What is the difference between being an infidel and being an atheist? ?

Question

I don't understand the difference; neither believe in god... what is the difference in their beliefs?

Answer 1

The standpoint of the person doing the describing, essentially.

Etymologically it comes the the French or Latin for "not of the faith" or "un faithful"

Hence "infidelity."

Infidel, heathen, apostate, heretic...

You have to know where they are being measured *from*.

What's the difference between a rebel and freedom fighter?

Answer 2

Infidel is any person that is not Muslim. And atheists just happen to be one of them.

Answer 3

In infidel believes in the wrong god; an atheist believes in no gods.

And PLEASE stop referring to an atheist's beliefs.  An atheist has NO beliefs - that's the whole point.

Answer 4

Infidel means that you believe in 'God', but you belong to another religion that believes in 'God', a christian could consider a Jew infidel.

Being atheist means that you don't believe in the existence of a 'supreme' being.

Answer 5

All atheists are infidels, but not all infidels are atheist.

Edit:  Simple definition of infidel: "a person who does not acknowledge your God"

But from what I understand, Muslims don't consider "people of the book" (which includes Jews and Christians) as infidels.

Atheists and polytheists could be described as infidels by a Muslim or a Christian.

Answer 6

infidels believe in a god, just their beliefs differ from yours.

atheists think you're both nuts.

(assuming you are a theist)

Answer 7

an atheist is also an infidel but an infidel can also be seen as someone who does not share the same religious beliefs as someone else. say for example a Muslim/Christian/Jew guy will call me infidel because I base my religious beliefs on Hinduism and not on their religion but I am not an atheist because I do have some religious beliefs. in fact sometimes these three religions although having a mutual belief and respect for each other will say the other is an infidel because of some differences in belief.

Answer 8

Alright... Lets get this right and clear it up.

An infidel is a person who rejects a particular religion, doctrine, belief, system, etc. Not even necesarily the WHOLE religion- you could reject the idea of one commandment and be an infidel to the Christian faith, reject one of the five pillars of islam and be an infidel to the muslim faith, etc. Some christians would probably consider you an infidel if you believed homosexuality was okay. It's from the latin word 'infidēlis,' meaning, "a notion of being unfaithful or treacherous."

Atheism comes from the prefix 'a-' meaning 'without' and the root 'theism' meaning 'belief in a god or gods.' Atheism does NOT mean you have no spiritual beliefs or religion. That is false, and has been stoked very recently by kids who want to seem 'cool' by rejecting religion. Atheistic religions include buddhism, spiritualism, some sects of satanism, taoism, daoism, the list goes on.  That 'rebel vs freedom fighter' bit someone mentioned is a very good point. Who is and isn't an infidel is a matter of who's using the word.

There are two other related words you may want to be familiar with. One is angostic- that's the category I fall under. These people may or may not have religious beliefs, but for one reason or another, they choose not to worship or express their beliefs. It's often considered the 'middle ground'.They are usually just people who doubt the idea of religion, but can be people who simply have something against religious expression (I.E. people who think organized religion causes more harm than good.) The other is antitheist, anti (meaning against) and theism again- people who are actually AGAINST the belief in God, who believe theism itself is not just incorrect, but morally wrong.

Then again, these are just words, and word definitions are transient and VERY subject to change. The only goal is to get people to understand the idea you're expression. I'm just going by the book and the actually construction and roots of the words, which actually matches up well with the way they're used here (at least by the INTELLIGENT people here.)

Edit: I was wondering why people kept saying that infidel was a muslim word. Asked a friend, thats a mistranslation of 'kafir' which is specifically an infidel against muhammad and allah.

Answer 9

An infidel is what a moslim calls anyone who is NOT moslim.

An atheist is anyone who doesn't do invisible sky critter stuff.

~

Answer 10

I don't know- they both don't believe in our God but the infidel could believe in some other God.

Answer 11

All atheists are infidels to all theistic religions.

Some infidels are also atheists.

An infidel is someone who does not believe in the tenets of a given religion. They may still believe in God, but have a totally different idea of what god is/wants.

An atheist is somebody who does not believe in any gods, and so would be also be considered an infidel by theists.

Answer 12

The words are synonymous.   On e sounds more pejorative however.

Answer 13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist

Answer 14

"Infidel (literally "one without faith") is an English word meaning "one who doubts or rejects central tenets of a religion or has no religious beliefs", especially in reference to Christianity or Islam.[1][2][3][4][5]" - Wiki

Buddhism is a religion, is it not? I've known a few buddhist atheists.

And, to reiterate this point, atheists do indeed have faith in things. God just happens to not be one of them.

Answer 15

Muslims do not consider christians and jews to be infidel. they are considered people of the book and are respected.

Infidels are those who do not believe in the same god (Muslims belive jews and christians worship the same God as muslims). So idol worshippers/pagans during that time were considered infidel. Athiest are those who do not believe in god.

Christians anyone who do not belive in jesus as son of God as infidel

Answer 16

Atheists believe in nothing...Infidels believe in something that is different. Like for instance a Catholic in the 14th century would have not been out of place calling a Saracen an Infidel...wasn't because the Saracen didn't believe in anything but because what they believed was different to what the catholic church at that time believed.

Definition of Infidel: Someone who doesn't acknowledge your God.

Definition of Atheist: Someone who denies the existence of God or any God.

Answer 17

An infidel is someone not of the faith, which means that to a Christian, a Muslim is an infidel and vice versa; it means some one who does not believe in YOUR god. An Atheist, like myself, does not believe in the existence of any god.