outhouse
Atheistically
Factually incorrect. Implicit atheism does not require belief.
It is defined as a lack of theism.
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Are people born inherently atheist?
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Factually incorrect. Implicit atheism does not require belief.
It is defined as a lack of theism.
Sonofason
Well-Known Member
I disagree. You define atheism as a lack of theism. I do not. I define atheism according to the following recognized definition for the word atheism
atheism
a: a disbelief in the existence of deity
b: the doctrine that there is no deity
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3580415
Please note the definition of "disbelief"
disbelief : the act of disbelieving : mental rejection of something as untrue
Disbelief - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Agnostic definition:
agnostic:
1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2: a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something
If you are unwilling to commit to a belief about the existence of God, then you lack a belief about the existence of God. Only agnostics lack a belief with regard to the existence of God. Their belief is that knowing whether or not a god exists is unknown or unknowable. That is non-belief. That is not atheist, and not theist.
Rather, by the definition given one, one is one or the other.
Such a person may never hear the good news. Good on them.
Hearing the good news could make them an atheist.
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I didn't.
Mental states, at least what I referred to in the part you quoted, are the set of mental "contents" that would make a label like "conservative" or "friendly" true or false. The state is subject specific, but mental "contents", just like concepts (which are mental "contents") are things we can refer to by words that are not subject specific. Generally, mental states are short lived and are always in some set context specific. A simple way to understand them is mental state predicates: "know", "think", "believe", "want", "wish", "hope", "desire", etc.
Also, theism isn't a mental state (or, to the extent it is, that state is "believe" and it applies to everyone, and the addition of contents that you'd have to define and contexts you'd have to specify) and we don't really speak of lacking a mental state because it is context dependent. If I don't believe it will rain tomorrow, I don't lack the mental state "believe" because I do believe that the earth orbits the sun.
The mental "contents" that a theist, in order to be a theist, would probably require at least include a concept of god and a belief that that concept has a reality outside of the theists mind. Atheists certainly lack that "belief" content, but that just means they lack the specific belief that some concept of "god" does exist outside the mind of the conceptualizer. It does not mean atheists lack any belief about god. If that were true, it could not be said that an atheist has no belief regarding whether e.g., the statement "cats are gods" is true. It would mean that there is nothing an atheist believes isn't god, for if an atheist believes that e.g., cats aren't gods, then the concept "god" for that atheist does not have the properties of being a cat. And unless there is something that the atheist can relate the concept god to, then that atheist believes that the there is no set of properties that any entity they think exists has such that the set describes god. Even if that's all the concept of god is for some atheist, a list of sets of properties that god isn't (and I can't imagine any atheist who has heard so little about god that their internal representation doesn't entail more, because e.g., they've heard descriptions of deities), that's a way we define many things. The null set, for example, is defined as the set which has no elements that make it up, yet there is only one (for, if there were two, it must be that there was something in their union).
But it is possible to lack beliefs the way one can be apolitical. This kind of "non-belief" means that god or politics do not interest, keep the interest, inform any decisions or policies, enter into consideration unless by external factors, etc. It is a lack of belief for all practical purposes, and therefore unsurprisingly for practical purposes it might be useful to distinguish it from active disbelief or the agnostic for whom god is at least an issue it is worth devoting time to.
But this thread concerns whether people are born atheists. For practical purposes, most scientists who have researched this answer that the opposite is true:
Bloom, P. (2007). Religion is natural. Developmental science, 10(1), 147-151.
Nor is there any reason to equate the practical "non-belief" of some atheists to those who actually do have no belief because they cannot understand any proposition to ascribe certainty or uncertainty to.
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There's no such thing as a belief that is nothing.
continued
And we do. However, I didn't say that the definition for theists couldn't be "the person calls themselves a theist". My point was that defining something as the absence of something else means being able to know when that thing is absence. If I say health means not having any diseases, but I don't define what a disease is, then I can't say a person with the plague is not healthy.
So even though I defined atheists in the part that you quoted with this response, and despite the reference in the quote to atheists who believe in spirits, what you objected to was a different definition of mine than the one you quoted? How was I supposed to understand that?
We have both been arguing for individual concepts, but in different ways. I have spent most of the time arguing that your definition is either inconsistent or meaningless if you apply to it the same standards you do of a denial of all gods. However, I don't believe any such standard is necessary and I in that bolded line I meant that if there was something some theist considered to be a god AND that an atheist believed it too, THEN the atheist believes it isn't a god. The problem with this as the complete definition is the same as with yours: in order to make it really consistent we'd have to define what a god is in ways that are not possible. However, that's language! Concepts are fuzzy, have vague boarders, and do not correspond exactly even to the words used to refer to them. Yet somehow, very few people go around believing that the word "god" (and not god as in "He's the god of rock!") can refer to a book, a person, an animal, etc. That's how two people can talk about god without one of them thinking god means "lampshade" and wondering why the other is saying it is the creator of the universe.
