Webster’s Dictionary is Biased Towards Christianity

Skeptical Freethought Atheist Musings to Dispel Ignorance and Enlighten the Mind

Posted at August 23, 2008 by Neece

Words and how you use them are very important. The pen IS mightier than the sword in many respects. For example, 99.999% of atheists are stamped with the militant label wrongly. People hear that word and then wrongly associate atheists with the idea that most of us are fighting and being aggressive against believers. With that one word, they’ve labeled us as waging a “war” against them.

This is ludicrous and terribly backwards. By labeling us, they have started the “holy war” against atheists. Not us. In my 39 years, I’ve never met a militant atheist. But I have seen and dealt with many militant, close-minded, hateful, fundamentalist religious folks.

So words are very important.

Hess was looking up synonyms for atheist on Dictionary.com for our new project (as you can see, we settled on Heaving Dead Cats) and pointed out something rather irritating.

atheist - noun:
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Then it conveniently lists synonyms.

Synonyms: Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings. An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity. A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.

Ok, this isn’t so bad. This is from Dictionary.com’s first listing.

But down near the bottom of that page, Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary has a quote about atheism:

Atheism is a ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness. –R. Hall.

Ok, I’m not trying to nitpick, but that quote is ridiculous. First, it’s completely false, and second, it’s negative and biased. When giving a quote that helps explain a word, wouldn’t it be more useful and more positive to use a neutral thought, or even a positive one?

The Online Etymology Dictionary in the middle of the page was able to do just that:

“The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell.” [Armand Salacrou, "Certitudes et incertitudes," 1943]

Ok, over to the Thesaurus tab and this is interesting as well.

atheist has 3 synonyms: agnostic, heathen, pagan.
Are you kidding me? Agnostic and atheist are 2 completely different ways of thinking. We’ll have to define heathen and pagan.

heathen’s second definition is: 2. an irreligious, uncultured, or uncivilized person.

Down to Websters’s to see how they list heathen:
1. An individual of the pagan or unbelieving nations, or those which worship idols and do not acknowledge the true God; a pagan; an idolater.

Now onto pagan:
1. one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks.
2. a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.
3. an irreligious or hedonistic person.

I’ve always thought of pagans as having many gods. But I see the term has come to mean not christian, jew or muslim. So in that respect it fits.

Of course, Webster’s is less objective:
1. An individual of the pagan or unbelieving nations, or those which worship idols and do not acknowledge the true God; a pagan; an idolater.