How could there possibly be atheists if the god concept did not exist and there was no one saying that there are invisible gods out there? There is no word for those that don't believe invisible purple pugnits exist. Atheism, as in without theism, is predicated on there being theism.
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Are people born inherently atheist?
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How could there possibly be atheists if the god concept did not exist and there was no one saying that there are invisible gods out there? There is no word for those that don't believe invisible purple pugnits exist. Atheism, as in without theism, is predicated on there being theism.
Automatically, by default, universally even.
We all are disbelievers in concepts that have never been developed.
Without a concept of god, we would all be atheists without knowing that.
The word, the concept as such, sure.
The reality of atheism itself, no, not at all.
No, they don't. Terms are not useful that way.
I'm talking about relativity. You're talking subjectivity.
A "river" couldn't be less linear if it tried (most meander), but apart from that, I consider that a person failing to believe (i.e. not believing) is more essential than some ephemeral lack of belief.
It's not at all clear what you're talking about.
Splitting hairs between "failing to believe" and "lack of belief" seems to me to be a case of not seeing the forest for the trees, and I think it's presumptive of you to try to impose what you think is "more essential" on other people. The person who is communicating expresses their own judgement of what they consider essential.
To you.
See, that's relativity.
And it's not presumptive of you?
What significance difference is there between ____ and ____?
You are suggesting that there is an objective reality apart from an established, responsible and sound epistemology. I disagree.
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outhouse
Atheistically
Baby atheist a term to used to define our default position of not having theism.
It falls under implicit atheism, end of story. That is where lack of belief lies.
Those who object to the real definition, need to pick a exact age at when one can be called a Atheist.
A child born on a island is somehow raised alone, turns into a boy who turns into a man. A ship finds the man and says thank god your alive. the man says who what where when. The boat captain proclaims the man is an atheist. The captain is correct.
What you now need to do is determine at what age this person became an atheist, you cannot because he was an atheist since birth.
YOU! make it way to complicated.
It falls under implicit atheism, end of story. That is where lack of belief lies.
Those who object to the real definition, need to pick a exact age at when one can be called a Atheist.
A child born on a island is somehow raised alone, turns into a boy who turns into a man. A ship finds the man and says thank god your alive. the man says who what where when. The boat captain proclaims the man is an atheist. The captain is correct.
What you now need to do is determine at what age this person became an atheist, you cannot because he was an atheist since birth.
YOU! make it way to complicated.
To say that when we communicate, it's the person making the communication and not you (unless it's you who is communicating) who makes decisions about what they want to express? No, this isn't presumptive.
This promotes that terms are not subjective.
That will of course depend on what you fill the blanks with.
No. I am stating that all it takes to an atheist make is the absence of a belief in god.
Blanks.
What I said.No. I am stating that all it takes to an atheist make is the absence of a belief in god.
You realize you are not making sense?
Rather, from my perspective you're just not listening.
It didn't say rejected. It said disbelieve or deny. Theists don't disbelieve in the existence of a god, but they do deny that some gods exist. The "a" part is a more recent addition as for a long time God meant more or less one thing as far as literate English speakers were concerned. Thus to be an atheist was to deny Judeo-Christian god. Which is ironic, given that the Greek word was applied to Christians because they didn't worship the gods, and that's what atheos meant.
[?1555 Coverdale tr. Hope of Faythful Pref. f. iiiv, Eate we and drink we lustely, tomorow we shal dy. which al ye Epicures protest openly, & the Italian atheoi.]
1571 A. Golding in tr. J. Calvin On Psalmes of Dauid with Comm. Ep. Ded. sig. *.iii, The Atheistes which say..there is no God.
1604 S. Rowlands Looke to It 23 Thou damned Athist..That doest deny his power which did create thee.
1709 Ld. Shaftesbury Characteristicks (1737) II. i. i. §2. 11 To believe nothing of a designing Principle or Mind, nor any Cause, Measure, or Rule of Things, but Chance..is to be a perfect Atheist.
1876 W. E. Gladstone in Contemp. Rev. June 22 By the Atheist I understand the man who not only holds off, like the sceptic, from the affirmative, but who drives himself, or is driven, to the negative assertion in regard to the whole Unseen, or to the existence of God.
I only use dictionaries, in general, if at least one of three criteria are met:
1) It's a technical dictionary designed to define words rather than help someone understand the definition by reflecting common usages
2) Somebody else quotes a version of the Oxford Dictionary (I really am so pathetic that I look up words in the full OED whenever I can to read the etymology, development in usages, quotes of uses going back hundreds of years in many cases, etc.). I find that it's usually a better definition and if nothing else can get away from the idea that dictionaries tell you what a word means.
