Are people born inherently atheist?

[ArtieE]

When you simply repeat definitions without taking into account particular nuances of these, you can easily find yourself contradicting your own views.

When are you going to get it into your head that we are talking about weak atheists!?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, and this is nonsense. If you are incapable of understanding why an infant incapable of even saying "weak atheism" let alone knowing what it is does not differ with respect to belief than someone like yourself, then you do not know enough about the relation between concepts and the ways they necessarily shape our beliefs.

Would you say the same about someone who referred to a baby who didn't even know what a country is as a "citizen"?

Your tendency to insult the people whose positions you disagree with doesn't somehow make your opinion right by default.

 

[ArtieE]

1) If a person believes god exists, then they are a theist| Definition

2) If a person is not a theist, then they are an atheist |Definition

3) If a person does not believe god exist, then they are not a theist | True by modus tollendo tollens given 1)

4) If person is an atheist, they do not believe god exists | True by 2) and 3)

We are talking about weak atheists! Use the correct terms so what you write can be understood!

 

[ArtieE]

So a person who is a strong atheist is a theist.

I'm almost good with that.

Nope. In the island example the person could only be a weak atheist because to be a strong atheist and disbelieve in gods he must have heard about them.

1. Theist (belief in gods)
2. Weak atheist (not a theist) (no belief in gods, no disbelief in gods)
3. Strong atheist (not a theist) (no belief in gods, disbelief in gods)

 

[Willamena]

Would you say the same about someone who referred to a baby who didn't even know what a country is as a "citizen"?

Your tendency to insult the people whose positions you disagree with doesn't somehow make your opinion right by default.

That citizen is a classification based on locality, birth within a country. Theist, as a comparable classification, is based on belief in god or gods, and atheist, as a comparable classification, is based on not believing in god or gods.

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but not excluded from locality.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

We are talking about weak atheists!

Ok, fine

1) If a person believes god exists, then they are a theist| Definition

2) If a person is not a theist, then they are a weak atheist |Definition

3) If a person believes god does not exist, then they are not a theist | True by modus tollendo tollens given 1)

4) If person is an atheist, they believe god does not exists | True by 2) and 3)

Alternatively, consider the proposition G: "God or gods exist"

1) If a person believes proposition G is true, then that person is a theist | Definition

2) If a person is not a theist, then that person is an atheist | Definition

3) If a person believes proposition G is not true, then that person is not a theist | MT

4) If a person believes proposition G is not true, that person believes "gods or god exists" is not true | Identity

5) If a person believes "god or gods exist" is not true, that person is an atheist |true by 2), 3), & 4)

In all of the informal derivations that assume only your definition, we still find that an atheist believes things about god.

 

[ArtieE]

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but not excluded from locality.

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but is not excluded from not having any beliefs (yet). He can't be a strong atheist because then he would have to know what gods are to disbelieve in them, so what's left? Weak atheist (not a believer).

 

[LuisDantas]

That citizen is a classification based on locality, birth within a country. Theist, as a comparable classification, is based on belief in god or gods, and atheist, as a comparable classification, is based on not believing in god or gods.

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but not excluded from locality.

You still refuse to accept the existence of weak atheism and implicit atheism?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

No I am simply saying "not being a theist" is different from "being a theist" and "not being a theist" is the starting point of all until and if they become a theist.

Of course infants are not theists - they have no ability to hold any beliefs. In this way, they are atheists the same way that rocks, or carbon, are. Saying they are atheists adds no meaningful information about them.

 

[Willamena]

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but is not excluded from not having any beliefs (yet). He can't be a strong atheist because then he would have to know what gods are to disbelieve in them, so what's left? Weak atheist (not a believer).

We exclude the baby from not believing when we exclude the baby from believing. You can't have one without the other, because the one is a simple negation of the first.

When you practice negation, the "not," the thing so negated hasn't gone away. It is the existent negated, but its existence isn't negated. Its is just the "not it."

When you practice elimination, the "no it," you've eliminated its existence.

The distinction is important.

 

[ArtieE]

Ok, fine

1) If a person believes god exists, then they are a theist| Definition

Correct.

2) If a person is not a theist, then they are a weak atheist |Definition

Or a strong atheist.

3) If a person believes god does not exist, then they are not a theist | True by modus tollendo tollens given 1)

Correct.

4) If person is an atheist, they believe god does not exists

Incorrect. If a person is a strong atheist they believe god does not exist.

Alternatively, consider the proposition G: "God or gods exist"

1) If a person believes proposition G is true, then that person is a theist | Definition

Correct.

2) If a person is not a theist, then that person is an atheist | Definition

Incorrect. If a person is not a theist, then that person is either a weak atheist or a strong atheist.

3) If a person believes proposition G is not true, then that person is not a theist | MT

Correct.

4) If a person believes proposition G is not true, that person believes "gods or god exists" is not true | Identity

Correct.

5) If a person believes "god or gods exist" is not true, that person is an atheist |true by 2), 3), & 4)

Incorrect. That person is a strong atheist.

In all of the informal derivations that assume only your definition, we still find that an atheist believes things about god.

Strong atheists believe things about gods. Weak atheists don't.

Try your logic one more time but this time use the proper terms.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Would you say the same about someone who referred to a baby who didn't even know what a country is as a "citizen"?

Once again, this is an invalid comparison because it equates properties that can't be. Citizenship cannot be given to one's self but is necessarily granted by others. This is the second time you've equated properties like this. If we define atheism as "not being a theist", then we are defining it in terms of what particular people believe. We can ascribe to people properties that describe mental states/beliefs, but in order to be correct that person has to actually have those mental states/beliefs. This is not true of citizenship.

Your tendency to insult the people whose positions you disagree with doesn't somehow make your opinion right by default.

