Are people born inherently atheist?

[Willamena]

They're not mutually exclusive.

And yet, not the same thing.

 

[Willamena]

Even if we want to only go by people who can hold beliefs, we can be sure that any belief in one or more gods isn't one of the first and isn't even a meaningful belief with clearly understood concept until much later.

No matter how the game is played people start off without belief in one or more gods...whether looking at birth, 3 months, 6 months, 2 years old, etc.

The issue isn't whether they have or don't have belief, it's about the nature of "belief" itself. If atheism is to be defined in terms of belief, then belief has to be possible before atheism or theism can kick in. It's because the two terms are defined in terms of belief that this is necessary.

That's why defining atheism in terms of theism or theists doesn't work (for many).

 

[outhouse]

Someone with a more solid sense of reasoning and a better grasp of logic than most others.

While that may be so.

You are no one to judge me or what I find rationable or reasonale.


It is a fact that this definition is not narrow but yet the opposite, it is very wide and deverse. While most of what you say stands correct for certain individuals, otjhers can use the end's of the specrtum with reason

 

[idav]

I don't believe there is a default.

And no, "atheism" doesn't work to describe what you would like to be considered the default. That's part of what we are debating right now: How your preferred definition of the word fails.

It hasnt shown to be a fail. It shows to be consistent. The default position is indifference and atheism qualifies. People insisting that atheism be a belief does not consider those who prefer to reserve judgement. Insisting that atheists put faith that lack of evidence is proof of no god is a fail because absense of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[Willamena]

There doesnt need to be a default, there just is. I dont think atheism has to be that word but it works because it entails not having a belief in a specific concept. Just like if an unicornist became a prevalent belief, likewise the baby would be an a-unicornist.

There is no default, there's only definition.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You're playing around with logical divide-by-zeros.

“one objective of axiomatic set theory is to avoid classical paradoxes. One such paradox, the Russell paradox, arose from the naïve acceptance of the idea that given any property there exists a set whose elements are those objects having the given property, i.e., given a wff φx containing no free variables other than x, there exists a set that contains all objects for which φx holds and contains no object for which φx does not hold. More formally

(∃a)∀(x) [x∈a ⇔ φx]​

"
Takeuti, G., Zaring, W. M., & Takeuti, G. (1982). Introduction to axiomatic set theory (Graduate Texts in Mathematics Vol. I). Springer-Verlag.

[FYI: WFF= well-formed formula; pronounced “woof”]

In case this is unclear, it says that just because you define membership in a particular way does not make it logically possible (i.e., you could formally express it in some system of logic or set theory).


If you want to show my logic is wrong, or my set theory is wrong, you need only a truth table, or the formalization either of your definition in terms of classical logic or an extension thereof, or description of your set using the notation of merely naïve set theory.

You are armed instead with intuitive notions. This is not suitable for logic or set theory:

This comes up in mathematics all the time:
"the statement, "All seven-legged alligators are orange with blue spots" is true, since if it were false, then there would exist a seven-legged alligator that is not orange with blue spots. The statement, "All seven-legged alligators are black with white stripes" is equally true."

The note in the margin sheds additional light:
"Statements that to the ordinary mortal are false or meaningless are thus accepted as true by mathematicians; if you object, the mathematician will retort, 'find me a counter-example.'"

Hubbard, J. H., & Hubbard, B. B. (2002). Vector calculus, linear algebra, and differential forms. (4th ed.)

"Everything" in an empty set is still no items.

There is only one empty set and the intersection of the empty set with any other set has the same cardinality and members of the original set:

"The empty set: The symbol ∅ denotes the empty set, which is the set consisting of no elements at all (note that this set is uniquely defined)"
(italics and emphases in original)
Zeidler, E., Hackbusch, W., Schwarz, H. R., & Hunt, B. (Eds.). (2004). Oxford users' guide to mathematics. Oxford University Press.


Instead of arguing over informal definitions, why don't we try to formalize one you are happy with?

We wish to have a set T to which all theists belong and a complement to, T*, which consists of all people who are "not theists".

To express that some theist t belongs to the set T we write t ∈ T. The complement set is T* is defined
T ∪ T* = ∅
or the union of all theists with all non-theists such that this union is the empty set.

How do we determine what belongs in T?

Your definition was "anybody who believes in something they consider to be god". I tried to express that formally already but your response was:

Gish gallop.

