Why is that a condition?
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Are people born inherently atheist?
- Thread starter eggyolk
- Start date
Because if you believe in something that you consider god, you would be a theist, not an atheist.
Ah... but I wasn't proposing to believe in something I only consider to be god.
And to believe in god whilst considering god to be something other than god is just weird.
Since I am pantheist everything is god. So you agree, then your theist. If you dont consider anything god then your not theist. Everyones theism is personal as to what they consider god. Someone else considering your pinky toe god doesnt make you theist unless you agree.
Wrong. If there is nothing in which I believe in, it is true to say that everything that I believe in is god. For if it were false, there would be at least one thing I believe in that I don't consider god.
This is why the null set is singular (to prevent paradoxes like that of Russell's).
Belief in your definition is really superfluous. For one, it is implied by "consider" (I cannot consider something to be a god unless I believe it to be) nor is it the membership function that maps people into the set theists.
Your definition requires a theist to consider something to be god. This is key, because it is how you get around having to define god or saying that because some people believe the sun to be god, and everyone believes in the sun, everyone is a theist.
In order to be a member of your set "theists", one must consider something to be (a) god.
Which things, then, do infants consider not to be gods?
It may seem logical to think that having no beliefs is equivalent with not believing in anything that one considers to be (a) god. It is not. To see why, we can simply illustrate the case of infants and the truth values of the following statements and in particular the last
1) For everything that exists, there is not one thing an infant considers to not be a god.
2) It is not true that an infant believes in a single thing they don't believe to be a god.
3) Everything that an infant believes in they consider to be gods
You may recall that I talked about the null set and Russell's paradox before.
The negation of the statement "x believes in at least one thing x considers to be god" is NOT "x doesn't believe in anything". The example 3) illustrates why: if I don't believe in anything, my set of things I believe in is the null set. It is true to say of everything in that set that I consider it to be god, because there is nothing in that set I don't consider to be god (there is nothing in the set).
It doesn't matter. Everything an infant believes in they consider to be god.
"John has never flown anywhere. Every time John has flown, he has flown with God, Jesus, and Buddha."
Think of the only way a conditional can have a false true value- if the protosis is true and the apodosis false. If John hasn't flown ever, then any conditional of the form "If John flew...then..." is necessarily true.
If I believe in nothing, then everything I believe in is god. It's also not god, but that's the problem with your set. You could remove the belief part and just require I person to consider something to be god (and to exist).
It also implies that every time John has flown to France, he has also flown to Jupiter. Again, everything logically equivalent to a conditional (including a conditional) will always be true if the protasis (antecedent) is false.
We are capable of describing such a person as considering everything god just the way we can describe a fish as having never experiencing "dry".
You are saying that infants are theists. Your set "theists" requires belief in at least one thing considered god. Here is how one can be "not a theist"
1) One can believe in some things and consider none of these are god
2) One can believe in nothing and consider nothing to be god
Both require belief. The reason they do is because you have two mental states required: belief and consider.
Someone who has no beliefs can be truthfully said to consider everything they believe in to be a god, and someone who has never considered anything can truthfully say everything they've considered they believe to be god.
Then infants are theists. If they were not, one of the following would have to be true:
1) The infant believes in things, and considers none of them gods
2) The infant believes in no things, and considers nothing to be a god.
Neither holds. Therefore, no infants are members of your set theists.
It's very simplistic, and if we think about it simplistically then there's no problem. It's also not logically consistent. Your set is poorly defined as it logically entails that those with no beliefs AND those who have never considered anything are BOTH theists.
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Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
That makes no sense at all. Theists believe in things, and one of the things they believe in they consider to be God. Believing in things is a prerequisite of being a theist. If you don't believe in anything, there's nothing you can consider God, and you can't be a theist.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Number 2 doesn't require belief or consideration.
Legion your all over the place. Babies are atheist by virtue of theism being such an important word in our culture. Id actually prefer there not be a word like theist that way we dont have to do silly things like determine if a baby is atheist, aunicornist or an asmurfist. Babies are atheist only because a silly word like theist exists. We could have this same argument regarding unicorns however at least a unicorn can have somewhat of an objective representation unlike the allusive god concepts.
I will respond to that previous post when I get a chance (it got buried, alas!).
