Are people born inherently atheist?

[Sonofason]

No, one is necessarily a weak atheist.OK. For the purpose of this post we can define a theist as a believer in the Christian God. The whole rest of your post is just a way for you to avoid answering if you understand the following:

A person becomes a believer in the Christian God. (Theist). Before he became a believer in the Christian God he was always since birth not a believer in the Christian God. (Weak atheist). He always were not a believer in the Christian God since birth. (Weak atheist). Do you understand this? Yes or no?

I think you're on the right track. Although a newborn baby, or fetus could simply be agnostic, meaning that for the baby, God is unknowable and unfathomable.

One definition for agnostic is, "a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not". I should think think newborn babies likely fall into this category. They probably don't have a definite belief about whether or not God exists.

 

[ArtieE]

Try it this way, if atheism is contingent on theism and theism is contingent on the ability to believe then atheism is contingent on the ability to believe.

Only theism requires the ability to believe. Not believing requires nothing. I have spent my whole life not believing in hundreds of gods I didn't know it was possible to believe in and it has required nothing of me.

 

[ArtieE]

I can assert "I neither believe god exists nor disbelieve god exists". I just did in that sentence. As for why this is a belief, those were not my words: I quoted. Here is the quote again and (once more) the source I used:

"It is impossible to assert something without expressing a belief."
Davis, W. A. (2003). Meaning, expression and thought. Cambridge University Press.

I told you I give up. You can assert "I believe a certain god exists" or you can assert "I believe a certain god doesn't exist" only if you have heard of that particular god. If you have never heard about that certain god how can you possibly claim that never having had a belief in that god is a belief?

 

[ArtieE]

I think you're on the right track. Although a newborn baby, or fetus could simply be agnostic, meaning that for the baby, God is unknowable and unfathomable.

One definition for agnostic is, "a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not". I should think think newborn babies likely fall into this category. They probably don't have a definite belief about whether or not God exists.

Being an agnostic requires the ability to have the belief "that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown." Wikipedia. That rules out a baby being an agnostic.

 

[Sonofason]

Theist just means believer in god(s) it says nothing about belief in the ability to believe anything if the brain is incapable of thought. Are you saying that a person is still a theist if his brain is incapable of thought?

This is why a person who has no particular belief is not an atheist, and he is not a theist. There has to be another word in this instance, and this is the reason that I do not believe in weak atheists. You are either an atheist, a theist, agnostic, or none of the above. I could say that I am an atheist because I believe there is no God. I could say that I am a theist because I do believe in a God. I can say I am neither an atheist nor a theist because I have no particular belief whatsoever with regard to the existence of a God. I can also be agnostic, which means that I believe that I do not have the capacity to know whether or not a God exists.

Therefore a dead person, or a brain dead person is neither a theist, an atheist, nor an agnostic. His belief system must be none of the above. He's dead.

If however I were to say that I am not an atheist, more information is necessary. If I am not an atheist, it does not necessarily mean that I am a theist. I could be agnostic. I could have no beliefs whatsoever, like a dead person. Same with a theist. If I am not a theist, it is not to say that I am necessarily an atheist.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If you have never heard about that certain god how can you possibly claim that never having had a belief in that god is a belief?

Easily. Because I'm not claiming that a bunch of names don't exist. I am claiming that gods don't.

First, if I deny the existence of gods I'm making an ontological claim. I am not claiming that Thor doesn't exist, because Thor is just a name. Some people thought he [what the name referred to] was a god or think he is, and people do this of humans and of the sun. Denying all gods is denying that there is no entity I relate the concept of god to. You may think your toaster oven is a god, but I don't have to know that to consider whether it is to say I don't believe in gods.

An illustration I used before in this thread is how mathematicians prove that something is true for an infinite set. If I wish to assert there is no largest even number, all I have to do is show that 2 is an even number and that for any multiple n
of 2, n + 2 is also even [this isn't actually what mathematicians do, as the n would refer to the term in the sequence in this case, but it's good enough for us). I don't have to check each even number.

Likewise, there are lots of magical fairies named in stories in many places of the world. Do you need to know what each one is called to say you don't think fairies exist?

