Reply #125: 1984? Hyperbolic much?

[iris27]

Yes, if you look at my reply to the "five lights" post, you'll see I am rather familiar with 1984. However, I don't at all agree that the OP was trying to diminish the power of language. It seems much more likely that he was seeking precise meaning for the label that society gives his epistemological opinions.

It seems fairly obvious to me -- a person who's only been following the central debates on this board for a couple weeks -- that the OP is objecting to those who would claim that the term "atheism" means things it does not. Most of the atheists on this board are tired of being told that if we would claim the label atheist, it must mean Things X, Y, and Z that we don't believe.

We're told that atheists deny that any gods can possibly exist. We're told that we must not believe in an afterlife. We're told we are "eliminative materialists".

In fact, the only thing that all atheists have in common - and thus, the only thing that is an accurate definition for "atheist" - is believing in one less god than most everybody else. The rest are all separate issues described with separate labels - strong/weak atheist, skeptic/not, etc.

Maybe the OP stated his objection in a way you don't think is effective. But simply saying so, or even bringing up your parallels to Newspeak your first post in the thread, would've been much less disingenuous than starting in with all the "what about the full moon" nonsense.