Totalitarianist

Every time I speak to a theist devil about the existence of God, the discussion quickly turns out to be, on the part of the theist, not a defence of God's alleged existence, but on the contrary an attack: an attack frequently on Atheism, and equally frequently on Atheists; and, on my part, the discussion turns out to be a needlessly lengthy one on the definition of the word "Atheism". There can never be progress until the theist devils admit that their arguments are based upon a false definition of the word "Atheism", a word which can be easily comprehended and correctly employed if they only had the mental capacity to infer from the simple definition of the prefix "-a" in the word "Atheism" a lack of belief in Deity.

Utterly destroyed! Wellnigh every single argument, utterly destroyed by the correct definition. Only when the theist devils accept the true definition of atheism shall they know that they cannot possibly win; they shall therefore refuse to accept it; they shall defend themselves by saying, "You are being pedantic", or "It is only a word. Let us not reduce this to a discussion of mere words.". However, discussion is futile when both sides are in disagreement with regards to the definition of the word which is the subject of the discussion, that is, in this case, "atheism". (The subject, by the way, is almost invariably turned into a discussion of atheism when it was originally a discussion on Deity's existence.).

It is absolutely pointless, therefore, to speak to theists when they refuse to accept the fact that Atheism is not a belief. Try forcing with all your might the meaning of Atheism a thousand times into the cranium of a single theist: it will always burst out his ears. He will refuse to accept it in every case: he will gouge out his eyes, stab pencils into his ears -- so as to be unable to hear or see the definition -- before he will accept it; he will hang himself before he will accept it; he knows in his kidney that he is wrong if he accepts it. (Actually, he is wrong to begin with, for he has not the correct definition of Atheism in the first place.)

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Totalitarianist
... theist devils ...

Have you been reading Bakunin again?

Totalitarianist

What! I absolutely despise that man!
To answer your question: no, I have not. And I do not remember Bakunin ever saying "theist devils".

Defiant Heretic

Once you have defined atheism as it pertains to the current argument, any attempt to argue against the false definition is fallacious (strawman and/or a red herring).

That being said, you have made mistakes in your diatribe. You are bordering on an ad hominem with your 'theist devils' comments, and you are making a generalization of all theists. I have known of theists who can accept the proper definition when explained, so if your argument is for all theists, it is false.

Try changing 'the theist devils' to 'some theists'. That's much better.

Totalitarianist

It is obviously a generalisation, and there is nothing wrong with generalisations. In my opinion, theists are by definition rotten; therefore that is not a generalisation.

Also, the fact that I refer to theists as "devils" does not affect the substance of my argument.

Sabine Grant

I agree... " some" is always a way to aknowledge the exceptions and often the minority.

Sabine Grant

It actualy does for this theist. Your focus on justifying generalisation and not accepting the wisedom Defiant Heretic suggested is damaging to your arguments.

Starboy

Totalitarinist, that is an easy one to fix. Make up a word to describe your lack of belief that is not commonly used like non-theist or pre-theist or whatever you like. You then force them to ask you for your definition. If they trot out their old tired and wrong definition of athiest just say, I'm not one of those.

Starboy

joedad

Sometimes talking about Magic can help a person understand.

There isn't a word that describes people who believe in magic, and nor is there a word that describes people who don't believe in magic. The nice thing about magic, though, is that we've pretty much all experienced it as both believers and non-believers.

joe

Shake

Nor is it a worldview as other theists would argue.

I agree that definitions to terms should be agreed upon before a debate (or during if you can get away with it). If you're talking to an Xian, you should make sure you know what flavor they are and what they think an Xian is/should be. I further agree that perhaps you should qualify your generalizations with "most" or "many" instead of "all" (implied or otherwise).