amonokerism

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

What if I am a strong atheist who has not only seen a unicorn but milked one?
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-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:45:22
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] amonokerism

The ambiguities on words such as atheism and agnosticism is one of the reasons I coined this term (with help from Bob Seidensticker on the morphology).

As Bob explained it to me, the term atheist has a wide range of meanings, including the belief that there is no god and the belief that a god probably doesn't exist. To him, an atheist at its most basic is a person who has no god belief. He told me that a person who believes with absolute certainty in no deities is a strong atheist, and one who is less certain is a weak atheist.

I personally do not believe that gods exist, but it's not the case that I believe (with absolute certainty) that gods don't exist. He told me that (weak) atheist, agnostic, humanist and naturalist all work for that.

I've considered myself agnostic for almost thirty years, but have come to dislike it because it sounds equivocatory, it focuses my beliefs on gods, and because I am fairly certain that gods don't exist.

I coined the term amonokerism to get away from the image of an atheism who believes strongly that gods don't exist as well as away from theocentric terms and the other terms with their various associations.

In sum, it's intended to encapsulate the belief that gods can certainly exist, and that the person is willing to believe in them given proof, but that their likelihood is not great.

HTH
Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Nov 23, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: amonokerism
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is "amonokerism" atheistic or agnostic?  My mother told me that
> "amoral" meant "unrelated to morality", whereas "immoral" meant "not
> moral".  Would the definition work -- is it what was intended? -- if
> one simply replaces "atheism" in it with "agnosticism"?
>
> Joel
>
> At 11/23/2009 01:31 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>> FWIW, Urban Dictionary accepted my proposed meaning for my proposed
>> word amonokerism.
>>
>> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=amonokerism
>>
>> -----
>> The belief that unicorns do not exist. More generally, a form of
>> atheism that considers the proof that a deity exists to be no more
>> convincing than the proof that a unicorn exists.
>>
>> <From Greek a = not, monokeros = unicorn (mono = one, keros = horn),
>> ism = belief>
>> Since I cannot deny with absolute certainty that there are no gods,
>> I decided to go with amonokerism to explain my beliefs.
>> -----
>>
>> Amonokerist to follow.
>>
>> Benjamin Barrett
>> Seattle, WA
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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