If you are atheist, should you be considered the anti-christ?

My friend is an athiest and i was just wondering if he is an anti-christ. Since technically, he doesn't believe in Jesus and that would be going against him, and going against Jesus is like being an anti-christ.... right?

 

To be an anti-christ, you'd have to believe the actual Jesus to be against him. To be atheist means to not believe in Jesus or any religion, not to go against him.

And lol anti christ.

 

Well as the Anti-Christ is one whom, according to the Bible, pretends to be the true Christ but denies his followers ultimate salvation, I doubt very much your friend is the Anti Christ.

And to clarify; anti-theism and atheism are very different.
-Anti-theism is when a person believes that there are no gods and that all religion is wrong.
-Atheism is when a person has no beliefs concerning god at all. They might agree or disagree with certain teachings of religions, but they deem the question of whether there is a god or not unimportant.

 

Aaah, okay then.

 

Your definition was correct Natewlie, I just felt a little clarification couldn't hurt.

 

I'm an atheist too and I am sure I'm no anti-christ (although I listen to Slayer and such) because there is (according to me) no Christ, so there is no anti-christ. There will probably have been a jew named Jezus (or Joshua) who came from Nazareth and became a priest like figure, but no son of god or miracles, IMO.

 

Your definition of Atheism is more of an Agnostic view, not atheist view. The prefix "A-" really does mean "not". So your definition of Anti-theism is pretty much Atheism. An agnostic person holds no real definition of God(s) and may view the question of creation as unimportant, and maybe even unknowable, in the grand scheme of things. Where as the Atheist would not believe in a supernatural power at all.

 

Atheism is the absence of belief in a higher power, Agnosticism is the belief that the question of the existence of a higher power is unanswerable by human beings. An atheist does not actively believe all religions are wrong, they just don't have a belief in any higher power.

Not theistic is not the same as anti-theistic. Example: I'm not interested in baseball, but I'm not against baseball, I'm not anti-baseball, baseball just holds no interest to me.

 

I am athiest to but not anti-christ...when you are anti some you dont want something to be there.... it could be that your athiest but still not have problems with chistians..

 

You can't believe there is no higher power, and yet think a religion which teaches the belief in a higher power is correct. Those two things are pretty much mutually exclusive.

An atheist does not necessarily have to believe that everything a particular church teaches is wrong (there are plenty of non-supernatural teachings, like helping others, etc. that can be universal), but they can't agree that their teaching of a higher power is correct. If they agree with that, then they aren't atheist.

 

Agreed, that's the difference between theism and anti-theism. Atheism is the absence of belief in a higher power, not the belief that there is no higher power.

[quote author=TirithRR]An atheist does not necessarily have to believe that everything a particular church teaches is wrong (there are plenty of non-supernatural teachings, like helping others, etc. that can be universal), but they can't agree that their teaching of a higher power is correct. If they agree with that, then they aren't atheist.
[/quote]
Agreed

 

No, atheist is a belief (using that definition loosely) that there is no higher power. That is the definition.

If you don't believe in any higher power, but don't believe there is no higher power, you are basically saying that this higher power that may or may not exist is unknowable. You are by definition agnostic.

 

The prefix 'a' means 'lack of'. If an atheist were to believe that there was no god, they'd be making leaps of logic just as theists do. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a higher power, not a belief that there is no higher power.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-definitions.html

 

Your own link just says exactly what I have.

If you deny the existence of a god, then you are saying there is no god. If I look out in my yard, and deny the existence of any trees in my yard, then I am saying there are no trees in my yard. If you deny something exists, you are saying it doesn't exist.

I have a feeling you are tip toeing around the idea that atheists don't believe in super natural powers because either you yourself cannot take that leap, and still want to refer to yourself as atheist, or you don't want to possibly offend those that do refer to themselves as atheist, yet may still hold the idea in the back of their mind that one might exist. But these "atheists" really aren't. They are agnostic, or jokingly, the doubtful atheists (much harsher words have been used to describe these agnostics before).

Yes, an Atheist and your "anti-Theist" who opposes everything religion stands for are two different things. But that doesn't mean an Atheist is not someone who believes there is no higher power.

Yes, that's what they do. And that's what separates them from the agnostics.

 

Actually I'm Agnostic. Most atheists I've talked to on the internet or otherwise tell me that that is the difference between atheism and anti-theism.
I should have said that the bits under the dictionary quotes were what I was referring to. Which is how atheists define themselves and their beliefs.

 

Precisely. If you look at all the evidence, it's pretty obvious that there is no god or anything alike, whatsoever.

 

I would most likely be considered Agnostic according to your guys' definition.

There is no undeniable proof that there is a God.
There is no undeniable proof that there isn't one.

Until there is proof on either side, God does or does not exist.

Going back to Loony's post. What if there were more than one man named Jesus that was crucified? What proof is that? How can we know for sure that if there were ONLY ONE man named Jesus that was crucified that the story must be true? That's like saying I'm the only Asian man in my town, and an Asian man was seen shooting someone at point blank, therefore, it must be me that shot that person...

 

Or an Asian man from out of town?

 

That's exactly my point. There's an infinite number of possible scenarios. How they can deduce or even infer from one instance is my point.