Are people born inherently atheist?

[outhouse]

Actually, that is not quite correct. A weak atheist may conceivably not be an apatheist.



Technically correct. Yet that amounts to saying that a strong atheist is also a weak atheist.



If we take as a premise that it is important to distinguish between atheism and theism, I suppose it might be.

Not only that no description of implicit or explicit atheism.

 

[ArtieE]

I could, but it's unnecessary. Weak atheism is agnosticism, so atheism as a term is applicable to those who don't believe in gods.

That's what I'm arguing.

What nonsense. Atheism is about belief agnosticism is about knowledge. Agnosticism is the absence of knowledge of gods. Agnosticism is the view that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge or sufficient rational grounds to justify either belief: that there exists some deity, or that no deities exist. When we talk about beliefs we only talk about theists/atheists. If we wanted to say that a person was a weak atheist because he reckons we don't have enough knowledge to believe either way we would call him an agnostic in addition. As stated earlier, there are even agnostic theists!

Agnosticism for Beginners & Agnostics - Basic Facts About Agnosticism & Agnostics

 

[Valjean]

and we're off to the races...

Isn't agnosticism the positive assertion that it's not possible to determine the reality of God?

 

[Curious George]

What nonsense. Atheism is about belief agnosticism is about knowledge. Agnosticism is the absence of knowledge of gods. Agnosticism is the view that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge or sufficient rational grounds to justify either belief: that there exists some deity, or that no deities exist. When we talk about beliefs we only talk about theists/atheists. If we wanted to say that a person was a weak atheist because he reckons we don't have enough knowledge to believe either way we would call him an agnostic in addition.

Agnosticism for Beginners & Agnostics - Basic Facts About Agnosticism & Agnostics

But wouldn't you say that infants lack the knowledge?

 

[ArtieE]

Actually, that is not quite correct. A weak atheist may conceivably not be an apatheist.

True. When I say "A weak atheist and say that this guy doesn't have any beliefs about gods and couldn't care less about gods." I tried to drive the point home. Just delete that last bit if you like.

Technically correct. Yet that amounts to saying that a strong atheist is also a weak atheist.

It says that both weak atheists and strong atheists are not theists and therefore both atheists. The difference between the atheists is that one is "weak" and one is "strong".

If we take as a premise that it is important to distinguish between atheism and theism, I suppose it might be.

It is important to distinguish between weak atheism, strong atheism and theism. It might be insulting to a weak atheist who just have no beliefs either way to be confused with a strong atheist who believes there are no gods. I bet many weak atheists are tired of being put in the same category as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and asked to defend their views when they don't have them.

 

[ArtieE]

and we're off to the races...

Isn't agnosticism the positive assertion that it's not possible to determine the reality of God?

No, agnosticism is the view that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge or sufficient rational grounds to justify either belief: that there exists some deity, or that no deities exist.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism#cite_note-RoweRoutledge-2 Your definition is of "strong agnosticism".

 

[ArtieE]

But wouldn't you say that infants lack the knowledge?

Yes they do. But the definition of agnosticism is that "agnosticism is the view that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge or sufficient rational grounds to justify either belief: that there exists some deity, or that no deities exist." An infant doesn't have this view. It is a positive assertion requiring knowledge of gods.

 

[Curious George]

and we're off to the races...

Isn't agnosticism the positive assertion that it's not possible to determine the reality of God?

No, apparently like atheists, there are strong and weak versions. So far, I have gathered that Jupiter is unemployed, all rocks are atheists, but not all atheists are rocks, Kilgore's trout is an atheist but refuses to read on account of having one eye; penguin feels surrounded by strawmen but legion can't help because he doesn't see any stinking strawmen, and truth be told this is just another atheism vs. agnosticism vs. non of the above thread, with the interesting caveat that the winner gets all the babies.

Kind of reminds me of this:
"Mind Match" by the State from Greatest Comedy Sketches

 

[Curious George]

Yes they do. But the definition of agnosticism is that "agnosticism is the view that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge or sufficient rational grounds to justify either belief: that there exists some deity, or that no deities exist." An infant doesn't have this view. It is a positive assertion requiring knowledge of gods.

But I thought that was strong agnosticism?

 

[ArtieE]

But I thought that was strong agnosticism?

No, agnostics say that you lack the knowledge to say either way, strong agnostics say you never can get the knowledge to say either way.

 

[Curious George]

No, agnostics say that you lack the knowledge to say either way, strong agnostics say you never can get the knowledge to say either way.

But don't babies lack knowledge to say either way?

 

[ArtieE]

But don't babies lack knowledge to say either way?

