Was surfing the net today... actually I was in the newsgroups and came across some sound bites from a radio show by a guy named Tom Leykis. Among other things, he talks about his atheistic ideas, and has callers debating with him all the time on such issues. One caller suggested that she didn't follow a religion, even said that christianity isn't a religion. After hearing that I realized I've heard that before. It's a defense that is becoming popular it seems. I guess people with theistic ideas are getting tired of trying to defend their ideals in the face of the escapades of certain religious zealots of the past.

Come to think of it, that's why religious people... well, by their own preferences we should now call them theists... that is why theists are into banning, burning and otherwise keeping information from the masses. When people are allowed to think for themselves and study what they want to study instead of just what they are told to study, they find out all kinds of neat shit. Ok, so it's not neat to find out that 'jihads' aren't exclusively muslim, and that we really can't think of 'crusaders' as gallant and chivalrous. (is that even a word?... yeah, dictionary.com is great!!) What's neat is being able to find out about that shit and study it if one so desires.

Anyway, they, theists, try now to persuade people that belief in any kind of order is in reality theistic. My brother, in those emails we sent back and forth, tried to use that tactic about basic right and wrong being theistic in general. Hmmmm, let's go to dictionary.com again....

atheism

\A"the*ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.] 1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.

Basically, an entity with thought processes and a purpose. When I hear the argument that belief in a system other than this, such as morality, is in truth theistic, I can always get the person to admit 'they' think there is such an entity and therein lies the difference between us. What they unknowingly try to get an atheist to admit to is in fact pantheism. A lot of it depends on your dictionary too. The American Heritage dictionary uses 'immorality' in it's definition of atheism, which is absurd. I've heard that argument as well, that adherence to morality confirms a belief in some sort of theism.