Atheism: A belief?

[Copernicus]

We don't call ourselves a "belief system". Theists (and Copernicus) are doing it to us!

Actually, what you are doing to me is distorting what I have said. I would not call atheism a "system of beliefs". It is a rejection of belief in the existence of gods. It should not come as a surprise that rejection of belief is itself a belief. After all, belief is a recursive concept. You can have beliefs about beliefs. In the case of atheism, the belief is that gods are implausible beings.

Although it is often said to be impossible to prove a negative, one can have beliefs that certain propositions are false or at least not likely to be true. Most of us reject the belief that there are fairies or hobgoblins. Now, it is ALSO true that we lack belief in fairies and hobgoblins. Lack of belief is included in the meaning of (i.e. entailed by) a belief in a negative proposition. My position in this thread has been that atheism entails lack of belief only in that sense and that it is misleading for atheists to claim that they have no belief whatsoever with respect to gods. Atheism is no more a neutral position on the existence of gods than theism is.

NOTICE: Neither theism nor atheism is a "system of beliefs".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Atheism is no more a neutral position on the existence of gods than theism is.

Out of curiosity, what is your term for the neutral position?

 

[Willamena]

Out of curiosity, what is your term for the neutral position?

"Just me."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"Just me."

I meant the neutral position on the existence of gods.

 

[Willamena]

I meant the neutral position on the existence of gods.

So did I.

 

[Willamena]

The atheist isn't me, and it isn't any of you. It's a hat that we don in order to look at a certain thing a certain way.

At the end of the day, the hat gets put away.

 

[Orias]

OK, you're still missing the point. Try to follow along. In your opinion, do you believe in God? Would you make the claim "I believe in God" or "I believe in a god"? Just answer the question, and we can move on.

You are very stubborn aren't you?

No, God is not something I would use to define my belief, nor is atheism.

If you wish to be more specific, perhaps you should be more specific in such an argument of semantics.

Um....so, those who are complicating things are arguing against the simple fact (in other words true claim) that those who hold no belief in gods are atheists. In other words, it's a fact that someone who doesn't hold a belief in gods is an atheist.

Exactly.

So, you weren't in full agreement with me, after all.

I find it hard for anyone to fully agree with anyone. Such a concept would merely be considered religious

But then again, there are those, theists and atheists alike, who adhere to such fallible doctrines.

hold the false belief that atheism is a belief. I'm trying to show you how that belief is false.

Not at all, I agree with every single definition, be it the conotative or denotative definition of atheism.

I just find it seemingly hypocritical for one to view themselves as an atheist, where by means they thoroughly explain what they belief atheism is, yet they are oblivious to the "fact" that atheism entitles the view of "without a God", as they narrowmindedly droll on about how they believe that atheism isn't a belief.

It appears not everyone is capable of perceiving themselves from an outside perspective.

 

[Copernicus]

Out of curiosity, what is your term for the neutral position?

The position that gods are as likely to exist as not exist--IOW, no discernible opinion one way or the other. This is what most people nowadays seem to think agnosticism is, although it was not Huxley's original position.

 

[Copernicus]

Except you're confronted with a problem: there's a sizeable number of people who use the word in the way you say they shouldn't. If definitions describe usage, then doesn't the definition of "atheist" have to account for this?

No. There is a group of people who doggedly insist on a definition. Whether or not they actually use it the way they define it is another matter. I have only seen it used that way by atheists in very special situations--debates with theists over the existence of gods.

But just so we're clear: are you really saying that if we think that a usage of a word is "weird", this means that the word is being used incorrectly?

Not quite. I'm saying that you can test whether or not your definition is adequate by looking at your own usage. If you do not habitually call babies atheists and if you find yourself continually hedging with statements like "Well, yeah, they are TECHNICALLY atheists", that is a good reason to be skeptical of your definition. People don't call babies atheists normally, because they do not consider mere "absence of belief" a sufficient criterion for atheism.

Have you ever tried that argument with a Canadian hockey fan bristling at a non-hockey-playing American using the term "ice hockey"?

