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From: fasgnadh@yahoo.com.au
A Brief History of Atheism - Chapter 1 "On The Origin of Specious"
"specious \ˈspē-shəs\
1: showy
2: having deceptive attraction or allure
3: having a false look of truth or genuineness :
sophistic
"It has become apparent that many Atheists are completely
ignorant of the origins of their ideology, and are not even
aware of it's tragic nadir, in the Atheist tyrannies of the 20th
Century.
As ignorance leads to fear and hatred, so abundantly evident
in the aforesaid Atheist Holocausts, and the posts of modern
atheists, I have prepared a short series to present a History Of
Atheism, beginning with it's Genesis;
“Ex nihilo nihil fit,”
"In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative
ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". The word began to indicate
more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring
definitions of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods,
ungodly" instead of the earlier meaning of ἀσεβής (asebēs) or
"impious".
Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as
"atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs),
"atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos.
The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and
Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to
the other.[1]
In English, the term atheism was derived from the French athéisme in
about 1587.[11] The term atheist (from Fr. athée), in the sense of "one
who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",[2] predates atheism in
English, being first attested in about 1571.[3] Atheist as a label of
practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[4]
Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic
... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of
calling himself an atheist."[5] Atheism was first used to describe a
self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting
disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[6] In the 20th century,
globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to
disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to
describe atheism as simply "disbelief in God".[7] Most recently, there
has been a push in certain philosophical circles to redefine atheism as
the "absence of belief in deities", rather than as a belief in its own
right; this definition has become popular in atheist communities, though
its mainstream usage has been limited.[8]
Footnotes
[1] Drachmann, A. B. (1977 ("an unchanged reprint of the 1922
edition")). Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Chicago: Ares Publishers. ISBN
0-89005-201-8. "Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots
and with Greek derivative endings. Nevertheless they are not Greek;
their formation is not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said
atheos and atheotēs; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness
correspond rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, atheos
was used as an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this
use is an old one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do
we find it employed to denote a certain philosophical creed."
[2} "atheist". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
2nd ed. 1989.
[3] Rendered as Atheistes: Golding, Arthur (1571). The Psalmes of David
and others, with J. Calvin's commentaries. pp. Ep. Ded. 3. "The
Atheistes which say..there is no God." Translated from French.
[4] Hanmer, Meredith (1577). The auncient ecclesiasticall histories of
the first six hundred years after Christ, written by Eusebius, Socrates,
and Evagrius. London. pp. 63. OCLC 55193813. "The opinion which they
conceaue of you, to be Atheists, or godlesse men."
[5] Armstrong, Karen (1999). A History of God. London: Vintage.
ISBN 0-09-927367-5.
[6] In part because of its wide use in monotheistic Western society,
atheism is usually described as "disbelief in God", rather than more
generally as "disbelief in deities". A clear distinction is rarely drawn
in modern writings between these two definitions, but some archaic uses
of atheism encompassed only disbelief in the singular God, not in
polytheistic deities. It is on this basis that the obsolete term adevism
was coined in the late 19th century to describe an absence of belief in
plural deities. Britannica (1911). "Atheonism". Encyclopædia Britannica.
[7] Martin, Michael. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge
University Press. 2006. ISBN 0521842700.
[8] Cline, Austin (2006). "What Is the Definition of Atheism?".
about.com.http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/
definition.htm. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
--
"Whether a man deserves to be called a theist depends on the
definition of the term ...
In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist
in the sense of denying the existence of a God.
I think that generally (and more and more so as I grow older),
but not always, -- that an agnostic would be the most correct
description of my state of mind."
- Charles Darwin, 1879
[20 years AFTER publication of The Origin of Species!!! ]
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/content/view/130/125/
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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