2007-05-05

Godless vs. Godfree

People who neither have nor desire to have any children sometimes describe themselves as childfree rather than childless. While both describe people without children, the latter implies the lack of something desirable while the former implies freedom from something undesired. Perhaps we atheists should refer to ourselves as godfree instead of godless, despite the latter having some comedic value in its irony. As a novel word, it would attract as much as, if not more attention than godless and would indicate our opinion that we don't need any gods in our lives.

Incidentally, I am both childfree and godfree.

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6 comments:

vjack said...

But children exist. I'm not just free of god; I'm godless because we are all godless.

David Mann said...

Yes, that's true, the words aren't quite equivalent. We are not all godless, however, if it's defined to mean "without a belief in any gods".

Anonymous said...

I personally don't see why the word godless is used at all.

The only way a person is less anything is if it first exists or if they lost it.

For all the people who don't believe in Santa, are they Santaless? Are they Santafree?

They're freakin' neither.

There should be no requirement to express either for something that does NOT exist!

I'm not dragonless or dragonfree, nor am I unicornless or unicornfree.

The entire use of "godless" only reaffirms to those who do believe that their belief is somehow true. The person who is less or free is minus what they have.

Fuck!

There's no fuckin' reason to give them that.

I would like to know if they spend any time referring to themselves as Easter Bunnyless, or Tooth Fairyless?

You know the answer.

I'm my own deity ... period.

Ask me ... are you a god? My answer ... yes. Therefore I am not godless or godfree.

Every humanbeing can and should answer the same way.

We are our own deity. There are no other deities. Period.

David Mann said...

I understand your comment regarding "godfree" but I completely disagree with you in your choice to refer to yourself as a deity. We are most certainly NOT supernatural beings, therefore we are not deities. It seems you are doing what you just argued against, i.e., dignifying religious terminology, and also giving the false impression that atheists worship themselves. I don't worship anything.

Anonymous said...

I don't actually think I'm a deity, but you have to define deity.

What is a deity? Is the term religious?

If you think D&D is a religious game then maybe I can see your point, but as far as I know the term deity is nothing more than a term that refers to something that really can't be defined. Something bigger than us, that defies out ability to understand it.

Do you understand me? Do you know everything about me?

When I say I'm my own deity, it doesn't mean I worship myself. It's more accurate to say we are our own deity.

The we is us ... all of us. Every human on the Earth. We are our own deity. It begins and ends with us, as we know it or at least as we can comprehend and reach.

Until we understand how to bend space, harness gravitrons, sail on tachions, etc., etc. Chances are we won't reach other inhabited planets or travel to other planes of existence/dimensions.

This is it.

The truth ... there are no deities, so we are our own deity.

Get it.

It's not about worshiping ourselves, other than appreciating every day that we're alive, treating each other like we want to be treated, staying in good health, and just being cool.

Peace.

David Mann said...

I don't have to define deity; you do. You're the one insisting that you are one. Until you do, you haven't said anything at all.