The experience I am having with you does have that flavor. Have you been drinking beer before you make these posts?

BTW - exactly what axe are you grinding?

A linguistic one. I am using it to split hairs with you over what it means to call someone an "atheist".

Any reason why you went with dictionary.com definition and not the Oxford English Dictionary one? After all, you just held up the OED as an authority when talking about its definition of "atheism".

I looked at a number of dictionaries, including Merriam-Websters Unabridged and Wordnet. Wordnet consistently refers to disbelief as a rejection of belief, not neutrality of belief. You have cherry-picked one dictionary definition that uses your pet phrase--"lack of belief"--but with an associated usage example that suggests rejection. I have not claimed that no dictionary uses your wording. What I have claimed is that it is rarely used and probably only used because of the popularity of the definition, as opposed to an objective examination of how the word is actually used by people. All dictionaries contain some poor definitions. That we find an occasional "lack of belief" reference in a secondary sense does not trouble me. It would trouble me if it were more common wording as a primary sense.

That aside, let's have a look at the dictionary.com definition...

You are really cherry-picking and nitpicking the wording of these definitions. For example, you take a phrase like "inability to believe" to be associated exclusively with neutrality of belief, whereas I see it as meaning incredulity. The ultimate question is what the lexicographers thought they were conveying when they ratified that language in their definition.

In definition 1, note the term "inability". Didn't you just argue that atheism doesn't work (or is "weird") when it's applied to someone who doesn't have the capacity for belief? Would you say that lack of capacity for something is an inability to do that thing?

Inability to believe is not just associated with "lack of capacity". Usually it refers to a contradiction with a strong conviction. You are seeing what you are looking for, but I don't think you are looking for anything that contradicts your rigid position on "lack of belief". The problem is that a belief in a negative claim entails lack of belief in the position claim. You are looking at the entailment as semantic equivalence (a symmetrical relationship), but it is not.

Note the first definition: "the act of disbelieving". If you had clicked on the hyperlink for "disbelieving", this definition would've come up - note the part I've highlighted:

Definition of DISBELIEVE

transitive verb
: to hold not worthy of belief : not believe

First of all, the word "disbelieve" is a word being used to describe a word sense, and there is a philosophical problem in using the same language for metalanguage and object language. So going to the dictionary to explain the words in definitions is a bit incestuous, since that practice can lead to circularity. Nevertheless, pay attention to the ambiguity inherent in the expression "not believe". It can also mean "believe that not..." Highlighting it does not remove the ambiguity.

But you just finished telling us that a person has to be 18 to be a smoker. Were you wrong?

No, you misconstrued my point. Surveys quite often set up arbitrary limits on the categories they examine for very obvious reasons. There is a difference between general words senses, which dictionaries try to capture, and specific usage, where meanings can be widened or narrowed to fit the circumstances.

An infant who couldn't even hold a cigarette, let alone go to the store a buy a pack of them, is no more a "potential smoker" than he is a "potential theist".

If you did a survey of atheists vs. non-atheists in the American population and counted babies as atheists, you would be laughed out of the room. Babies, on the other hand (and as I pointed out), have lungs and they breathe. They do not have a concept of God. In that sense, you can count them as "smokers", but not "atheists".

IOW, if I maintain the sensible, consistent definition of the term.

You still miss the point. It is not about maintaining a definition, but of maintaining usage. You can consistently define an elephant as a giraffe but always use the word "elephant" to refer to actual elephants. What I am saying here is that your usage probably does not conform to your definition. Why? Because not calling babies atheists because it "sounds strange" tells us more about the word usage a person has for "atheist" than the way that person would define its meaning. People are rarely conscious of how they actually use language.

...you mentioned before: plenty of people have a mental image of an "atheist" as something close to "evil servant of Satan". There are plenty of reasons to avoid using the term that have nothing to do with its correctness.

