{"id":67,"date":"2015-10-25T15:45:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T15:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/?p=67"},"modified":"2015-10-25T15:45:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T15:45:16","slug":"final-thoughts-on-dictionary-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/2015\/10\/25\/final-thoughts-on-dictionary-atheism\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Thoughts on Dictionary Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t particularly want to spend more time blogging about the absurd concept of \u201cdictionary atheism\u201d. However, the following argument\u00a0from someone in the Pharyngula\u00a0comment section manages to capture how inane this whole perspective is<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The question isn\u2019t whether or not atheism, in some fashion ***does*** impose moral requirements, but whether or not it **should**. Whether its merely enough to throw out one made up excuse for doing wrong \u2013 i.e., religion, which lets one pat oneself on the back for doing both good and evil, in the same breath, because \u201csomething\/someone else\u201d defined them both as \u201cgood\u201d, or if, by necessity, we need a rational, and sensible definition of right and wrong to go with it. Whether or not we can make any useful claim at all, about anything, by saying \u201catheist\u201d. Because, if there is no fundamental difference between having a belief in mythology, and abandoning it, with respect to how we act, or fail to do so, then\u2026 what the hell is even the point of arguing for the abandonment of such ideas in the first place?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At its core, consider how childish the above argument is. I have visions of\u00a0a spoiled kid thumbing through the dictionary and telling his parents to change the definition of words because he doesn\u2019t like their current meanings. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if I decided to blog about words and concepts I don\u2019t like and demanded that\u00a0we change them to mean something more to my taste. If you’ll indulge me, let\u2019s just go ahead experiment with\u00a0this exercise.<\/p>\n

I don’t particularly like the meaning of nihilism. It’s an awfully depressing concept. It should be more positive, don’t you think? Let\u2019s give it a makeover. From now on, nihilism will be defined as the desire to give everyone in the world free ice cream on a regular basis. The world is a brighter place already.<\/p>\n

What other words can we tinker with? Nazism is a horrible worldview, so let’s get rid of it. It should instead\u00a0be about promoting human rights, kindness, universal healthcare, and free education. Can we all agree on that definition? Terrific. Let’s move onto the next one.<\/p>\n

How about Islamism? I\u2019m not fond of this concept. Like atheism, it doesn\u2019t offer the tools we need to promote social justice. I would suggest changing the definition to include only\u00a0those values I personally want to spread, but that would be redundant at this point. As you know, I have already appropriated Nazism for this purpose.\u00a0We should probably change Islamism to mean something else anyway, given that it\u2019s at the root of so much human misery. Off the top of my head, Islamism is now a type of supernatural\u00a0creature. Specifically, it\u2019s a unicorn that farts rainbows. I\u2019m not actually married to that one, so feel free to leave your suggestions.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I think you get the point. The notion that a group of people can put all of the ideas they value into an ideological soup and just call it “atheism” is pure slapstick. It’s the premise of a comedy sketch, not a serious argument. All of the values these people suggest we crowbar into the definition of atheism already have a label, and no one is preventing those ideas from being promoted alongside atheism.<\/p>\n

We cannot just change the meaning of words we don\u2019t care for. Pointing out that rather obvious fact should be uncontroversial, but nothing seems to be uncontroversial these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t particularly want to spend more time blogging about the absurd concept of \u201cdictionary atheism\u201d. However, the following argument\u00a0from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":68,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4,6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism","category-featured","category-secularism","category-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}