I don't believe I've insulted anybody. I've described definitions as meaningless and used all sorts of negative terms about them and the reasons for using them. However, if I am correct, it does not follow that people who believe or use these definitions are stupid or whatever.

What I find insulting is when people accuse me of deliberately presenting arguments that they think don't (or that actually don't) address the points they raised deliberately. But that doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that they not only that from my perspective they are doing the same thing, they continue to assert I am presenting invalid arguments without addressing most of what I have said at all even just to say it is incorrect.

I tried repeatedly to explain how on a physical level "non-belief" isn't actually "non-belief", or at least not that of an infants. This was ignored. So, in a post designed mainly to actually address the OP, I included studies important to the OP but also to this debate as they demonstrate how "non-belief" isn't really "non-belief". That was ignored. So I responded to specific posts making claims that an atheist can really have no beliefs about gods with studies that demonstrate this isn't so. These were ignored. I provided and explained how specialists in epistemology and logic define terms like "non-belief" when they use them.

If I seemed rude to you, please try to understand how frustrating it is to find most of what you say simply ignored and the rest just called wrong without explanation. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me (unless I'm drunk and/or tired, anyway). I do have a problem with being called wrong while being written off. I find that insulting.

 

[ArtieE]

Of course infants are not theists - they have no ability to hold any beliefs. In this way, they are atheists the same way that rocks, or carbon, are. Saying they are atheists adds no meaningful information about them.

Rocks and carbon cannot potentially hold beliefs. Infants are "weak atheists" or "not (yet) theists".

 

[Willamena]

The baby is excluded from belief/believing...

The baby is excluded from belief/believing but is not excluded from not having any beliefs (yet). He can't be a strong atheist because then he would have to know what gods are to disbelieve in them, so what's left? Weak atheist (not a believer).

When I say, "The baby is excluded from belief..." being excluded from not-belief follows. Every existent has a negation. Every one. Negation is easy, it's just adding "not" to an existent and there you go.

And it's proper to refer to the elimination of a negation by the elimination of its existent, for this reason. The existent is what exists, the negation is an abstract of the existent.

So when a person "does not believe," it carries with it all the weight of a very real negated belief, not the lack-of-weight of never having heard of a thing.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Rocks and carbon cannot potentially hold beliefs.

Yes, but the question is whether we are born atheists. I'm sure you can agree that when we are born, we are newborn infants. We're not talking about adults or older human beings who are capable of holding beliefs - we're talking about newborn infants.

Whether they have the potential to hold beliefs or not is irrelevant. When we are born, we are not capable of holding any beliefs. When we are born, there is nothing meaningful to distinguish our absence of belief in gods from a rock's absence of belief in gods.

By the time we are capable of holding beliefs, we are no longer infants, and thus, we are no longer discussing whether newborn infants are atheists, but whether an older human is an atheist. And the discussion is whether newborn infants are atheists - not whether older humans capable of holding beliefs are atheists. To do so would be redefining the parameters of the discussion, changing it to a completely different discussion.

 

[Sees]

Interesting thread for me after recently raising 4 babies over the past 6 years. Will just mention the wonder and awe that all babies (mentally healthy) seem to have. Theism concerning a personal, humanistic type of deity is not present in any way whatsoever that I can perceive - but the universe seems alive and utterly amazing in their reactions and words.

No doubt related to the animism/pantheism/panentheism/shamanism ideas, feelings, and beliefs of pretty much all primitive cultures globally.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'll pose this question again, as it was never addressed by anyone: How is a newborn infant's atheism meaningfully different from a rock's atheism?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Incorrect. That person is a strong atheist.

You cannot show an argument is invalid unless you can demonstrate that whatever inference rules were used were used incorrectly. What inference rule(s) did I use invalidly?

Proofs in logic are often called derivations. We start with certain premises, in this case the parts I labeled as definitions. We then use these and the rules of logic to show what must follow from the premises. If you can show where I violated a logical rule, please do. To help you out, I'll explain the ones I used.

First, for any conditional (that's an "if/then" statement), we can rely on a rule called modus tollens (MT) as follows:

Let us say we know that if x is true, then y is true. MT says it is therefore necessarily true that if y is not true, then x is not true.

For example, imagine you see a black bird. I say "if it is a crow, then it is black". It is not true that all birds are black, but it is true that "if it is not black, then it is not a crow".


The other important logic rule I used is a type of syllogism.

Here's wiki's example:

If I do not wake up, then I cannot go to work.If I cannot go to work, then I will not get paid.Therefore, if I do not wake up, then I will not get paid

Try your logic one more time but this time use the proper terms.

You seem to be missing the fact that the logic cannot be wrong because the term is used incorrectly unless the definition is wrong. What logic does is show us that given certain premises (such as definitions), we can apply logical rules to see what is necessarily entailed by that. I'll give you an example of what I mean:

The president of the united states is the ruler of the world (premise)
I am the president of the united states (premise)
Therefore, I am the rules of the world.

The logic here is absolutely valid. The issue is that both premises are wrong. That's why in logic we distinguish between a "valid proof/argument/derivation" and a "sound" one. The issue is that I used your definitions as premises and you agreed they were correct. So if there is a problem with my application of logic rules you cannot use the definition to show this you must demonstrate the invalidity of the inference itself.

 

[Sees]

I'll pose this question again, as it was never addressed by anyone: How is a newborn infant's atheism meaningfully different from a rock's atheism?

I can't understand how it would be any different with a newborn infant. Only thing present is instinctive want for warmth and milk.

 

[idav]

I'll pose this question again, as it was never addressed by anyone: How is a newborn infant's atheism meaningfully different from a rock's atheism?

They are born not believing in a lot of things. Goes without saying but at what point or age does the question become meaningful? Is there some magic point where it is safe to call them a non-believer?