Correct. Atheism does carry a stigma with it, and you may call the effect you are looking for by its technical name: "euphemism". People also avoid using terms when they might mislead others. The word "non-believer" is quite often used deliberately to include those who are neutral with respect to the existence of God--i.e. neither prone to accepting or rejecting belief. But I'll concede your point that people sometimes use "non-theist" and "non-believer" as euphemisms for "atheist". It is much easier to apply the euphemisms to a broader class of individuals precisely because they lack the nuances we associate with "atheist".

 

[Copernicus]

My conversations with dogs have been limited to things like belly-rubs and going for walkies. I have never had a theological conversation with a dog... not one where the dog communicated any clear point of view on the subject, anyhow.

So, your dog is an atheist? That's the question that you avoided answering. Even you must realize that your dog's lack of belief in gods does not qualify it as an atheist, although I believe that it does believe in the existence of humans and masters.

Really? You actually find it difficult to say that losing a nose doesn't deprive a person of personhood?

Actually, there has been some interesting research done on just such judgments. You might be interested to know that penguins are less "birdy" than flying birds with noticeable feathers. Birds typically fly. Similarly, humans typically have noses, but noses alone are not defining characteristics.

The point I was trying to get at is that the characteristics that define what we are are not necessarily simply the characteristics that are common among us... or even universal. If every car in the world was red, this wouldn't mean that if someone painted a car blue, it would cease to be a car.

No. It would cease to be a typical car. Make too many significant changes, and it stops being a car. Word meanings are almost always semantically vague around the edges.

Agnosticism...

Do you notice what's common to every one of these definitions? An explicit position: doctrine, affirmation, unwillingness, belief.

Actually, what I saw was a consistent denial of knowledge, which is characteristic of agnosticism, as opposed to denial of belief, which is characteristic of atheism.

Is that what you think I'm doing? It's not. My only concern here is my quasi-fetish for using language correctly.

Well, actually, it is what I think you are doing--clinging to a definition that improves your position in a debate. Your definition has no real use beyond that purpose, which is why the definition is repeated much more often in these debate threads than in dictionaries.

A question for you: what's your opinion of the terms "weak atheism" or "implicit atheism"? In your view, are these just contradictions in terms?

When you qualify words with adjectives or other modifiers, that can alter the meaning of the head noun significantly. Consider the kinds of objects that the following could refer to: "fake gun", "imitation gun", "toy gun", "imaginary gun", "water gun", "nail gun", "blue gun", "German gun", "broken gun", etc. Some of those expressions refer to guns, and some do not. Some are hard to categorize.

The terms "weak atheism" and "implicit atheism" tend to be brought up in classifications of types of atheism, and I think that people quite often come up with incompatible definitions. Some take "weak atheists" to be synonymous with "agnostics", and some make a strong distinction. I think of a "weak atheist" as a person who weakly rejects the existence of gods or who avoids arguments that give positive reasons for rejecting belief in gods. The latter tend to rely almost exclusively on placing the burden of proof on theists, which is a non-starter from the viewpoint of many, if not most, theists.

But there are god-concepts that people actually believe in that don't meet that definition. For instance, any lesser god in a pantheon of gods couldn't be said to have "absolute" power, since it could be thwarted by a higher god.

Yes, it is true that Zeus could trump Poseidon, but both were clearly gods, and Poseidon held dominion over the seas with Zeus's blessing. For some Christian sects, there are saints that have special powers to grant favors in specific areas, but they are not considered as autonomous as traditional gods. The distinction is not very big, and it probably helped the transition from more traditional polytheism to less traditional Christian monotheism. Gods have semantically vague characteristics around the edges, but the core concept is clear. The word "god" is not semantically vacuous.

And that's before we ask whether the idea of an immaterial agent controlling physical reality is even a coherent concept. It sounds to me that you may have created a definition for God that's a logical contradiction not believed in by any theist.

Nonsense. It is perfectly clear that an immaterial agent is a disembodied mind. The concept may be implausible, but it is not difficult to grasp it.

For starters, can you even define the term "alien" so that the definition is:

- exhaustive enough to include everything that could be reasonably called an alien,
- rigorous enough that it excludes everything that isn't an alien, and
- coherent enough that it would allow you to actually reject it... i.e. that it would be something comprehensible enough that you could evaluate the statement "aliens exist" in order to reject it?