Oh I see the problem. If I put it like this:

1. Babies do lack knowledge to say either way.
2. Babies can't be agnostics because they don't have the brains and knowledge yet to be able to be an agnostic and say they lack knowledge either way.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

No. People are born Mormon.

Actually, we're all born muslim. Some of us just need to "revert".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am many things but a liar isn't one of. I have no ******* clue what the **** you mean.

I find it hard to believe that you don't know the difference between "you don't need to have beliefs about gods to be an atheist" and "no atheists have beliefs about gods."

I get that. It's irrelevant to my last post. You've already indicated that you are using, apparently, self-designations.

I'm using the way terms are actually used.

I don't give a **** I am only concerned with the questions you continually do not answer. Let's see if we can't make this clear:

I defined atheist as someone who doesn't believe in any gods.

No, you didn't. You defined atheism in terms of disbelief. "Someone who doesn't believe in any gods" would include people who neither believe nor disbelieve.

You claimed that this is untenable because it is impossible to reject all gods.

Something that you haven't actually refuted yet.

You also claimed that defining atheism in terms of a lack of belief means you don't need a clear definition that you implicitly claim we would otherwise. I could not care less about this polytheism ********. I am only interested in whether your assertions about the removal of problems in your definition are true, and further that they are in ways mine can't be.

And I don't care whether you don't care. If the definition of "god" that you use in your definition of the term "atheist" doesn't match up with how the term "god" is actually used - including in contexts like differentiating between monotheism and polytheism - then it's wrong, which would make your definition of "atheist" wrong.

What I explained in the last post, which you either didn't read or couldn't understand, had nothing whatsoever to do with polytheism or any of that junk you keep repeating. I accepted your definitions as true for the sake of argument and covered the logical consequences.

You keep on going off on at best misunderstandings and at worst straw man arguments.

The logical consequence is that a person can believe absolutely anything and everything a theist does as long as they neither use the term "god" to describe the entities they believe in and that they do not call themselves theists.

That's right.

That was it. Instead of even attempting to address whether this conclusion of my wasn't actually entailed by what you said (or if you agreed, for that matter), or that I had formulated my premises in ways that mischaracterized your definitions, you seem to have thought I was in some way arguing against using particular definitions of theism or something and for some reason I can't fathom thought that polytheism could make the slightest different to the logic of my argument which took your definitions for granted. Let me repeat: The post that you responded to first tried to clarify your statements, in particular to ensure that "lack of belief" isn't the definition of atheism according to you (although it may be true of all atheists) but that it is only that an atheist isn't a theist, no matter why theists are said or believe themselves to be theists.

I also gave you another definition earlier which is every bit as consistent as yours and which requires disbelief: an atheist is someone who either does not believe that any entity exists which theists call god, or believes that that entity is not a god.

But that doesn't require disbelief, since "does not believe" includes people who lack belief about gods: people who do not believe or disbelieve.

Your definition requires us to hold that if a theist refers to some entity, like the sun or a human, as "god", then an atheist still does not believe in that entity but only because they do not ascribe to that entity the term god. I accepted as ******* GIVEN that we are not trying to define theism for the conclusion I gave. That conclusion was

1) given we accept a self-designation of "theist" for those who believe in entities that atheists also believe, such as human beings
and
2) given that an atheist cannot be a theist

then
the only difference that ensures no overlap is that an atheist doesn't apply to any entity the label "god" and that the atheist doesn't consider themselves a theist.

Which means that an atheist can believe everything any theist believes as long as they don't use the terms "theist" to describe their beliefs and "god" to describe whatever supernatural omniscient omnipresent entities they believe in.

In other words, by defining atheism as you do you limit it to the statement that one does not use two terms but that any other beliefs whatsoever are compatible with atheism. The pope can be an atheist by changing 2 things: calling the god of the catholic church The Great One (or anything else other than "god") and referring to his position as "belief in an entity that has all the properties catholics ascribe to god" rather than "theistic".

If you don't think your statements entail this, then feel free to read the last post I made and actually address the points in it.

It doesn't really matter if "lack a belief" is incoherent when your definition for atheist means people can believe whatever they want and be atheist just so long as they don't use two terms.

It's not based on what a person says but what they actually believe (a person who believes in what he considers God but deliberately uses euphemisms to describe him would still be a theist), but other than that, yes, that's what I'm saying. But it's not incoherent - most people use terms this way all the time, and have no problem expressing meaning that way.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The pope need not according the definition. An atheist, according to this definition, is not a theist. The pope could call himself a worshipper of the most high and be an atheist. He could believe that an entity created the universe, caused his pre-existent son (who is also somehow himself) to be born and rise from the dead, and so on, yet be an atheist because the only two necessary criteria according to the proposed definition is:
1) the person does not identify themselves as a theist
2) the person does not apply the term "god" to any entity.

