> Atheism has historically been defined as the belief that there is no god or gods.
You won't find a modern atheist who knows his shit accepting that definition any more. That definition is 'traditional' in modern dictionaries because the religious had the power to determine the definition. Indeed, they specifically want the term 'believe there is no god' in there to liken the atheist stance to religious faith.
Unfortunately, most atheists are ill-informed about why this is a fallacious definition and just accept it, just like they accept it when religionists tell them that 'agnosticism is more reasonable than atheism'. However, the issue has made it into some atheist literature in the last couple of years, and hopefully the dictionary definitions will be less religiously biased in the future, especially as the chances are increasing all the time that the editors will at some point be knowledgeable atheists instead of indoctrinated religionists.
The original greek means 'without god', not 'without belief in god'. The fact that it has been manipulated down the line to include the word 'belief' helps to prove my point. The same religionists did other similar things too, like change the American national anthem and currency, and they've tried to change the science curriculum in schools, encyclopaedias to exclude tectonics, and to add 'god's standards' to the constitution.
Taking your erroneous analogy to further explain the point:
A religionist claims - I know redsox will win the game by 1000 points, because it has been written in a book, and this book is the truth.
The religionist has not used any evidence, statistics, knowledge or logic of the game - he may as well have pulled the result out of his ass. He's got no real rationale or basis to think that the book tells the truth; he believes it on faith because someone told him when he was a child that the score was true (and someone told him, and someone told him, ad infinitum).
An atheist just simply, and quite rightly, rejects this claim; he does not accept that the religionist knows the truth.
It is not the possibility of that particular score that is being rejected, it is the veracity of the information that is being rejected, although it helps that the claim itself is extraordinary, verging on ludicrous.
Note that the atheist isn't talking in absolutes, claiming that the sox definitely won't win by 1000 points. In fact the only person talking in absolutes is the religionist, because his claim is that the score is the absolute and only truth.
The atheist actually doesn't know what the score is going to be (some people incorrectly call that 'agnosticism'). However, he might be curious and use facts, statistics and logic to come up with some theoretical predictions of his own. But this pursuit has no bearing on his atheism - he doesn't need to make any claims himself in order to simply reject the religionist's claim.
Further, some other people who have also rejected the religionist's claim may agree with the atheist's theories, and some may disagree. Most atheists would just say that they don't know what the score will be. In fact the only sure thing any of these atheists have in common is that they did not accept the religionist's claim that he has the truth.
You won't find a modern atheist who knows his shit accepting that definition any more. That definition is 'traditional' in modern dictionaries because the religious had the power to determine the definition. Indeed, they specifically want the term 'believe there is no god' in there to liken the atheist stance to religious faith.
Unfortunately, most atheists are ill-informed about why this is a fallacious definition and just accept it, just like they accept it when religionists tell them that 'agnosticism is more reasonable than atheism'. However, the issue has made it into some atheist literature in the last couple of years, and hopefully the dictionary definitions will be less religiously biased in the future, especially as the chances are increasing all the time that the editors will at some point be knowledgeable atheists instead of indoctrinated religionists.
The original greek means 'without god', not 'without belief in god'. The fact that it has been manipulated down the line to include the word 'belief' helps to prove my point. The same religionists did other similar things too, like change the American national anthem and currency, and they've tried to change the science curriculum in schools, encyclopaedias to exclude tectonics, and to add 'god's standards' to the constitution.
Taking your erroneous analogy to further explain the point:
I'll rephrase it to illustrate what's really going on:
A religionist claims - I know redsox will win the game by 1000 points, because it has been written in a book, and this book is the truth.
The religionist has not used any evidence, statistics, knowledge or logic of the game - he may as well have pulled the result out of his ass. He's got no real rationale or basis to think that the book tells the truth; he believes it on faith because someone told him when he was a child that the score was true (and someone told him, and someone told him, ad infinitum).
An atheist just simply, and quite rightly, rejects this claim; he does not accept that the religionist knows the truth.
It is not the possibility of that particular score that is being rejected, it is the veracity of the information that is being rejected, although it helps that the claim itself is extraordinary, verging on ludicrous.
Note that the atheist isn't talking in absolutes, claiming that the sox definitely won't win by 1000 points. In fact the only person talking in absolutes is the religionist, because his claim is that the score is the absolute and only truth.
The atheist actually doesn't know what the score is going to be (some people incorrectly call that 'agnosticism'). However, he might be curious and use facts, statistics and logic to come up with some theoretical predictions of his own. But this pursuit has no bearing on his atheism - he doesn't need to make any claims himself in order to simply reject the religionist's claim.
Further, some other people who have also rejected the religionist's claim may agree with the atheist's theories, and some may disagree. Most atheists would just say that they don't know what the score will be. In fact the only sure thing any of these atheists have in common is that they did not accept the religionist's claim that he has the truth.