An alien is an "extraterrestrial being". You can find the definition in dictionaries, and it seems good enough for me. Why isn't it for you?

 

[Willamena]

There is a big difference between word meaning and the definition of a word sense. Meanings are very complex networks of associations. Definitions are succinct statements that help people distinguish between different senses of the word and serve as discovery procedures for setting up the correct meaning. Dictionaries do not determine what words mean. They provide readers with clues as to how words are commonly used by speakers of a language.

I'd disagree that that's a big difference. People wanting to let others in on the "complex network of associations" they use will generally choose words that are "succinct statements that serve as discovery procedures" for setting up the "correct" meaning.

 

[Willamena]

And that's before we ask whether the idea of an immaterial agent controlling physical reality is even a coherent concept. It sounds to me that you may have created a definition for God that's a logical contradiction not believed in by any theist.

The "I" in our sentences about our "self" is nothing less than an immaterial agent that has affected reality. It's not only a coherent concept, it's generally accepted. "God" in the story says, in definition of himself, "I am who I am." What's so improbable about this definition of "God"?

 

[Orias]

Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

 

[Magic Man]

You are very stubborn aren't you?

When it comes to getting someone to understand my point? Usually.

No, God is not something I would use to define my belief, nor is atheism.

Well, if you wouldn't say you believe in a god, then you are an atheist. That was the point of my question.

Exactly.

Exactly what? I just explained what I had said before that you said you fully agreed with, and now you're saying you don't agree with it at all. Is it that you don't understand anything I'm saying?

Not at all, I agree with every single definition, be it the conotative or denotative definition of atheism.

If you agree that "lack of belief in God" is a valid definition of atheism, then you shouldn't be making the claim that atheism is a belief. You could say "Atheism can include a belief, but it doesn't always", and that would be much more accurate.

I just find it seemingly hypocritical for one to view themselves as an atheist, where by means they thoroughly explain what they belief atheism is, yet they are oblivious to the "fact" that atheism entitles the view of "without a God", as they narrowmindedly droll on about how they believe that atheism isn't a belief.

It appears not everyone is capable of perceiving themselves from an outside perspective.

I'm sorry, this doesn't even make sense. It's not a belief that atheism isn't a belief. It's a fact. One that you have said you agree with, and then said you didn't agree with. It would really help if you started being clear with your statements.

Here's the deal. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. It can also include the belief that gods don't exist. But at its core, it is simply a lack of belief.

Think of it like this: Football is a game played with 11 players on each team on the field who try to score touchdowns. That's it at its core. It can also include things like "players wearing football pads", but it doesn't have to. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Just as sometimes people who play football also wear pads, people who lack belief in gods also hold the belief that gods don't exist.

Now, what this means is your assertion that atheism is a belief is incorrect. Atheism can include a belief, but it doesn't have to.

Finally, if you are going to respond, please try to be clear with your words. Responses like the above only hinder communication.

 

[Magic Man]

No. There is a group of people who doggedly insist on a definition. Whether or not they actually use it the way they define it is another matter. I have only seen it used that way by atheists in very special situations--debates with theists over the existence of gods.

No, you have only seen it specifically discussed in detail in that instance. Whenever I use the term, I use it the way it's supposed to be used (the lack of belief in gods). Usually, this distinction doesn't come up because it's not relevant to the conversation. Sometimes, like the times you're talking about, that distinction is relevant to the discussion. As with Penguin's non-smoker example, the fact that little kids and babies are non-smokers rarely comes up, but the way we use the word allows for them to be considered such.

Not quite. I'm saying that you can test whether or not your definition is adequate by looking at your own usage. If you do not habitually call babies atheists and if you find yourself continually hedging with statements like "Well, yeah, they are TECHNICALLY atheists", that is a good reason to be skeptical of your definition. People don't call babies atheists normally, because they do not consider mere "absence of belief" a sufficient criterion for atheism.