I'll try again. A theist believes there exists an entity they consider to be (a) "god". Here's where it gets tricky. We wish to impose conditions to specify for some t that t ∈ T. For any arbitrary set A and for any condition imposed upon members of that set, denoted C(x), there must exist a set B which consists of every member of the set A for which the mapping C(x) holds. The problem is your definition doesn't have a single condition. Someone who simply believes in something is not necessarily a theist.

There are a few ways to do this. We could define each property separately and use the intersection of their these sets:

T1 = {t1 | t1 believes in something} (i.e., anybody who believes in something is an element or member of the set T1

T2 = {t2 | t2 considers something to be a god}

Then t T1 ∩ T2 T iff (if and only if) t ∈ T1 ∩ T2
or
T = T1 ∩ T2 = {t | t ∈ T1 AND t ∈ T1}

The first problem is that T1 adds nothing. We might say that "believes in" implies they believe something exists, but we can simply say that to be in T2 a member must consider something an existent god. The second problem (for you anyway) is that the intersection is unclear.

There are other solutions, but they all involve the same issue: we require a set or the intersection of several sets to form T, but for T or for any sets we use to form T, we must have a set S whose members are formed by applying C(x) to T and which has all the members of T and no members that are not in T.


If you are actually serious about a set of theists, you require a set that is created by a condition or set of conditions such that for every condition there is another set which has all and only the members of the set the condition was imposed on. So, for example, the condition "believes in" has one set and that set is not identical to the set "considers something to be god".

You don't have a set, because you have made the same fallacy Frege did by treating membership casually.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Newborn humans do not evaluate truth statements. And this conversation is about newborn humans, not adult humans. It's becoming quite comical how so many people are having a difficult time actually addressing infants in a thread about infants.

Maybe next we can start a thread about grapes, and we can have a bunch of people argue that grapes get you drunk because they get turned into wine.

I look forward to hearing you argue how merlot is "capable" of being champagne but grapes aren't.

 

[Magic Man]

Your inability to comprehend my points has no bearing on their relevance.

If such an inability existed, you might have a point. As it is, it's just an excuse to dismiss my comments without thinking about them.

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.

I've already pointed out how and why you're wrong. You handle it in your usual condescending, unhelpful-to-conversation tone (like the comments I'm responding to here), and so we get nowhere.

 

[Willamena]

I look forward to hearing you argue how merlot is "capable" of being champagne but grapes aren't.

Merlot isn't defined in terms of champagne, but both merlot and champagne are defined in terms of grapes.

 

[idav]

That's why defining atheism in terms of theism or theists doesn't work (for many).

That should work fine because the only reason the word atheist exists is because theists exist. If nobody ever thought of a god concept everyone would be atheist except that the word wouldnt exist. Theists get to define what god is and atheists dont have to agree and they dont even have to give it serious consideration.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I look forward to hearing you argue how merlot is "capable" of being champagne but grapes aren't.

I'm looking forward to the day when you put forth a sound and relevant analogy.

 

[Magic Man]

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."

You're missing the point. Here's the disconnect:

We're saying babies are atheists. You then say that's no more meaningful than saying rocks are atheists. The response about babies turning into theists is specifically meant to counter that comment of yours. It's more meaningful to talk about babies as atheists because humans can be theists where no rocks can. Even if a baby isn't capable of being a theist, it won't take long for it to be capable of it, while a rock will never have that capability.

The bottom line is the comparison to rocks and squirrels doesn't work, no matter how many times you say it.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

If such an inability existed, you might have a point. As it is, it's just an excuse to dismiss my comments without thinking about them.

I've already pointed out how and why you're wrong. You handle it in your usual condescending, unhelpful-to-conversation tone (like the comments I'm responding to here), and so we get nowhere.

I've no doubt you believe what you're saying.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

The bottom line is the comparison to rocks and squirrels doesn't work, no matter how many times you say it.

And the comparison of an infant's abilities to an adult's abilities doesn't work, no matter how many times you say it.

 

[Magic Man]

And the comparison of an infant's abilities to an adult's abilities doesn't work, no matter how many times you say it.

I'm glad you feel your incorrect opinion is fact.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm glad you feel your incorrect opinion is fact.

Ah, so I'm wrong that infants ablities are not the same as adults abilities. Interesting.

