What I'm saying is that (a) is a perfectly acceptable and normal interpretation of the original sentence. In our case "Philip doesn't believe: God exists" is the interpretation of "Philip doesn't believe that God exists".
You keep begging the question, which is whether that is the correct interpretation "in our case". I believe that it is not.
Again, I don't understand the point of bringing this up. Yes, if you deny that God exists, everyone in the world should be able to agree that you're an atheist. There is no difference of opinion there...
Agreed. If someone denies that gods exist, then that person clearly lacks a belief that gods exist. What isn't clear is whether someone who merely lacks a belief that gods exist is ipso facto an atheist. That is the question under discussion. Your argument that lack of belief is sufficient seems to consist solely of repeating the claim despite reasonable evidence to the contrary, which you handle with a dogmatic hand-waving dismissal as irrelevant to the argument. Here it is again:
The difference of opinion is whether simply the lack of belief in God constitutes atheism. You think it's too broad a definition, but you have yet to explain why exactly. All you've done recently is say "It's just silly to apply that label to a stone or baby, so clearly you're wrong". Why is that too broad a definition for you?
Because (
by your own admission!) people do not use the label to describe those who merely lack belief--e.g. infants, intelligent animals, or coma victims. Mere lack of belief is not sufficient to qualify one as an "atheist", and we know that because of how people use the word. They use it exclusively to describe people who know what gods are and reject the belief that gods exist. The only folks who seem to accept your definition are atheists and those willing to go along with however atheists wish to define the label, even though word usage is not a matter of prescriptive fiat. Word meanings are determined by how people use words, not by how they claim to use words. As someone with linguistic training, you ought to understand that principle.
The point is the word is used as the prefix a- and the root theos are intended to mean together. It's used to describe someone who is not a theist.
You are basing this on purely historical grounds. On the face of it, you are engaging in an etymological fallacy. So far, you have not denied that etymological fallacy is a real phenomenon, but you insist on denying that your use of historical word etymology to argue for modern usage is an etymological fallacy. You have not tried to explain the difference between your argument and an etymological fallacy. All you have done is baldly deny that it is.
As far as Gricean maxims go, what I'm saying is that anyone who does not hold the belief that God exists is an atheist. I'm not sure what your point is with speech act theory.
I'll say it again. People in this thread have denied that the assertion "God does not exist" is essentially equivalent to the assertion "I believe that God does not exist." Grice's maxim of quality establishes them as equivalent. Every assertion entails belief by that maxim.
The bottom line is when considering who fits into the category of "atheists", all you have to consider is whether or not they hold the belief in God. If so, they don't fit. If not, they fit. I'm curious why you think someone who doesn't hold the belief in God shouldn't fit in the "atheist" category.
I think it so because we almost never use the word to describe people who do not have a "god" concept. People use atheism to describe the state of mind of people who know what gods are and who deny their existence, however weak their confidence is in that denial. This is why it is relevant to bring up the subject of infants in the discussion. If people went around calling babies atheists, then your definition would make sense. They do not, so your definition does not make sense.