No, that is not good reason to be skeptical of our definition. This goes back to my above comment. Most people don't habitually call babies atheists because most people are theists, and wouldn't want to think of kids that way. Also, it's not really a relevant label in most conversations. The only time it really matters whether babies would fall under the definition of atheists is when you get into these discussions. Just like it's usually pointless to call them non-smokers, too, even though they fit that description, unless you get into a discussion like this.

 

[Copernicus]

I'd disagree that that's a big difference. People wanting to let others in on the "complex network of associations" they use will generally choose words that are "succinct statements that serve as discovery procedures" for setting up the "correct" meaning.

The difference is huge, especially when you consider that word meanings can shift around a lot in the context of a conversation. If you want to understand meaning, you usually need to understand a lot of concepts that meaning associates with. Hence, encyclopedias are more useful than dictionaries for getting at word meanings. It has been said that definitions are little more than heuristic statements, and I agree with that.

One of the things I do in my work is to help technical communities define words. The informal tendency is to set up glossaries, which are not really dictionaries. Glossaries often include encyclopedic information. What we train people to do is create the shortest possible statement that allows a reader to distinguish the word from other technical vocabulary. We sometimes have to fight hard with people who want to include information that really belongs in a training class. But all they are doing is trying to flesh out the meaning, not the best definition of it.

 

[Willamena]

The difference is huge, especially when you consider that word meanings can shift around a lot in the context of a conversation. If you want to understand meaning, you usually need to understand a lot of concepts that meaning associates with. Hence, encyclopedias are more useful than dictionaries for getting at word meanings. It has been said that definitions are little more than heuristic statements, and I agree with that.

One of the things I do in my work is to help technical communities define words. The informal tendency is to set up glossaries, which are not really dictionaries. Glossaries often include encyclopedic information. What we train people to do is create the shortest possible statement that allows a reader to distinguish the word from other technical vocabulary. We sometimes have to fight hard with people who want to include information that really belongs in a training class. But all they are doing is trying to flesh out the meaning, not the best definition of it.

Okay, granted; but I don't see that as a difference between word meaning and definition, but a difference between one person's word meaning/definition and another's. That can be admittedly huge.

Admittedly, I have a different picture than you.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Note: I've snipped some of the quotes to get under the character limit.

No.
[...]
I have only seen it used that way by atheists in very special situations--debates with theists over the existence of gods.

How would you tell?

It's not as if the theological beliefs of babies or rocks come up in conversation very often, so what is it about the way that I (or anyone else) use the term "atheist" that says to you that it's being used in a way that's inconsistent with the definition I give for the term?

Not quite.
[...]
People don't call babies atheists normally, because they do not consider mere "absence of belief" a sufficient criterion for atheism.

If we're talking about usage, well, I don't habitually talk about the beliefs of babies at all.

It seems to me that you're trying to perform a logical divide-by-zero: if the fact that I don't often refer use the term "atheist" to refer to a baby is supposed to mean something, then wouldn't it mean something as well that I never use the term "atheist" in a way that would implicitly exclude babies without some sort of qualifier (e.g. speaking explicitly about respondents to a particular survey)?

You're trying to make an inference from the fact that I just don't talk about babies' beliefs very often.

As an analogy, I've never once seen you use the term "waffle slab". Which do you think is the more reasonable inference for me to draw from this?

- that you're implicitly stating that you don't believe that the term "waffle" should be used to describe reinforced concrete.

- that you just don't talk about structural design very often (not on RF, anyhow).

Basically, you're trying to draw inferences from a lack of information. This is normally a bad idea.

The experience I am having with you does have that flavor. Have you been drinking beer before you make these posts?

You do understand what I'm getting at, don't you? The hockey fan probably cares more about the proper usage of the term "hockey" than the person who doesn't really know the game at all. Same in this case: people generally care more about the labels that apply to themselves than other people do. I care more about the distinctions between atheism and agnosticism, for instance, than I do about the distinctions between pantheism and panentheism. I'd expect this to be reversed for a pantheist.

A linguistic one. I am using it to split hairs with you over what it means to call someone an "atheist".

But to what end? Why does it matter to you?