There are lots of houses that are supposedly haunted. Do you need to know of each one in order to say you don't believe haunted houses exist?

Movies, books, television shows, fairy tales, etc., are littered with different ghosts. Do you need to know every single one to say ghosts don't exist?


When you refer to denying all gods, all this means is you're saying I have to know whether a list of names corresponds to what I don't believe in. But as I disbelieve the concept itself, the entire category of any possible entities that I would classify as a member of that category, it doesn't make any difference whatsoever if I don't know all the names people have used. I have associated with the concept god certain things that there is no possible entity that I can relate this concept to.

If I say I don't believe any gods exist, I cannot possibly mean that nothing people have called gods exists, as people have said this of humans. What I am denying is the concept I have.

 

[Curious George]

Only theism requires the ability to believe. Not believing requires nothing. I have spent my whole life not believing in hundreds of gods I didn't know it was possible to believe in and it has required nothing of me.

then atheism cannot be contingent on theism. you are thinking of this analogous to percentages.

We can say that you get 10% of every dollar I get. In this if I don't get any money we can substitute 0 into the equation of what you get. .1(x). But if the definition of x does not include 0 then your equation won't work. You are equating non belief with the ability to believe to non belief without the ability. This may seem to work but but it is wrong.

if atheist = -x and theist =x then if x is undefined you cannot have theist or atheist, unless you assume -x when x is undefined.

 

[Willamena]

No, I am saying the definition is only applicable to a subset of all things. Otherwise you are assuming all people become atheists in death.

"I see atheists!"

 

[Curious George]

You seem to have skipped my last post. The definition of a theist is a person who believes in the existence of god(s). It says nothing about what the theist believes happens after physical death.Weak atheism is the absence of a position and is the default until the person decides to become a theist or a strong atheist. Please learn the difference between weak and strong atheism.

The arbitrary creation of definitions which are contrary to logic will not change the lack of validity in such definitions.

 

[Sonofason]

Being an agnostic requires the ability to have the belief "that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown." Wikipedia. That rules out a baby being an agnostic.

Not necessarily, as I have said, I have found a definition for agnostic which defines agnostic as " a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not."
Agnostic - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Not having a belief is not having a belief. Babies do not have a belief.

 

[Curious George]

I think you misunderstand. You are first saying that atheist is contingent on theist and then you say that theist is contingent on atheist. this is a contradiction. If the default position is atheistic then theism is contingent on atheism, not the other way around.

You are saying that everything is atheistic and theism comes from the addition of something. this is an assumption, but you are defining theism in terms of atheism, so saying that atheism is then defined by theism is wrong.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

"I see atheists!"

That's just theists pretending to be dead people (aka: atheists) and playing pranks on you, I'm pretty sure. They do it with fancy cameras and blue screens and such.

 

[idav]

"I see atheists!"

Baby heathens?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Only theism requires the ability to believe.

Time was we could only argue about this from the point of view of linguistics, philosophy, etc. That is no longer true, as even acknowledging the many limitations to the various studies on this issue, there remain certain things we can say:
"Despite these uncertainties (or perhaps because of them), the one apparent consensus among the commentators is that atheists are best accounted for by Hypothesis 2 (Natural Variation): atheists are simply one end of a continuum of belief. On the face of it, this is unsurprising, even an anti-climax. Like numerous other traits in nature, beliefs vary - so what? However, if this is true, then there are in fact several striking implications. First, it implies that the mean of the distribution is some positive level of religious belief (that is, there is a consensus that natural selection has favored cognitive mechanisms underlying belief, and/or religion itself). Second, it implies that atheism is (or was) a suboptimal strategy for human beings. Third, it implies that atheists - given their status at the tail end of the distribution - are (or were) selected against."

Johnson, D. (2012). What are atheists for? Hypotheses on the functions of non-belief in the evolution of religion. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 2(1), 48-70.

And although explanations for religious belief have long been a subject of (usualloy bad) study regarding evolutionary origins, it is in fact the increasing study of disbelief, atheism, agnosticism, whatever, that has improved our understanding of belief in general and in particular the evolutionary causes that motivate both belief and disbelief.