It implies that I believe the thing the theist thinks is a god isn't. It doesn't imply that I disbelieve that the theist thinks it is a god.
That's because when most people define an atheist as not being a theist, they don't consider that some theists actually believe in entities that they do too. Nor do they care as it normally doesn't matter. However, as I said more than once, the only reason I brought up extreme cases was your assertion that the only way to consistently define atheism is as being not theism. My point was not to assert there was a better consistent definition, but that
1) a definition that held atheists reject all gods can be just as consistent as your
2) any such definition will either turn out inconsistent or meaningless
3) your definition could only be consistent in ways that made it useless.
4) to define atheism as not theism requires defining theism
As I said, both in this post and before, it was the dual claim that other definitions were inconsistent and yours wasn't that prompted my use of extreme (or at least abnormal) examples. Being as consistent as you required a definition of denial to be (which is possible, just meaningless) means that it doesn't matter what examples I use they should be consistent with your definition. Had you stated there were exceptions to your definition or stated that such consistency wasn't needed, I wouldn't have spent any time on things like the fact that your definition applied only to speakers of English.
I said that the pope could be an atheist by your definition with no belief changes. I mentioned actual people I knew who called humans gods. How much wider can you get?
I can understand that why you thought I used a google tool. But the fact that I described all the searches as "just for fun", described the first one as "carefully balanced", and said of the google data that I merely "skimmed" it gave you the impression that I found it authoritative? And if you thought I was using a google tool, why would I consider a google search of the kind you suggested to be "authoritative"?
Neurolingistics is part of neuroscience, the study of grammar is a main area of research within neuroscience, and the study of what word refer to (concepts) and how they are categorized is perhaps the central focus for cognitive linguistics, my field. It's relevant for two reasons:
1) The claim that atheists don't have a concept of god and therefore can't be said to disbelieve in it. However, concepts are represented in the brain. That's where cognitive neuroscience comes in and can tell you in ways semanticists cannot that your usage of the word "god" means you have a concept of god
2) The claim that "non-belief" can actually mean "no beliefs". Your beliefs about god shape your brain unless you are completely unfamiliar with the word. Babies are. Atheists aren't.
And we do. However, I didn't say that the definition for theists couldn't be "the person calls themselves a theist". My point was that defining something as the absence of something else means being able to know when that thing is absence. If I say health means not having any diseases, but I don't define what a disease is, then I can't say a person with the plague is not healthy.
So even though I defined atheists in the part that you quoted with this response, and despite the reference in the quote to atheists who believe in spirits, what you objected to was a different definition of mine than the one you quoted? How was I supposed to understand that?
We have both been arguing for individual concepts, but in different ways. I have spent most of the time arguing that your definition is either inconsistent or meaningless if you apply to it the same standards you do of a denial of all gods. However, I don't believe any such standard is necessary and I in that bolded line I meant that if there was something some theist considered to be a god AND that an atheist believed it too, THEN the atheist believes it isn't a god. The problem with this as the complete definition is the same as with yours: in order to make it really consistent we'd have to define what a god is in ways that are not possible. However, that's language! Concepts are fuzzy, have vague boarders, and do not correspond exactly even to the words used to refer to them. Yet somehow, very few people go around believing that the word "god" (and not god as in "He's the god of rock!") can refer to a book, a person, an animal, etc. That's how two people can talk about god without one of them thinking god means "lampshade" and wondering why the other is saying it is the creator of the universe.
It implies that I believe the thing the theist thinks is a god isn't. It doesn't imply that I disbelieve that the theist thinks it is a god.
That's because when most people define an atheist as not being a theist, they don't consider that some theists actually believe in entities that they do too. Nor do they care as it normally doesn't matter. However, as I said more than once, the only reason I brought up extreme cases was your assertion that the only way to consistently define atheism is as being not theism. My point was not to assert there was a better consistent definition, but that
1) a definition that held atheists reject all gods can be just as consistent as your
2) any such definition will either turn out inconsistent or meaningless
3) your definition could only be consistent in ways that made it useless.