I looked at a number of dictionaries,
[...]
You have cherry-picked one dictionary definition that uses your pet phrase--"lack of belief"--but with an associated usage example that suggests rejection.

I didn't cherry-pick anything. I just used the same sources that you cited with the expectation that if you considered them authoritative when they agreed with you, that you'd concede that they were authoritative when they disagreed with you as well. I guess I was wrong.

This is just an exercise in special pleading for you, isn't it? I'm starting to get the sense that it's not so much that you care about coming to the correct conclusion based on the facts at hand, but instead that you're just interested in picking and choosing the facts that support your position and ignoring the rest. Occam's Broom, basically.

I have not claimed that no dictionary uses your wording. What I have claimed is that it is rarely used and probably only used because of the popularity of the definition, as opposed to an objective examination of how the word is actually used by people.

I'm having trouble figuring out what you're arguing here. On the one hand, it seems like you're saying that it's only negligibly used, but then you also concede that it is used... but you give an excuse for this. Which is it?

All dictionaries contain some poor definitions.

And you're the judge of which definitions are good and which ones are "poor"? Convenient.

You are really cherry-picking and nitpicking the wording of these definitions. For example, you take a phrase like "inability to believe" to be associated exclusively with neutrality of belief, whereas I see it as meaning incredulity.

No, I'm just looking for consistency in your argument. If you're going to argue that atheism implies capacity for (but rejection of) theistic belief, then the fact that the definition refers to an incapacity for belief creates a problem for your argument.

And where did you get "exclusively" from? Not from me, anyhow. I've never once said that atheism implies lack of belief; just that it allows for lack of belief. Atheists can have positions that range from utter, explicit rejection of gods to no beliefs about gods at all.

Inability to believe is not just associated with "lack of capacity".
[...]
You are looking at the entailment as semantic equivalence (a symmetrical relationship), but it is not.

No, I'm not looking at it as an equivalence. The only question that's relevant here is whether an absence of belief should be considered atheism or not. IOW, what is it about atheists that makes them atheists?

First of all, the word "disbelieve" is a word being used to describe a word sense,
[...]
So going to the dictionary to explain the words in definitions is a bit incestuous, since that practice can lead to circularity.

So we can throw out all your arguments about the definition of the term "disbelieve" as well, then?

Nevertheless, pay attention to the ambiguity inherent in the expression "not believe". It can also mean "believe that not..." Highlighting it does not remove the ambiguity.

I didn't say that disbelieve only means "not believe". I'm saying that it can mean either definition. Either one is valid; the "hold not worthy..." definition is a side matter; the relevant question is whether simple lack of belief validly meets the definition of "disbelieve", and it does. It does it through the second definition: "not believe".

In general, you wouldn't say that a usage of a word has to meet every definition given for that word for the usage to be valid, would you?

No, you misconstrued my point.
[...]
There is a difference between general words senses, which dictionaries try to capture, and specific usage, where meanings can be widened or narrowed to fit the circumstances.

But if a word is invalid, then logical problems arise. For instance, if I said that I was going to do a study of the mating habits of all dogs of the species felis catus, or that I was going to do a survey of quadriplegic marathon runners, I wouldn't be "widening the meaning to fit the circumstances", I would be wrong. There would be a contradiction: the definition of "dog" doesn't allow for cats; the definition of "quadriplegic" doesn't allow for running. If the definition of "non-smoker" doesn't allow for infants, than any talk of infant non-smokers would be nonsense whether it's in the context of a survey or not.

If you did a survey of atheists vs. non-atheists in the American population and counted babies as atheists, you would be laughed out of the room.

So? I'd be hard-pressed to think of a survey of babies that wouldn't be ridiculed.

Babies, on the other hand (and as I pointed out), have lungs and they breathe. They do not have a concept of God. In that sense, you can count them as "smokers", but not "atheists".

So you have to have a concept of God to be an atheist? I want to make I'm absolutely clear on your position on this, because I plan to hold you to it later.

But while we're on the subject: are ignostics atheists? And just so we're clear, let's assume an adult ignostic who's had ample opportunity to think about religion and theistic claims.

