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Originally Posted by Botnst
, it is absolute: a-theism = without a theism. That doesn't allow room for selection or preferences.
Just as the opposite of atheism -- theism -- does not allow for unbelief.
I believe there are plenty of terms other than atheism to describe the various states of non-belief that a believer may have. These maybe heresy, apostasy, etc all of the way to antidiestablishmentarianism.
Are Dawkins, Hitchens and other atheists all of the same quality or measure of unbelief? I don't think so. My Dad (for example) was an atheist but I'd call him a sort of laissez-faire atheist. I have a sister who is a casual or unfaithful atheist -- dabbles in religious exercise every decade or so. In my own peculiar case, I step over the line into superstitious agnosticism -- Proof would set me free from a belief that tehre is more to life and death, than life and death.
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I think I disagree with your main point. For instance, I think a person can be a theist, but not a believer. Epicurus (the great enemy of early Christianity) was not an atheist, but he was also not a believer. He thought gods existed but would have nothing to do with us, since we would disturb the god's tranquility, so he refused to have anything to do with the gods. He's a theistic unbeliever. Similarly, I think a person today might be convinced by many of the arguments that theistic believers use to prove God's existence (holding that there is Supreme Being, or Uncaused Cause or Prime Mover) but reject all institutional religion and think that God is irrelevant to human life on the whole.