4) to define atheism as not theism requires defining theism
As I said, both in this post and before, it was the dual claim that other definitions were inconsistent and yours wasn't that prompted my use of extreme (or at least abnormal) examples. Being as consistent as you required a definition of denial to be (which is possible, just meaningless) means that it doesn't matter what examples I use they should be consistent with your definition. Had you stated there were exceptions to your definition or stated that such consistency wasn't needed, I wouldn't have spent any time on things like the fact that your definition applied only to speakers of English.
I said that the pope could be an atheist by your definition with no belief changes. I mentioned actual people I knew who called humans gods. How much wider can you get?
I can understand that why you thought I used a google tool. But the fact that I described all the searches as "just for fun", described the first one as "carefully balanced", and said of the google data that I merely "skimmed" it gave you the impression that I found it authoritative? And if you thought I was using a google tool, why would I consider a google search of the kind you suggested to be "authoritative"?
Neurolingistics is part of neuroscience, the study of grammar is a main area of research within neuroscience, and the study of what word refer to (concepts) and how they are categorized is perhaps the central focus for cognitive linguistics, my field. It's relevant for two reasons:
1) The claim that atheists don't have a concept of god and therefore can't be said to disbelieve in it. However, concepts are represented in the brain. That's where cognitive neuroscience comes in and can tell you in ways semanticists cannot that your usage of the word "god" means you have a concept of god
2) The claim that "non-belief" can actually mean "no beliefs". Your beliefs about god shape your brain unless you are completely unfamiliar with the word. Babies are. Atheists aren't.
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Sonofason
Well-Known Member
No, this is not true. The dead person is the perfect extreme. A dead person neither believes nor does he disbelieve. Remember, disbelief is:
"mental rejection of something as untrue."
Disbelief - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Dead people can't mentally reject anything. Newborn babies likely do not reject anything. Rocks don't reject anything. They don't believe. They don't disbelieve. They are not theist, and they are not atheist. Only agnostic remotely encompasses such individuals. For agnostics truly lack a belief in the existence of God, and they lack a disbelief in the existence of God. They are not prepared to make a choice. Babies are not prepared to make a choice.
outhouse
Atheistically
lack of belief is not nothing as defined.
Lack of theism is atheist, and it is a useful label that applies to babies and those ignorant of deities.
outhouse
Atheistically
Too bad. Its just your personal opinion.
Atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[9][10]
Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas
So you are wrong, like it or not, how atheism is defined is not set in stone to your liking.
How is theism defined?
outhouse
Atheistically
Belief in one god.
It doesn't matter how or why one does not hold belief, including lack of belief, a conscious rejection of theism is not required.
I wasn't. I was accepting a definition of atheism for the sake of argument and using an "informal proof" (that's the word I used originally, but I think pseud-proof is better given how often I jump down others' throats for using the word proof incorrectly).
The only thing the "proof" was intended to show was that when you define something as the absence of something else, all that means is that you are defining it using that "something else's" definition. If I define health by the absence of disease, then unless I define disease, I can be dying of the plague and be defined as healthy. If one defines an atheist as "not theist", then an atheist is defined as one who does not have the attribute or attributes that a theist does. As one such attribute is surely the existence of at least one god, then an atheist lacks a theist's belief in god. The question then becomes what that means.
If we define it as the absence of belief in god, then that doesn't necessarily mean an absence of a belief that god exists. If I say "I don't believe in eating meat" it doesn't mean that I don't think such a thing is possible or that it has no existence in reality.
If we define it as the absence of beliefs about god, then it doesn't apply to self-described atheists. Merely knowing how to use the word "god" entails beliefs.
If we define it as the lack of any beliefs about god that matter from a pragmatic/practical point of view, which is they way "non-belief" is typically used, then babies aren't atheists.
However, I copied that pseudo-proof from an earlier post on this thread for the same reason: simply saying "atheists are defined as 'not theists'" means that there are necessarily properties that atheists must have and not have just so that they can be considered "not theists".
Sonofason
Well-Known Member
No, if we use your definition of atheism, I'm wrong. If we use my definition of atheism I'm right. If we use both definitions, we're confused.
Since there is already a term to represent people who have no particular belief concerning the existence of God, namely agnostic, I propose we use that word to describe those who lack beliefs in God.
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Sonofason
Well-Known Member
If you are saying that it is insufficient to define atheism as a lack of theism, I completely agree. If you are suggesting that atheism is not simply a lack of belief in God, I agree. If you are saying that atheism is a belief system which holds that a god does not exist, I agree completely.
Sonofason
Well-Known Member
monotheist - person who believes that there is only one God.
polytheist - person who believes in more than one god.
atheist - person who believes that there is no god or gods
theist - person who believes in the existence of a god or gods
agnostic - person who lacks a belief with regard to the existence of a god or gods.
