The late Christopher Hitchens coined and promoted a word for those fighting the harmful and evil effects of religion.
Antitheist.
I'm a fan of Hitchens' work, but I was wondering if there was an even better word, so I did some digging.
Atheist is simply one who does not believe in any gods. It implies no action against religion. It's simply non belief.
It doesn't say what you are, but what you're not.
I am an atheist simply because I don't believe in gods.
Religiomist
contains mis. Mis is the prefix for misogyny and misandry, and means
hater of... I find religiomist awkward and unclear.
Also, it sounds like some kind of holy fog.
Misidiotate means hatred of stupidity. I'm a misidiotate but even I can't make that big a stretch to apply it to all religions.
Misotheist is hatred of a god or gods. I don't believe in them, so how could I hate them?
Mistheist is one who has little trust or faith in any religion.
It's
too bad this is already a word, because with the prefix mis, mistheist
should mean hatred of religion. That would have suited me well.
I'm
tempted to co-opt mistheist and apply hatred of religion to it, spread
it far and wide, and make it so popular that it becomes the new usage.
In its current usage, it's rarely used and mostly meaningless.
Mistheist,
(as hater of religion), is the only word I can find or convert that
would be better than Hitchens' antitheist. It not only states it is
against religion but why.
It seems to be these days that a group of people can claim any word to call themselves.
I'll cite gays as the first example that popped into my head.
If you think we should co-opt mistheist, let me know.
atheistthing@gmail.com
So, it's antitheist or mistheist. I prefer mistheist. It's one less syllable and has added meaning.
Hitchens, of course, found the best word available for use.
I think we should co-opt mistheist, no matter if we have to put the old meaning into disuse.
In
the spirit of Christopher Hitchens, I also claim the right to ridicule,
hate, and feel contempt for religion, for it has earned all of these in
the past and continues to do so.
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