In a message dated April 13, 1998, DavidTietz writes:

Satanism, or Satan-worship, if defined as the deification of Satan (and 'Satan' representing the traditional notion of personified evil), merely states that Satan is the Satanist's 'god', and therefore is theistic by nature. One can worship anything- or anyone (high school crushes notwithstanding, though I was there once…) and claim that the object of devotion and service is a 'god' in a serious, philosophical and cosmic sense, whether that 'god' is YAHWEH, Zeus, Richard Wagner (I've met some!), earwig colonies (well, maybe not earwigs, but at least they exist) and, yes, ol' Satan himself. Such devotion, service and belief entail theism in a broad sense, since it is merely a version of god-belief. The concept theism is not limited to the 'good' gods, such as those of Christianity, Judaism, Islam (though I would take exception to this characterization), but includes any variant on the theme of god-belief (some people reportedly still 'worship' Elvis… Theism? I would that depends on the seriousness and the manner of the 'worship' in question: do Presley-philes truly consider Elvis as a god in a philosophical/cosmic sense? Okay, let's not go there…)

I know we've been over this subject a hundred times, but for the record, atheism is not defined as the rejection of god-belief. Atheism, in its broadest sense, is best defined as: absence of god-belief. This definition includes conscious, or deliberate, rejection of god-beliefs, but is not limited to such conscious, or deliberate, rejection. Under the rubric 'atheism' there are two broad categories: implicit atheism and explicit atheism (if I remember correctly, Bsmith5044 referred to the same concepts as 'weak atheism' and 'strong atheism' respectively in a post in the early days of this debate forum).

Implicit atheism is the absence of god-belief without deliberate rejection of god-belief claims. Ignorance of god-belief claims always results in this flavor of atheism. For instance, when I was born, I was - naturally - born an atheist, since I was born without any kind of god-belief, or theistic notions whatsoever. Since man is born tabula rasa - i.e., without any kind of a priori knowledge, opinions, beliefs or convictions, all individuals begin life as implicit atheists.

(This recognition has caused violent reactions among those I've argued with who hold that atheism is inherently evil and/or immoral, resulting in vehement protests from individuals claiming that they did not begin life as an atheist - albeit in an implicit sense. I would ask then, were they born with a god-belief? With no other way out, such individuals naturally - in desperation to flee the dreaded term to have ever been applicable to themselves - resort to attacking my definitions, since they fear that acceptance of this term to themselves is more cause for indignation than acceptance of such doctrines as "I was born a sinner"… Go figure….)

The explicit atheist is one who rejects - for whatever reason - all god-belief claims. There may be psychological reasons why one may reject god-belief claims - such as bad experiences in a church youth group for example, or emotionalistic reasons - such as "my wife ran off with the pastor down the street, so therefore I'll never believe in 'god'" (I'm sure that's happened), or for philosophic reason, of which I am an exponent. Explicit atheism presumes - essentially - that one A) is familiar with god-belief claims, and B) chooses not to believe them, and thus rejects them outright, for whatever reasons he chooses.

This is a very basic analysis of the concept atheism. Keep in mind that at no point does atheism offer any kind of positive belief on its own behalf. One can reject god-belief claims, yet there are still limitless things - both legitimate and illegitimate, that one can accept as knowledge. Atheism has no inherent belief system of its own, as has been correctly argued by many already in this forum. It is a position that concerns only one kind of claims: god-belief claims. As such, it is a negation, not an assertion.

I hope this helps.

Tindrbox

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