aren't we all atheists?

Post Reply New Topic

I am not about to invent the name. Not that I could not - but anything I invented would not catch on. I am too out of tune.

I mostly critique other people's offensive terchnical terms.

Here's the way I see the agnostic / atheist thing:

The word "agnostic" means essentially "not knowing" The way I see it, that means we all agnostics, whether we think so or not. Nobody KNOWS if there is a god or not. I suspect Huxley had in mind something more like an active questioning of one view against the other, but just because he coined the word doesn't mean he understood it.

The word "atheist" means essentially "without religion" I am an atheist because I don't believe in a religion, a god, ghosts, homeopathy and fairies at the bottom of my garden. As mentioned above, I suppose this is implicit atheism. I suppose I would also be an explicit atheist insofar as I actively believe that assuming that there is a conscious creator critter is an inaccurate interpretation of the available evidence.

Obviously these are the definitions I choose to use and other people may have fairly different senses of what these words mean. But that's the nature of language: it's like sand that shifts under your feet as you walk. But because of the flexible nature of language, I think it's important to avoid jumping to conclusions about exactly what a person means when the meaning is not fairly clear from what is written or said.

There are any number of people who will tell you they KNOW the truth. But nobody KNOWS for certain. Thinking you know the answer does not mean you actually know it. There wouldn't be any need for discussions like this otherwise. (And yes, I know, I can't say for certain that I know this last paragraph to be true. )

unless you believe that all religions are a path to the same thing

http://www.beingjewish.com/conversion/b ... ewish.html


as Peter Griffin realised it takes alot of effort and comittment to being a Gentile convert. Such as abstraining from, Bacon for instance, obeying 613 commandments, and the Torah and ONLY the Torah as your moral compass,

Being atheist "to" this or that god
is a lot like calling yourself vegetarian because you don't eat MOST types of meat.

(A)theism- (Without) god

I love the quote you reference here.

I take the view that atheism must involve an affirmative decision.

Those who are too lazy to inquire into their own beliefs are not atheists--they're just lazy. Those who have exercised the mental effort to say, "This is how I understand the universe to be, and there is no divine presence in it," are atheists. People are not born atheistic. They become atheists when they consider and reject the cultural teachings that posit the existence of the divine.

Oh yeah and that

Well most broadly, atheism is the lack of belief in gods. (A) - Without.

This means babies are in fact atheists,
just as they are without beliefs in capitalism, feminism, and utilitarianism.

What you're talking about is explicit (reasoned) versus implicit (de facto) atheism.

There's absolutely no difference between me, a 22 year old atheist, and a 4 month old atheist,
except my conceptual ability to ponder what's commonly called god,
but possession of this ability is not a required qualification to be considered atheist.

^^^^

It depend on how you define atheism. Some modern atheists have defined the term in the manner you just described, usually in an overt attempt to make their own view the 'null hypothesis'. I find this to be a logically quite silly position, since it means that cats, dogs and cows are atheists too. The classical definition of atheist is the 'active' assertion that there is not God, which is just as much a claim as theism. The new definition that is put forward so often seems to be an attempt to escape the burden of proof attached to the traditional position. The result being the conquest of the concept of agnosticism.

Often I find this position quite disingenuous, since the atheist attempts to use the new definition, but then proceeds to make arguments that presuppose the classical definition.

Interesting read
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html (Cambridge University website on the subject)

Not at all. The very ROOTS of the word "atheism" are telling as to the word's "classical" meaning.
From your link:
More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. This is held to follow from its etymology: it stems from the Greek adjective atheos, deriving from the alpha privative a -,'without, not', and 'theos', 'God'.

I have no problem with the fact that cats, dogs, and cows are atheist. They also lack an infinite number of political and ethical beliefs.
One can distinguish between reasoned atheist and unreasoned ones by "explicit" and "implicit", which I mentioned before.

What word would you propose to use for someone who lacks theism?
Keeping in mind that the vast majority of atheists are simply that-
lacking belief in god.

The positive assertion that god cannot and does not exist is what's known as STRONG atheism.

As for atheists "making arguments that presuppose the classical definition",
do you mean that atheists refute theistic attempts to prove god?
Those are not arguments for god's non-existence,
but for skepticism on god's existence.

^^^^^

I would prefer the use of the term 'agnostic' to describe those who withhold belief. The use of the term atheist can be quite misleading. I tend to take the definitions used by most philosophy departments, coincidently, it is the definition that the average person considers correct. For instance, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the definition of atheism is 'the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God' (atheism and agnosticism, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/athei ... sticism/#1). This is echoed in the oxford dictionary. Also the vast majority of people who describe themselves as having no belief in God, also use the term agnostic (12.7% of the worlds population does not have any religious beliefs, only 2.5% describe themselves as atheist).

"Agnostic" doesn't refer to belief AT ALL, but to knowledge of truth value of a concept, or the position that such a value is knowable.
("Gnos" = "knowledge")

Most atheists ARE agnostics.
So are most theists.

There are also gnostic atheists, who,
under your proposal,
would be "gnostic agnostics".

"Negation of theism"- that's what atheism is.

The vast majority of people who describe themselves as "agnostic" absent of theistic belief are not aware of what the term "atheism" actually refers to, in my experience. Much like someone who doesn't eat meat yet refuses to describes themselves as vegetarian.