3) I think that the definitions given can help clarify the discussion when e.g., someone insists a definition is THE definition and it is either only one of many or isn't even listed.
In this case, the important point was more the issue of disbelieving or denying rather than a "lack of belief". The "a" in the definition is because unlike the time of many of the people quoted in the OED's definition as usage examples, today someone who believes in a god doesn't necessarily believe in the God of (primarily) Western culture after the advent of Christianity. Pagans would have been called atheists because they denied the existence of God, but they believe in a god so they are no longer considered to be so.
I was. There is a reason we don't have words for people who believe or do not believe in Russell's teapot as well as a host of other such examples. There's a reason that atheism has the ending it does - ism. We can certainly assert that atheism is merely lacking a belief in god such that rocks, babies, people who don't speak English and don't know the word "god", etc., are all automatically atheist but I have found that most of the time those who do such things seem to have ulterior motives. Hence the ludicrous proposition that without a clear definition of god one can't even assert that one doesn't believe in god or the not quite as bad claim that disbelief and a lack of belief are somehow equivalent.
Huxley coined agnostic for a reason: there wasn't an adequate term to define someone who didn't know whether god exists (and therefore can't be said to believe in god) but who didn't disbelieve either. Of course, there's no reason his definition must hold now (language doesn't work like that), but too often in discussions such as these all terms become meaningless in an attempt to dogmatically defend what appears to be some odd philosophical objection to having theists gain "the upper hand" in some way. When someone denies that there is a god, or believes that there is no god, or disbelieves in any god, then they can be said to be an atheist. I prefer to be more inclusive and say atheists also reject other spiritual notions but I would certainly not try to tell someone who believes in e.g., souls that they can't be an atheist. The primary, central definition is right in the word and it doesn't refer to souls, the afterlife, or other religious notions but to god. It has the suffix it does because it is a doctrine or a system of belief (it informs a worldview). It exists as a word because even today theistic worldviews shape our understanding, culture, concepts, language, politics, etc. It would make no sense in a region where there was no concept of god. It loses all meaning to equate it with an infinity of words that could exist if we wished to all waste time thinking of other things that exist at least in thought or which are made up on the spot and added -ist or -ism to make up words to define the denial of these entities.
To be an atheist is to make a statement of belief: "I do not believe in God (or gods)." We make the word meaningless by trying to pretend that babies are atheists because they don't have a belief about god. It's one thing to ask whether children (not babies) are inclined towards theology if exposed to it and will tend to invent at least some proto-theology or some spirituality, but it makes as much sense to ask if babies are atheists as it does to ask if they're communist or Buddhist or a creationist.
Me Myself
Back to my username
Objective is impossible for humans.
The second you know something it ceases to be objective.
But you dodged everything I said there :/
Words are coined as they're needed. Granted, if everyone were atheist it probably wouldn't occur to anyone to label themselves as such. This doesn't mean that a-pugnitism isn't a legitimate term. Prior to your post it might have been indecipherable, but now you've introduced us to the concept of IPPs the term is both legitimate and meaningful.
Of course they do. For instance, Christians disbelieve in the existence of Thor. Thor is a god.
And in case the capital "G" is important to you, Muslims disbelieve in the idea that Jesus is God... IOW, they disbelieve in a God.
But by the definition you provided, merely believing in one god (or even many gods) wouldn't make a person not an atheist.
I'm saying that regardless of its source, it's a bad definition that doesn't match how the word is actually used. Rather than cling to one part and say that IT'S right even though the rest is wrong, I suggest just discarding the definition and moving on.
The "denying" definition provided by the Oxford dictionary was probably written by a believer. Denying the existence of God appears to assume the existence of God or gods and that the people that deny such existence are called atheists. It is not a very useful definition as it misses the mark.
Atheists simply do not share in common held beliefs at is concerns God or gods.
Atheism means without theism, in other words, there is no commonly held doctrine shared by atheists.
There is no word for those that do not golf, the only reason there is a word for those that do not do God is due to the majority of believers.
Atheists simply do not share in common held beliefs at is concerns God or gods.
Atheism means without theism, in other words, there is no commonly held doctrine shared by atheists.
There is no word for those that do not golf, the only reason there is a word for those that do not do God is due to the majority of believers.