The Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, defines antitheism as opposition to "belief in the existence of a God."
The Chambers Dictionary has three definitions for antitheism: "doctrine antagonistic to theism; 'denial' of the existence of a God; opposition to God." Though all but the opposition to God is true, it's more the opposition of a belief in God.
To elaborate, what a person believes isn't the issue, who are we to say what a person chooses to believe or not? Acting like thought police would make us as dictatorial as the most extreme theocratic regimes. What matters is what a person does with their belief, when it encroaches upon those uninvited and harms those not choosing to accept the ridiculous notions and perverted morals of religion, then by default, the faithful have made their faith the business of others.
So in short, to define antitheists, they are pro-active atheists, opposing religious harm. This distinction is necessary, as any antitheist/atheist will know from forums how vitriolic atheists are in declaring atheism as no more than having no belief in god or gods. We have pantheists, deists, agnostic atheists and even a very few theists joined with us in opposing religious harm. The theists among us can be counted on one hand and they are a very rare breed. (this has been misinterpreted by some theists as an invite to come and explain the context of their religious text, that is not what our few theists do.)
Since we are talking semantics, our theists are more deists with a personal god. I think the word ANTI is aggressive sounding, intolerant and presumptively taken that we are the least accepting group of atheists. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are very accepting as the paragraph above highlights, in many respects, we are more inclusive than the few atheist groups who call us "extreme." This is probably down to their not understanding our ethos and seeing us as disrespectful. In defence of the theists, to date every theist having posted some rant about how terrible we are, after having been directed to our info, have returned and apologised.
We do post material deemed offensive by some, but it's our space and the posts you share are to your spaces. This leads to the bumbling theist turning up on our page to defend their faith.
Theists defending misogyny, racism, murder, gay hatred, backward religious morals being applied to scientific advancement, only goes to prove the hypocrisy in calling us hateful.
Those declaring they do not agree with that part or this part of their faith are in many ways (and though a little contradictory to what i started with) the worst. They are accepting their faith as hateful and unjust, and if they think missing out the wicked parts, removes their responsibility, it does not. However morally correct theists may think their cherry picking to be, they are by remaining within the organisation adding their head as another number to be counted as in support.
So the theists declaring their opposition to the hateful aspects of religion, do not do a very good job. Remaining in support, is the strangest opposition to me, I would if a theist, keep my god and give the hateful organised religion I declare as so, the big elbow. That I COULD respect.
To finish with, since starting our group just over a year ago now, antitheists are in the main decent, fair minded people, that care ENOUGH about religious harm to do something about it. Students, mothers, fathers, people from all walks of life. We will be called hateful, you will be called extreme and intolerant.
This only proves the ignorance of those throwing such attacks around, or willfully ignorant, because they know deep down the bad religion, is very bad.
Sorry theists, projecting your crap onto us does not wash for a second, it's another dishonest aspect of yours. It's projecting all that your faith is and you know it, but so do we, it's the sad last ditch attack argument of a person without one.
The Chambers Dictionary has three definitions for antitheism: "doctrine antagonistic to theism; 'denial' of the existence of a God; opposition to God." Though all but the opposition to God is true, it's more the opposition of a belief in God.
To elaborate, what a person believes isn't the issue, who are we to say what a person chooses to believe or not? Acting like thought police would make us as dictatorial as the most extreme theocratic regimes. What matters is what a person does with their belief, when it encroaches upon those uninvited and harms those not choosing to accept the ridiculous notions and perverted morals of religion, then by default, the faithful have made their faith the business of others.
So in short, to define antitheists, they are pro-active atheists, opposing religious harm. This distinction is necessary, as any antitheist/atheist will know from forums how vitriolic atheists are in declaring atheism as no more than having no belief in god or gods. We have pantheists, deists, agnostic atheists and even a very few theists joined with us in opposing religious harm. The theists among us can be counted on one hand and they are a very rare breed. (this has been misinterpreted by some theists as an invite to come and explain the context of their religious text, that is not what our few theists do.)
Since we are talking semantics, our theists are more deists with a personal god. I think the word ANTI is aggressive sounding, intolerant and presumptively taken that we are the least accepting group of atheists. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are very accepting as the paragraph above highlights, in many respects, we are more inclusive than the few atheist groups who call us "extreme." This is probably down to their not understanding our ethos and seeing us as disrespectful. In defence of the theists, to date every theist having posted some rant about how terrible we are, after having been directed to our info, have returned and apologised.
We do post material deemed offensive by some, but it's our space and the posts you share are to your spaces. This leads to the bumbling theist turning up on our page to defend their faith.
Theists defending misogyny, racism, murder, gay hatred, backward religious morals being applied to scientific advancement, only goes to prove the hypocrisy in calling us hateful.
Those declaring they do not agree with that part or this part of their faith are in many ways (and though a little contradictory to what i started with) the worst. They are accepting their faith as hateful and unjust, and if they think missing out the wicked parts, removes their responsibility, it does not. However morally correct theists may think their cherry picking to be, they are by remaining within the organisation adding their head as another number to be counted as in support.
So the theists declaring their opposition to the hateful aspects of religion, do not do a very good job. Remaining in support, is the strangest opposition to me, I would if a theist, keep my god and give the hateful organised religion I declare as so, the big elbow. That I COULD respect.
To finish with, since starting our group just over a year ago now, antitheists are in the main decent, fair minded people, that care ENOUGH about religious harm to do something about it. Students, mothers, fathers, people from all walks of life. We will be called hateful, you will be called extreme and intolerant.
This only proves the ignorance of those throwing such attacks around, or willfully ignorant, because they know deep down the bad religion, is very bad.
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