Re: OT: God's loaded dice (was Re: semi-OT: Re: "defense of wilderness" (wasRe: lexicon))

[stEg r\oUt]:
> My Biblical History professor preferred to use the term "monolatry"
> instead of "henotheism", since "-latry" indicates 'worship of' (as in
> 'idolatry') and "-theism" usually 'belief in', so it's less ambiguous
Well, -theism only signifies belief when one is talking about absence,
presence, or number of (a) god(s).  Theos has nothing to do with belief,
per sé, though if one creates a belief classification that makes no mention
of the (non/)existance of god, it still might end in -theism, which has
become
more general purpose perhaps than it should have.  I always get the
impresion
that theists (that is, ones who are less educated about or exposed to
nontheism)
assume that atheists, etc., have a philosphy centering around the
absence of a god.  Though this is necessarily a part of their philosophies,
it
is not necessarily the central one.  A (Christian) friend of mine was
surprised
when I showed him material on nontheistic philosophies that only really
mentioned
god on the first page and spent all the time on social beliefs,
political/economic
stances, and such.  For example, Ayn Rand's Objectivism is not about its
atheism at all, though that is an element of it.  It has been a while, but I
can't
remember any mention of the idea of God in Atlas Shrugged.  The book, as
well as the philosophy, is essentially godless.

Jake