You still miss the point.

[...]

People are rarely conscious of how they actually use language.

You made a positive claim there: that my usage of the term "atheist" doesn't conform to my definition.

It seems to me that this suggests an obvious course of action: that you demonstrate that this is true. I've got more than 20,000 posts here; many of them discuss atheism. If you're right (and you can think of some good search terms), it should be a simple matter for you to find an example of me using the term "atheist" in a way that would implicitly exclude infants.

Correct. Atheism does carry a stigma with it, and you may call the effect you are looking for by its technical name: "euphemism".

I know the word; I was just making a point.

People also avoid using terms when they might mislead others.
[...]
It is much easier to apply the euphemisms to a broader class of individuals precisely because they lack the nuances we associate with "atheist".

But you do agree that most of the nuances that people normally infer aren't a part of any valid definition of atheism, right? They're normally things like "hatred of God", "evilness", "antipathy toward religion", "anti-patriotism", "communism", "misanthropy", "anger", etc.

Do you agree that people infer these sorts of meanings for the term "atheism", but they do so invalidly?

 

[Copernicus]

No, you have only seen it specifically discussed in detail in that instance. Whenever I use the term, I use it the way it's supposed to be used (the lack of belief in gods). Usually, this distinction doesn't come up because it's not relevant to the conversation. Sometimes, like the times you're talking about, that distinction is relevant to the discussion...

You've dug your heels in, and I fear that all you will do is repeat your claim as if it had never been refuted. Words have core meanings (sometimes referred to as "prototypes") and meanings can be extended metaphorically and in other ways in special contexts. In the case of "atheist", your concept has special significance in a debate. It puts the atheist in the position of not having to advance positive evidence in favor of a "belief". What is there to defend? There is nothing there. Poof! It's gone! Everyone move along now.

As with Penguin's non-smoker example, the fact that little kids and babies are non-smokers rarely comes up, but the way we use the word allows for them to be considered such.

Here is the last thing I said to Penguin on that subject: "If you did a survey of atheists vs. non-atheists in the American population and counted babies as atheists, you would be laughed out of the room. Babies, on the other hand (and as I pointed out), have lungs and they breathe. They do not have a concept of God. In that sense, you can count them as "smokers", but not "atheists". "

No, that is not good reason to be skeptical of our definition. This goes back to my above comment. Most people don't habitually call babies atheists because most people are theists, and wouldn't want to think of kids that way.

My generalization applies to theism, as well. No "god" concept, no "theist". My point--the one you keep ignoring--is that people can fall outside of both categories by having no understanding of what a god is or by having no opinion on the matter of their existence. To call a baby an "atheist" is a bit like calling the Pope a "bachelor". It is true that he is an unmarried male, but he does not meet the eligibility requirement. So we might say that he is "technically a bachelor", because the word "technically", oddly enough, is used to extend or broaden the common usage to fit a special circumstance. Babies are "technically atheists" only in the sense that we have moved the goalposts on what we commonly use the word "atheist" to refer to .

...Also, it's not really a relevant label in most conversations. The only time it really matters whether babies would fall under the definition of atheists is when you get into these discussions. Just like it's usually pointless to call them non-smokers, too, even though they fit that description, unless you get into a discussion like this.

So we are almost in complete agreement here. The "lacks belief" definition is only useful in debates with theists. It is an extension of meaning, not the core meaning of the word. That is the kind of situation that drives lexicographers crazy, because they have to decide whether the contextual extension really belongs in a dictionary. If it is just a rhetorical ploy--and I think that this one is--then it does not.

 

[Magic Man]

I've never once said that atheism implies lack of belief; just that it allows for lack of belief. Atheists can have positions that range from utter, explicit rejection of gods to no beliefs about gods at all.

Actually, I would nitpick and say that atheism does indeed imply or indicate a lack of belief. The belief in question is "God exists". That belief is lacked by all atheists. Some atheists, as you point out, also include with that lack of belief the belief "God doesn't exist". In other words, even the strong atheists who hold the belief "God doesn't exist" also lack the belief in question.