"atheism is more prevalent and enduring than would be expected if it was solely driven by effortful rejection of intuitive theism, that disbelief does not always require hard or explicit cognitive effort, and that rational deliberation is only one of several routes to disbelief."

Norenzayan, A., & Gervais, W. M. (2012). The origins of religious disbelief. Trends in cognitive sciences.

Not only is atheism not characterized by simply a lack of belief, but self-reports atheists give about their non-commitment are often belied by biological indicators to the contrary:
"We asked atheists (Studies 1 and 2) and religious individuals (Study 1) to verbally dare God to cause unpleasant events, like murders and illnesses to happen to themselves and their intimates. Atheists did not regard the statements as unpleasant as the religious participants did in their explicit self-report. The impact of conviction was strong as it explained 38% of the variance in the unpleasantness ratings. However, when the participants' emotional arousal was analyzed by their skin conductance level during their verbal dares, a different picture emerged."


Lindeman, M., Heywood, B., Riekki, T., & Makkonen, T. (2013). Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, (just-accepted).

Then there is the ways that concepts are represented in general.

You can state that atheism is a default position as much as you wish, but you cannot change the fact that this self-designation is a belief around which and by which you organize a conceptual network and quite literally its physical representation.

Of course, for some atheists (and agnostics) this doesn't mean much. Certainly, theists and the religious will, at least with respect all things religious, show a tendency towards greater diversity in classification. Nothing about any of the above is surprising in the least, actually, unless of course one has an ideological commitment to the idea that atheism represents some sort of base state.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Actually, the main point of that research

Have you read it? Your response isn't consistent with it, and it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when others tell me what research in my field demonstrates without being familiar with it. If you did, cool. I'm just not sure how you inferred what you did.

 

[ArtieE]

Easily. Because I'm not claiming that a bunch of names don't exist. I am claiming that gods don't.

Are you? Then you are a strong atheist and not a weak atheist and we are discussing weak atheism. Your whole post discusses strong atheism and not weak atheism. Please learn the difference and apply the proper terms and write a post that shows you understand the difference. Then I will answer.

 

[ArtieE]

then atheism cannot be contingent on theism. you are thinking of this analogous to percentages.

We can say that you get 10% of every dollar I get. In this if I don't get any money we can substitute 0 into the equation of what you get. .1(x). But if the definition of x does not include 0 then your equation won't work. You are equating non belief with the ability to believe to non belief without the ability. This may seem to work but but it is wrong.

if atheist = -x and theist =x then if x is undefined you cannot have theist or atheist, unless you assume -x when x is undefined.

I will answer when you start using the terms theist, weak atheist and strong atheist, have shown you know the difference and have used them in the right context.

 

[ArtieE]

The arbitrary creation of definitions which are contrary to logic will not change the lack of validity in such definitions.

"Weak atheism, also sometimes referred to as implicit atheism, is simply another name for the broadest and most general conception of atheism: the absence of belief in any gods. A weak atheist is someone who lacks theism and who does not happen to believe in the existence of any gods — no more, no less."

"Strong atheism, also sometimes referred to as explicit atheism, goes one step further and involves denying the existence of at least one god, usually multiple gods, and sometimes the possible existence of any gods at all."

Strong Atheism vs. Weak Atheism: What’s the Difference?

Unless you understand and acknowledge the difference there's no point in discussing this with you.

 

[ArtieE]

Not necessarily, as I have said, I have found a definition for agnostic which defines agnostic as " a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not."
Agnostic - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Not having a belief is not having a belief. Babies do not have a belief.

There is a difference between "finding a definition" and actually understanding what agnosticism is. Read a thorough explanation of what agnosticism is and not just a one line definition. Start with Wikipedia.

 

[ArtieE]

I think you misunderstand. You are first saying that atheist is contingent on theist and then you say that theist is contingent on atheist. this is a contradiction. If the default position is atheistic then theism is contingent on atheism, not the other way around.

You are saying that everything is atheistic and theism comes from the addition of something. this is an assumption, but you are defining theism in terms of atheism, so saying that atheism is then defined by theism is wrong.

Please learn the difference between theism, weak atheism and strong atheism and use them properly and I will answer.