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As atheists, lets make the 'ism' of atheism obsolete

I get really fed up of the word atheism. I do not follow any atheism guide, for none exists, I do not follow any atheism dogma, for none exists, I do not follow any atheism manifesto, for none exists. In essence there really is no such thing as atheism. I am atheistic, I was born and raised without the crap of supernatural belief systems.

In Wiktionary, item 3 places the ism of atheism in a category with "overtones of dogma".

It's up to us atheists to encourage the obsolescence of the word, since it is based on falsities, just as the N word was eventually dropped from most reasonable language. Sometimes language self-corrects as the decades roll along, sometimes language needs a little help. Atheism is pushed upon atheists by the religious majorities of the world with the sole purpose of bad-mouthing us. Let's stop it.

Atheism is nothing, we atheists are by no means homogeneous at all as a group. Most of our character is determined by our upbringing during our formative youth years. Atheists are all over the place philosophically, economically, politically, spiritually (gag), many atheists even chose to not even dump the religious values pushed upon us for 20 centuries.

Edit: To be clearer, my gripe is not with the root of the word, I am absolutely fine with the atheos component... it is the "ism" component, the doctrine, the philosophy, it is an etymological issue.

Tags: atheism, doctrine, dogma, etymology, ism suffix, obsolete

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Schneider on October 15, 2011 at 1:25am

wow, i realize i just started another discussion on this same topic... without looking to see what had just been written. I apologize, but it makes sense to me that it is the same goal. Flip the word!

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on November 6, 2012 at 10:14pm

Right Amanda - I saw your discussion on this. It's very thought provoking.

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Permalink Reply by TNT666 on November 7, 2012 at 1:56am

Sorry, different topic. I have absolutely no issues with the word atheist. To me it's a perfect word and specifically does not overreach, it says exactly what it says... "I" do not deal with supernatural.

My beef with atheism is the "ism". Humanism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Objectivism, etc, etc, etc, All are unified ideas, written, disseminated, proselytised. It may be a fault of of language, but ISM requires some degree of unity of thought... not absence of unity thought. For me, atheists such as myself live by no such thing as atheISM. This ISM concept is the opposite idea of "free thinking", free means NOT being constrained by any ISM.

I have been a proud atheist all my life, through thick and thin, and I stand by it.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on November 4, 2012 at 10:01am

Thanks! I will continue to study this topic on what exactly Atheism means. I just thought of the meaning that you just don't believe in any gods or anything supernatural.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity, which implies that nothing exists but natural phenomena (matter), that thought is a property or function of matter, and that death irreversibly and totally terminates individual organic units. This definition means that there are no forces, phenomena, or entities which exist outside of or apart from physical nature, or which transcend nature, or are “super” natural, nor can there be. Humankind is on its own.

http://atheists.org/atheism

That definition would describe what I am - an Atheist.