the atheist ilk, just makes one look a bit foolish.

“Agnosticism is the only logically defensible position.”
Agnosticism is all about knowledge, not faith.
Agnosticism is the TOTAL LACK of (special) knowledge.

To call a lack of knowledge a defensible position against a “lack of belief” is as bizarre as calling a lack of knowledge of Algebra the same as the lack of a belief in Minerva.

The two concepts are strictly orthogonal.