So the pope need not identify himself as an atheist and is free to accept everything he does now as being true so long as he doesn't use the term "god". Because apparently atheism is solely a matter of whether you use two words in your descriptions of your beliefs. You can believe anything at all and be an atheist just so long as you use words other than these two when describing your beliefs.

Sounds a bit like the Raelians:

The Raëlian Movement teaches that life on Earth was scientifically created by a species of extraterrestrials, which they call the Elohim. Members of this species appeared human and when having personal contacts with the descendants of the humans they made, they previously misinformed (on purpose) early humanity that they were angels, cherubim or gods. Raëlians believe messengers, or prophets, of the Elohim include Buddha, Jesus, and others[3][4][5] who informed humans of each era.[6] The founder of Raëlism, members claim, received the final message of the Elohim and that its purpose is to inform the world about Elohim and that if humans become aware and peaceful enough, they wish to be welcomed by them.

Raëlism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... and yes, the Raelians are atheists.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

"lack of belief" means that if they lack the belief for whatever reason...they are Atheists.

What "lack of belief" seems to mean is "a term that uses the word "belief" in a unique way to define the position of some atheists". Generally speaking, when people are asks if they believe in something and they have no idea what it is, they say I don't know. However, let's look at how this term is used in one of the only contexts it is (to describe the position of atheists):
"An atheist is someone who does not believe in any gods, that much is clear. Lack of belief in something will ordinarily have two causes: inattention and skepticism. That's why two main varieties of atheism are constantly promoted. It is crucial to grasp that "not believe that god exists" is different from "believing that god does not exist." Both positions are genuine kinds of atheism, and may conveniently labeled as "apatheism" and "skeptical" atheism."
Shook, J. R. (2011). The God debates: A 21st century guide for atheists and believers (and everyone in between). Wiley

Notice that "does not believe in any gods" here is perfectly compatible with "lack of belief", as it must if the term is to be meaningful at all. The term "lack of belief" is used merely to distinguish between forms of atheism. I believe I have heard these two types referred to as strong vs. weak atheism, with weak atheism corresponding to apatheism described in the quote above.

Personally, I don't care for these as it is difficult to differentiate agnosticism from apatheism. Agnosticism means one does not know if any gods exist, and thus cannot be said to believe in any gods. To that extent they don't believe there is a god, for if they did they wouldn't be agnostic. However, this is still better than claiming that one can lack belief in god without believing no gods exist.

However I hope that no one is arguing against the idea that we are taught religion as a learned and indoctrinated event in our lives (especially early on).

No. But there are many (as far as I know, all of them religious) who believe we somehow "are" members of some religion or more commonly are at least somehow possess a connection to god from the beginning. Unfortunately, one cannot use critical argumentation against such beliefs.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sounds a bit like the Raelians:

It's your definition, or at least what follows from it. If you don't think it does, you could actually address whether I am incorrect in saying what your definitions entailed. It seems that you clarified in a way that I needed exactly what you meant by asserting your definition doesn't require a denial all gods: defining an atheist as not a theist. I responded to that by accepting your definitions, yet you still came back at me with the accusation of a strawman argument and continued to talk about other people's definitions when the only thing I was interested was yours (apart from my definition of atheism I gave to you two posts ago which was as consistent as yours).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's your definition, or at least what follows from it. If you don't think it does, you could actually address whether I am incorrect in saying what your definitions entailed. It seems that you clarified in a way that I needed exactly what you meant by asserting your definition doesn't require a denial all gods: defining an atheist as not a theist. I responded to that by accepting your definitions, yet you still came back at me with the accusation of a strawman argument and continued to talk about other people's definitions when the only thing I was interested was yours (apart from my definition of atheism I gave to you two posts ago which was as consistent as yours).

It sounds like you finally got what I was arguing, but you claim that it's incoherent for reasons that you haven't really explained.

Do you consider the Raelians to be atheists or theists? What about common usage - can you point to any significant number of instances where people describe the group that puts up "God is a myth" billboards as theists?

It seems like you keep on insinuating that there's some sort of problem with the way I'm using terms, but AFAICT, all I'm doing is describing how they actually are used.

 

[Willamena]

Wait, what?

It has long been established that agnosticism is not weak atheism. There are agnostic theists, even.

I think you misread what I said. I said that weak atheism is essentially agnosticism. That doesn't preclude that theists can be agnostics too.

 

[Willamena]

But don't babies lack knowledge to say either way?

Yes, just so.