Atheist? Moi?

In this morning’s Guardian, Ian Jack asks himself why he jibes (using the past tense formulation of jibbed, which is surely something that one did on a sailing boat) at being termed an atheist, when he doesn’t believe in god.

I don’t know why I jibbed at the word atheist. It may have been Jonathan Miller’s argument that non-belief in God is a narrow and entirely negative self-description that ignores all the other things you might either believe in or not, from homeopathy through necromancy to the Gaia theory. As a definition it belongs to the same dull category as “non-driver” or “ex-smoker”; not driving or no longer smoking, just like not believing in God, is an inadequate guide to the self. There are so many richer and more positive ways, or so you hope, to summarise your behaviour and beliefs and what you might add up to when the counting is done.
But after the nurse left with her questionnaire, I wondered about other motives for denying a truth about myself.

The article goes on to note that ‘atheism has a scorning ring to it’, and it is partially in this scorn that we must, surely, find the answer. The comments section proffers its usual mix of idiocy, arrogance, rudeness and not-quite-getting-the-pointness, but no-one seems to spot the (sacred) elephant in the room (and no, I don’t mean confusing belief with religion).
The prefix ‘a’ indicates a lack, a negative. Amoral. Aseptic. Atheist thus indicates an intellectual position on the existence of divine beings predicated on the individual’s lack of belief.
When a christian or a muslim or a jain calls me an atheist, they use the word as a pejorative, demonstrating that I, for some reason, lack belief. Lacking belief as a failure. I do not believe something which is (to them) palpably true.
When people ask if I believe in god, I reply simply that my belief system does not embrace a supreme being, or any other supernatural deity, before asking whether theirs does.
In the absence of proof (because if, for example, there was an omnipotent God in the manner assumed by so many, to ensure that its creations had no proof but relied on faith would be a breeze), to hold a position either side of the fence is an act of faith.
The reason atheist is such a poor term is its history. It denotes someone who doesn’t adhere to something palpably true. It is inadequate, patronising and intellectually barren as a term.
Don’t ask me what we ought replace it with, however … I haven’t worked that bit out yet!

8 thoughts on “Atheist? Moi?

  1. “to hold a position either side of the fence is an act of faith”

    Surely most “notheists” believe that the lack of a creator is the most logical position with our current level of knowledge and would alter their position should new evidence arise? Different to faith…

  2. Reading the article, it occurs to me that I, too, would object to the term “atheist” in the context of the question of what religion you espouse. Atheism is not a religion. It is not even a nonreligion, because – as I understand it – it is possible to be both bhuddist and atheist. It’s also possible to be theist without adopting a specific religion.

    Personally, I have no objections to the term, in general. I do to other people’s reading of it, though. My mother remains convinced that there are Satanic overtones to atheism – that it somehow means that you are against God. Is it possible to be against something that you don’t believe exists?

  3. Apatheism is an option that covers a lot of ground…l rhink many are actually apatheist rather than atheist but they dont know the word and the concept it defines..

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