Actually it matters a lot in more than one way. First, because the definition of "belief" varies based on the constructions it is used in. "I believe in you" doesn't have the same connotations as "I believe in god". If someone asks "what's your belief on the subject of tavern inspections in Wales?" and one responds "I don't have any" it could mean one doesn't know enough to begin an attempt at an answer. Or that one has spent one's life as a tavern inspector, and after 50 years of dedicated service suddenly realized that the entire thing was pointless, prompting disillusionment which is a kind of lack of belief. Or it could mean that one couldn't care less.
Second, it matters because implicit beliefs can matter in ways one wouldn't expect. Take this study:
Jong, J., Halberstadt, J., & Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 983-989.
As expected, researchers found that when explicitly asked believers and non-believers about their worldviews in relation to death, believers defended their religious worldviews and non-believers defended their non-religious worldviews. However, when implicit measures were using the same priming (the subject of death), the measures showed an increase in belief in the supernatural for both non-believers and believers.
Other studies are even more specific:
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).
This study found that even though atheists reported no concern at all when tasked to ask god to cause harm, their bodies told a different story. They responded, like believers, with physical symptoms of emotional arousal.
However, if someone has the complete lack of any concept of god the way an infant does, these and similar results are impossible.
Third, it matters because unless there's reason to, why develop such awkward phrases ("lack of belief", "absence of belief", etc.) which are used almost solely to relate to what atheists are? First, while the number of beliefs in things are limitless, there are precious few words that are defined in terms of lacking belief. When terms do exist, it's because someone wants to describe a deliberate stance. And until fairly recently, that was atheism. Fine. Meanings shift. But that is no reason to conflate the kind of lack of belief atheists can have in gods with that of an infant, which is entirely different. And it seems that nobody, including atheists, really thinks "absence of belief" is really a useful, meaningful term. When it comes to matters other than religion, atheists, like everybody else, say things like "I don't believe" or "I don't care". "Apolitical" doesn't mean "lack any beliefs" about politics it means "Detached from, not interested in or concerned with, political issues or activities" (OED). People who don't ever think about whether UFOs exist don't refer to a "lack of belief" when questioned about the existence of UFOS, they say thing like "I doubt it" or "Who knows?". Apart from when it comes up in a discussion on atheism, atheists don't insist that the default position when it comes to ghosts and unicorns is a "lack of belief". That's because the motivation for this description, not only "lack of belief" and equivalents but defining atheism as the absence of theism, isn't convenience or practicality but ideology.
Finally, it's bad enough to apply a label that was and for the most part still one the person uses to describe themselves and extend it to people who have no clue that this applies to them. But that happens. What shouldn't happen is for large numbers of people who do not consider themselves atheists or theists to be told that it doesn't matter what they believe as long as they don't define themselves as theists. To some extent, this always happens. Not everybody who says they're Christian would fit the general definitions of Christian, not everybody who calls themselves a an activist can really be said to be so, etc. But there are entire groups of worldviews, including one constructed deliberately to be differentiated from theism and atheism, that are held by people who don't consider themselves theists. To define them as such just to make atheism some sort of default position is indefensible, in my view. We have words to describe people who couldn't really care less about something. One of them is "don't care".
outhouse
Atheistically
I am not, and I don't reject any definition, I just accept implicit atheism as it is a credible definition.
That factually changes the definition of agnostic.
agnostic is a choice
That's doesn't fit for those who lack belief.
let me ask you this.
A child raised alone on a island turns into a man one day, he has never heard of the god
concept. A boat lands and the captain says thank god your alive. The man says "who is god", and the captain proclaims he is a atheist.
The captain is correct, the man is not agnostic, the man is not a theist.
outhouse
Atheistically
It doesn't when it is addressed as implicit atheism.
The definition of implicit atheism clears up the debate over definition. It does not matter that all do not accept this definition, multiple definitions factually do exist.
Its how people interpret these wide and varied definitions that cause the confusion here.
Your getting philosophical about the definition of definition, which while correct takes the conversation to another level of understanding outside common peoples understanding of philosophy. I would agree that defining theism in specific detail can be confusing, but a general definition of "belief in at least one god" does apply to most.
I will only agree that atheism can be defined as implicit or explicit, before we can get into other labels such as weak and strong or even agnostic.
Sonofason
Well-Known Member
Again, I will supply a few definitions for the word agnostic.
1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
This probably fits your understanding of the word agnostic.
2. A person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not.
This probably fits my understanding of the word agnostic better, although I accept your definition for agnostic as well.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic
If you have never heard of a god or gods, it is quite understandable if you should not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not.
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