Is it time the Oxford Dictionary used a hyphen in the term Atheist?
Firstly,
this argument assumes that there are many people still under the
the misapprehension that an Atheist is someone that believes God doesn't
exist when in fact an Atheist simply just does not believe there
is one. However, I acknowledge that it could be possible that in fact
the majority of people on a much larger scale actually accept the true
definition of Atheism and there is just this minority of people just
making a lot of noise here and there.
Nonetheless, there are still several people including Atheists and Theists that appear to
have not quite grasped what an Atheist is. It is the Atheists that deny
the existence of a Theos that cause a public perception issue among the
Theists which in turn end up causing more antipathy from Theists to
Atheists which in turn cause more antipathy from Atheists to theists.
Moreover,
I am now going to try several different ways of breaking down what an
An Atheist is and perhaps provides one or more analogies. I will then elaborate on the subject of the hyphen.
- An Atheist is not someone that believes God doesn't exist. An Atheist is someone that does not believe God exists.
- An Atheist is not someone that has a belief that God doesn't exist. An Atheist is someone that does not have a belief that God exists.
- An Atheist is not someone that has a belief. An Atheist is someone without a belief.
- An Atheist is someone that lacks or is without a belief in God or Gods.
- An Atheist is not an Athe-ist. An Atheist is an A-theist. IMO the latter should also be the correct pronunciation just like in the same way asexual is pronounced.
Analogy:
Two
friends walk past a coffee shop. One goes into the shop and buys the same coffee they have every day. And the other person doesn't buy any coffee. So what we have here is one person with a coffee and another person without a coffee. The person with the coffee is the Theist; The Atheist is the person without a coffee.
As for the hyphen, I think this might be a good idea to use just to reinforce this misapprehension out of those folks that continue to redefine Atheist as an Athe-ist when in fact an Atheist is an
A-Theist.
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