From: Jeremy Ulrey (julrey@amaonline.com)
Date: Sun Apr 26 1998 - 20:55:06 MDT
Warrl wrote:
> Atheism = a + theos + ism, absence + god + belief.
>
> The latter can be parsed from left to right (absence applied to god,
> then the whole applied to belief = an affirmative belief that there
> is no god) or from right to left (belief applied to god, then the
> whole applied to absence = no belief on the subject of god).
>
I think it's more appropriate to look at it from the POV that "atheism"
was defined as a reaction to "theism". Since theism we've all agreed
means "belief in a god", then atheism from this perspective would yield
"absence of a belief in a god". In other words, there's no reason to
suspect that the original Greek was consulted when defining atheism.
Think how little English would make sense if we had to trace the origins
of each compound word back to it's etymological source!
Jeremy Ulrey
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