To the believers: to what to you attribute the growth in Atheism?

[BlueStreak]

32. Absense of a belief is not an "ism"

"ism" implies a formal organization / dogma / system, and that does not exist with speaking of rational thinkers.

My point, admittedly pedantic, is that the language has become bastardized, and that is intentional, I believe. People who believe in gods and goblins want to create the image of an organized army of "atheists" that are actively seeking to destroy the Good Christian Soldiers.

The root of this bastardization is etymological. "Theist" makes perfect sense. The theist does follow a particular doctrine in an organized, coordinated manner. The "atheist" does not. The word is simply a combination of theist with the prefix "a" meaning "not a theist". But those who want to paint themselves as martyrs personalize that by morphing that into "atheism", with the "ism" implying an organized belief system against the normal worship of the supernatural. But once again, that word is really just a combination of "theism" with the prefix "a", meaning "not a theology".

So my point is simply that the notion of "atheists growing in numbers" paints a false picture of an army of "atheists" out there evangelizing for their own theology. And that simply is not the case. There is no Church of the Guiding Non-God or such out there. There is no Sunday School for Non-Worshipers. And so on. Absence of a dogma is not itself a dogma.