EDIT : Might as well throw agnosticism in there too.
I know the difference, but I read a lot. I’d assume atheists tend to have come to their position of atheism (as opposed to nontheism or agnosticism) through introspection and philosophy. And thus would encounter secularism and antitheism as separate ideas.
After the new atheist movement and the rise of atheism as a (minor) fad, I may be wrong. But yeah, I assume that atheists care about their understanding of the nature of the cosmos.
I think there’s a lot of brash young people who are looking to be contrarian and find an identity that they were missing, but don’t have the guidance and manners to be able to carry themselves in a more diplomatic fashion. I imagine they get there similarly to you, but grab the identity too quickly and attempt to embody the most extreme form they can.
Some probably do come from families or communities where religion was used to be hostile toward them for whatever reason or their desires did not match the requirements that the faith that was hoisted onto them.
Thus, when they left the faith, they had feelings of vengeance. Which is understandable, but continuing the cycle of unpleasantry to a different group of people doesn’t help anyone.
Thus, when they find atheism, they immediately go for anti-theism at the same time.
I think for me, I respect people that behave with the same attitude on both sides; you need to interact with and live in the secular , physical world and the ideas of the beyond are for everyone to keep private and respect the personal conduct of others.
Secular ethics help align everyone in a fair public moral structure and if your personal ethics give you additional obligations, that’s on you.
Descriptivism vs prescriptivism is going to play a role here.
I think all those terms are going to have hella blurry definitions.
Atheist is going to be the blurriest since even people who aren’t against the possibility of a god(s)’s existence refer to themselves with it. As do people who aren’t against “spiritual” but don’t believe in deities. Etc.
As for secularism, that’s a term that can be used to describe both personal religion/philosophy and/or political stance on religion in relation to society/governance. Not to mention that there are several different “secular” models of looking at the universe so there will be diversity within this term and some overlap with the other terms you mentioned
Also anti-theist as in:
- against the idea of the existence of deities?
- against the worship of deities regardless of existence?
- against theistic religion?
- against religions/spiritualities in general?
- against letting people believe in gods?
- that we should fight against and/or kill gods? (The best option ofc)
Do people have the same understanding of the words as you do? I don’t think anyone here can answer that because it depends on what definitions you’re personally holding to.
Do you think the average Protestant online community member understand the difference between Lutheranism, Methodism, and Baptist-ism? Or the difference between First Baptist, Freewill Baptist, and Primitive Baptist?
I mean the differences are useful at times, but mostly they don’t really matter.
Much of it is kinda up to the user.
Atheist can just be someone not paying tribute to the local dieties and agnostic just someone who has not yet attained gnosis.
Lots of peeps employing it when ragequitting the Nicene machine of late but that’s just one angle.
I think they do, at least where I live