But yes, I do have a concept of god. And so do you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to meaningfully use it and understand it in context, which you manifestly do.
Why does there need to be a "default" and why should the word "atheism" be used to denote such a default?
9-10ths_Penguin has maintained that it is illogical and/or inconsistent to define atheists as denying any gods exist, and thus defining atheists as "not theists" is the only (or at least a) way to define them logically and consistently. I think it is ridiculous to consider theists in terms of set theory and logic, but if one is going to maintain that this is the reason atheists are defined as "not theists" then one has to understand what set theory and logic dictate, not simply demand that both apply when atheists are considered as a set and then loosely define the set "theists" and object when actual set theory and logic shows how absurd a definition is.
Logic demands that the conditional "If all unicorns are pink, then the moon is made of green cheese" to be true. It is true because conditionals are only false when their antecedents are true and their consequents false. Any time the antecedent is false, the conditional is necessarily true.
Ergo:
1) All infants believe in nothing.
2) If an infant believes in something, that infant believes in god
The protosis (antecedent) of the conditional is false, and therefore the conditional itself is true (that's logic).
Same with set theory. If the set of all theists is defined as anybody who believes in something they consider god, then
1) Someone who believes in nothing is a theist AND not a theist
2) Someone who considers nothing is a theist AND not a theist
This is because if one has no beliefs, there is no statement we can make about beliefs they have that are logically false. Also, if one considers nothing there is no statement we can make about what they consider that is logically false.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Sometimes I claim to believe in God, sometimes not. Sometimes I don't think the concept of God even makes sense, sometimes I do. Often I cannot say whether the word 'god' is a good word to use when pointing to things. Most of the time I don't care whether the other guy thinks I'm worshipping God or whether not. It's just his opinion.
Do I consider anything to be God? Depends on my mood, my audience, my reason for expressing myself at that moment regarding God.
I can even believe in God and disbelieve in God in the very same sentence.
For I am AmbiguousGuy and cannot say whether I am theist or atheist.
You're playing around with logical divide-by-zeros. "Everything" in an empty set is still no items. A baby believes in no gods, which means he's not a theist.
A person with no cars at all could truthfully say "all of my cars are blue", but this doesn't somehow magically imply that he actually has a blue car.
So I can't say "I consider Darth Vader to be a Sith Lord" without believing that Darth Vader literally exists?
That's right.
Doesn't matter. How many non-blue cars does a person with no cars at all have to own before we can say that he doesn't own a blue car?
Of course it's not. One implies the other, but they're not equivalent statements.
Again, you're playing ridiculous divide-by-zero games. When "everything" in a set is actually nothing, then we can just call it nothing.
The heart of the matter is this: "anything that a person considers to be a god" is a subset of "anything", so if a person doesn't believe in anything, then they necessarily don't believe in anything that he considers to be a god.
And what number of gods is in this "everything"?
But you still believe in no gods.
Yes, but this does not imply that John has ever flown to France or Jupiter.
Sure.
No mental state is required to "not consider".
But when that "everything" is actually nothing, it doesn't matter.
How many gods does an infant believe in?
It's defined just fine. Every objection you raised is either irrelevant or flat-out wrong.
I did (raises hand). Considering something to be is inferior to something being.
As I've explained, I have a list of discrete god-concepts, but no way to link them in one overall coherent concept. Do you?
When it comes right down to it, the only reason I have to say that the divine messenger Mercury is a god and the divine messenger the Archangel Gabriel isn't is because Mercury is on the "god list" and Gabriel is on a list of "things that are definitely not gods". Do you have any objective criteria that would include Mercury and exclude Gabriel?
They're not mutually exclusive.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Except for the fact that they are subset of people who are incapable of holdling beliefs. So including them in a discussion about holding and not holding beliefs is exactly as relevant as including rocks and squirrels in such a discussion.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Your inability to comprehend my points has no bearing on their relevance. Now, if you ever have an actual counter-argument to anything I've said, I'd be more than happy to read it and point out how and why you're wrong.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Only when it's no longer an infant. And, for the thousandth time (in case you missed it), this is a discussion about our state at birth - in other words, newborn. I realize that you'll just keep ignoring this point, but I'll keep trotting it out as long as you keep insisting on changing the definition of "infant" into "adult."