Labels: Atheist/Vegan - Why are they scary to some?

[Neptual]

My friend states that she doesn't believe in God, nor follow any religion, yet she denies that she is an Atheist. Is this possible?

She can deny it all she wants, but by definition she is an atheist. Perhaps it's because atheists have a bad name that she wouldn't want to associate herself with the group.

[EquALLity]

My friend states that she doesn't believe in God, nor follow any religion, yet she denies that she is an Atheist. Is this possible?

I'm pretty sure it isn't possible, unless she's lying about not believing in 'God'.
If you never eat meat, but don't identify as a vegetarian, you still are one, because all it takes to be a vegetarian is to not eat meat.
All it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in 'God'.

[brimstoneSalad]

If you never eat meat, but don't identify as a vegetarian, you still are one, because all it takes to be a vegetarian is to not eat meat.
All it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in 'God'.

Unless you really want to eat meat. In which case you you just happen to have a vegetarian diet, but are not necessarily a vegetarian.

Atheist/Theist is rather the other way around.

While "vegetarian" is the more restrictive term, referring to people who don't eat meat, in this case "theist" is the more restrictive, referring only certainly to those who believe in AND worship a theistic deity, or at the most liberal, only to people who believe in the existence of such a deity. If you don't, you default to an implicit atheist in the very least.

[Soycrates]

"theist" is the more restrictive, referring only certainly to those who believe in AND worship a theistic deity

I don't think an anti-theist is by default an atheist. If you believe in a God, but hate them and do not worship them, I by no stretch of the imagination would call that person "not an atheist". Why SHOULDN'T theism be simply a belief in Gods, when there are plenty of theists who do not abide by any particular organized religion (or at least claim so)?

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't think an anti-theist is by default an atheist.

I think you're mixing up naturalist and atheist, and supernaturalist and theist.

There's a good argument to be made that you are an atheist, unless you have a god. That is, you can believe in whatever beings you want, as long as you don't regard one or more of them as your gods.

If you believe in a God, but hate them and do not worship them, I by no stretch of the imagination would call that person "not an atheist".

I agree, I was saying that they would be atheists (although, also anti-theists). Unless they believed in and sided with Satan (or another) and regarded him as their god. I know a number of atheists who believe the beings that other people call 'gods' exist. (they're not scientific naturalists, but they are atheists).

Remember, 'god' is much more a title than it is a class of beings; the recognition itself is in a sense of form of reverence and worship.

Atheists have no god. You can believe that YHWH exists, but yet not have YHWH as your god.

Essentially a henotheist, minus the theist part.

Atheism is a term that has endured for thousands of years in various languages with regards to indifference to divinity without necessarily disbelief.

Gautama and Epicurus were both atheists; Gautama because he advised against following the gods (the Devas) because they were also not fully enlightened, and likewise trapped in Saṃsāra. Epicurus because he recognized any position of divinity to be removed from suffering, and thus indifferent to humanity- that they had nothing to do with our world, and so shouldn't be regarded as important, followed, or worshiped because they don't care.

The idea of somebody actually not believing in these things at all is rather a modern innovation, allowed by the age of scientific enlightenment.
Now not only may atheists regard the wills of gods as not important, but non-existent.

Why SHOULDN'T theism be simply a belief in Gods, when there are plenty of theists who do not abide by any particular organized religion (or at least claim so)?

You're sending mixed messages here.

The problem is it lacks rigor or usefulness, which are key aspects I use to qualify as definition as valid.
"A belief in Gods" is undefined, it's a naïve and ignorant definition, because what 'gods' are is itself undefined, except with respect to their worshipers. It's not useful to qualify a person by what they believe when you won't even characterize that belief.

Defining something by appealing to something undefined is shortsighted and ignorant at best.

I believe the Pharaohs existed. I believe in the sun, does that make me a theist? I believe in hurricanes, and black holes, and quasars. There are many god-like things in the universe, and probably better than those too.
For supernaturalists (not all atheists are naturalists), that line becomes even murkier.

What is a spirit? What is a god? It's a matter of perspective. Further still complicated by muddied translation, and variable usage.

The notion you're buying into has been mangled so by a few centuries of theistic hegemony, and the idea that YHWH is so good and so powerful that the only reason you wouldn't worship him is if you didn't believe he existed, or fell in with the devil.

That's where we got the idea that atheists just don't believe the being that is called god exists at all.
Which is sometimes the case, particularly in light of the popularity of scientific naturalism. But not always.

You're an atheist if you are not a theist. And what a theist is, is a bit more limited than a mere matter of the vague belief that something not clearly defined exists in some meaningful sense.

[EquALLity]

If you never eat meat, but don't identify as a vegetarian, you still are one, because all it takes to be a vegetarian is to not eat meat.
All it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in 'God'.

Unless you really want to eat meat. In which case you you just happen to have a vegetarian diet, but are not necessarily a vegetarian.

[EquALLity]

And

[Volenta]

Notice the word 'abstaining.' Abstaining means you're voluntarily holding back from performing a certain action.

[EquALLity]

^I was about to something along the lines of, "I guess that not eating something doesn't necessarily mean that you are abstaining from it though."

[Red]

If you go to my school and say to someone that you're an atheist, you are fucking shunned from society. You are lower than shit and dirt mushed together. (Okay maybe not that much but you get the idea)