Flaherty
9th October 2003, 07:08 AM
What do you call someone who is not religious? Is there a need for a new name for such people? And should not politicians acknowledge them?
The widely respected philosopher Daniel Dennett and a number of others this past summer pushed for the adoption of a new term to signify someone who holds a naturalistic (as opposed to a religious) worldview. Dennett defended the need for such a term by noting that a 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that approximately 25 million Americans are atheist, agnostics, or (the largest category) have no religious preference.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/WhosCounting/whoscounting.html
The widely respected philosopher Daniel Dennett and a number of others this past summer pushed for the adoption of a new term to signify someone who holds a naturalistic (as opposed to a religious) worldview. Dennett defended the need for such a term by noting that a 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that approximately 25 million Americans are atheist, agnostics, or (the largest category) have no religious preference.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/WhosCounting/whoscounting.html