WHAT IS AN ATHEIST?
Since the question "what is an atheist?" frequently comes up, and since there seems to be some confusion, here are a few basic facts.
We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that statements such as "X is a Christian" and "Y is an Atheist" are similar statements. Yes, they are grammatically identical, but logically they are very different (aside from being theologically different).
The "a-" prefix in "atheism" and "atheist" is the negative prefix in Greek, and it means simply "non-," "not." Atheist means, then, "not a theist." And that is ALL it means. (A "theist" is one who has some belief in a deity or deities.)
Therefore, to say "So-and-so is an atheist" is not an affirmative statement, but a negative one. It is like saying "So-and-so does not own a Ford." Or "So-and-so does not eat peanut butter." Or "So-and-so is not a Hindu." From these negative statements it is not justifiable to draw any further conclusions about So-and-so; there is no affirmative information in those statements.
To put it another way, such a statement is not saying that so-and-so is a member of the atheist class, because there is no such class. At least, there is no such class about which any meaningful statement or generalization can be made. It is a class only definable in terms of the theist class, and thus it is not a meaningful class. That is, the only thing that atheists (non-theists) have in common is that one characteristic: non-membership in the theist class.
Hitler was not a Hindu. I am not a Hindu. Do you know anything more about me or about Hitler, from those statements? Do those statements imply any further characteristics he and I may have in common? No.
Even the characteristic of non-belief in God can take many forms. Some atheists affirmatively deny God: "There is no God, that's for sure." Others say: "I have no belief in God because the evidence I have seen so far does not, in my view, warrant such a belief." Still others say: "I don't believe in God, because if I did I would have to act differently." And others say: "I don't give a damn, one way or the other."
Since none of these people have a belief in God, they are not theists. Therefore, the term a-theist (non-theist) is appropriate for them, even though the term tells us nothing more about their beliefs, their morals, or their lives than that one bare, negative fact.
So, don't lump atheists together. Atheists are not a group. We have no common beliefs, no scriptures, nothing necessarily in common except the lack of that one belief.
To say that "Z is a Christian," however, provides us with a great deal of information: Z is a theist, a follower of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament (however they may be interpreted). We can get a general idea of what Z believes by reading those scriptures on which the Christian religion is based (although our idea may be mistaken in some details). Z can theoretically be evaluated as to how "true" a Christian he is by how correctly he interprets his scriptures and by how closely he follows the precepts of his religion. For atheists, however, there is no such standard. It would be ridiculous to say that "X is not a very good atheist" or "Y is a true atheist."
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