 

[Willamena]

That should work fine because the only reason the word atheist exists is because theists exist.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the only reason the word theists exist is because of a belief, and so the reason the word atheism exists is because of that same belief.

If nobody ever thought of a god concept everyone would be atheist except that the word wouldnt exist.

If no one thought of a god concept, the word theist wouldn't exist. Then according to your logic above ("the only reason the word atheist exists is because theists exist"), how could there be any atheists?

Note, the only reason the word atheists exist is because of a belief that people assigned the word "theists" have. No "theists," no atheists.

Theists get to define what god is and atheists dont have to agree and they dont even have to give it serious consideration.

Theists get to define what god is, what they are going to believe in, but atheists have to have theists do that before they can be atheists.

 

[Sees]

What is the arbitrary age where any ist or isms apply to humans?

To me, newborn is just a way of pointing out that people start out this way or that way. Doesn't matter if 2 hours old, 2 days old, 2 years old.

Reasoning, indoctrination, imagination, combination of them or others.... Human goes from atheist to something else at some age or possibly stays atheist or flops back and forth.

The greater question stays - is lack of belief/weak/implicit atheism valid atheism?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

A baby believes in no gods, which means he's not a theist.

Not according to any logical or set theoretic formulation of your definition.

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.

However, he would belong to the set of people who can say truthfully "all of my cars are blue". This is why the empty set is so vitally important and why membership functions (just like logical formulations in general) do not tolerate ambiguity, are frequently counter-intuitive, and insist that ridiculous statements hold true because they follow logically.

Your definition requires two conditions: belief in something and the consideration that something is (a) god. Those are two conditions, which means there necessarily exists two "condition sets". There is the set of people who believe in something. This consists of every member of the set "theists" for which this is true and only those for which it is true. Then there is the condition "considers something god". This consists of every member of the set "theists" for which this condition is true and only those for which it is true. Without these sets, your set "theists" isn't a real set. The problem is that the 2 sets formed by these conditions are not identical, involve informal expressions that entail other membership functions and sets, and are not easily formalized (does believe in mean exist? Does consider mean that there is an identity relation between something a person believes in such that this something is considered god? etc.)

It would be better if you formulated your definition so that it imposed one condition, or at least clearer conditions that can be formalized. For example, the set T of theists is defined as
{ t | t believes that (a) god exists}
That's easy enough to do. However, it means we don't need the definition "not theists". For any person x, if x is ∉ (not an element of) of the set of atheists A iff x believes no gods exist.

That's why you added the "considers" part.

So I can't say "I consider Darth Vader to be a Sith Lord" without believing that Darth Vader literally exists?

You can in exactly the way atheists can consider Zeus is a god.

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?

We can say that a person who owns no cars owns no blue cars. We cannot say of a person who has no idea that he owns any cars or what a car is that this person considers he owns no cars.

Again, you're playing ridiculous divide-by-zero games. When "everything" in a set is actually nothing, then we can just call it nothing.

It's such an essential feature of set theory that English books often still use the German Aussonderungsaxiom.

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.

That isn't how you defined members of the set. The function that maps elements or members to a set must be one-to-one. A person who "believes in something they consider to be god" is not a single condition because it entails that there is a set of things they believe in that is distinct from the subset of things (or the thing) they consider god(s). The only way to make this condition a singular condition would be to
1) Take out the consider part
2) Have a set consisting of any and all gods believed in

Either way, though, you end up capable of defining atheists as believing no gods exist.

And what number of gods is in this "everything"?

It doesn't actually matter, as the issue is your definition cannot be used until it is formulated logically or in accordance with set theory. You could do this yourself, but you don't know formal logic or set theory. So instead you insist that I am making illogical claims because formal versions of what you are incapable of formally expressing don't match up with what you want.

No mental state is required to "not consider".

So someone can believe in god but "not consider anything to be god"? After all, if no mental state is required what would preclude a person from believing in God and not considering that god exists?

But when that "everything" is actually nothing, it doesn't matter.

It does when it creates a logical contradiction.

How many gods does an infant believe in?

As many as they don't.

Every objection you raised is either irrelevant or flat-out wrong.

Great. Show me on a truth table.

 

[Magic Man]

Ah, so I'm wrong that infants ablities are not the same as adults abilities. Interesting.

It's no wonder we can't have a good conversation when you can't even understand what I'm saying.