Atheism: A belief?

[Kilgore Trout]

If you can provide a belief specific to any "belief" or ontological stance then maybe you would be able to see.

Theists believe that something they call "god" exists.

Your turn - what do atheists believe?

 

[Orias]

Don't read too much into it. In his attempt to show atheism is a debate, he incorrectly makes the argument that since we're discussing the word "belief" in relation to atheism, that atheism must be a belief. Also, he seems to think that expressing an opinion about atheism makes you an atheist. I thought he was doing these bizarre things purposefully earlier in the thread, but now I'm wondering whether he actually thinks they are meaningful arguments.

What argument is meaningful?

It is obvious that it must have some, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

I think many people get stuck on an argument, and in a vain attempt to protect their ego, they start down a path of more and more convoluted arguments, until they get to the point that they don't even know they're not making sense any more.

Don't exclude yourself, Mr. Psychologist.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

What argument is meaningful?

It is obvious that it must have some, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Your grasp on logic is something else.

Don't exclude yourself, Mr. Psychologist.

Except my arguments are cogent, consistent, and make sense.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The world is built off of axioms.

Most people are completely oblivious to their own resourcefulness.

Does this mean "yes, we can only have beliefs about beliefs"?

What position?

Apparently I am an atheist, which isn't a position at all.

Atheism isn't a position itself, but that doesn't stop you from holding positions.

In this case, by "position", I was referring to whatever it is you're trying to argue here.

 

[Alceste]

Except my arguments are cogent, consistent, and make sense.

Yep, they are.

 

[Orias]

Your grasp on logic is something else.

You just misunderstand. But that's okay, it is a common occurence.

Except my arguments are cogent, consistent, and make sense.

I fail to see how this justifies anything, and how it supports that mine are not. It is not my fault you chose to see what you do.

Sure, your arguments are cogent, consistent and make sense to you. You chose to make whatever you do out of my points, and there is nothing I can do about it.

To speak of one protecting their ego could only mean that the accuser stands guilty of the same crime.


Now, please provide a belief specific to any "position". If that is of course, practical at all.

Does this mean "yes, we can only have beliefs about beliefs"?

Make of it what you will, all labels, concepts, and fabrications come from the same place.

Atheism isn't a position itself, but that doesn't stop you from holding positions.

In this case, by "position", I was referring to whatever it is you're trying to argue here.

You're right, once someone takes the label unto themselves is when it becomes a position.

What else is new?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

You just misunderstand. But that's okay, it is a common occurence.

Indeed - you may want to step back and honestly consider why people "misunderstand" you so much.

I fail to see how this justifies anything, and how it supports that mine are not. It is not my fault you chose to see what you do.

Sure, your arguments are cogent, consistent and make sense to you. You chose to make whatever you do out of my points, and there is nothing I can do about it.

For starters, you can start being cogent, consistent, and making sense.

To speak of one protecting their ego could only mean that the accuser stands guilty of the same crime.

Another masterpiece of logic.

Now, please provide a belief specific to any "position". If that is of course, practical at all.

Once again, theists believe that something they define as god exists.

Once again, your turn.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Yep, they are.

I wonder why it is that smart people always understand me.

 

[Copernicus]

Penguin, thanks for the long discussion. Rather than to go point-by-point through your last post, I feel it better to summarize our positions, as I see them. The OP asked whether atheism was a belief, and you (Alceste, Mball, Kilgore, and some others) said "no". I took the lonely atheist position of "yes". If one wants to attain the coveted label of "atheist" along with its level of social respect and approval, then here are two competing definitions:

1) Atheist: a person who lacks belief in gods. (Penguin, Kilgore, Alceste, Mball, etc.)
2) Atheist: a person who rejects belief in gods. (Copernicus, Atanu, etc.)

We have established that "lack of belief" can apply to any being with a mind (and possibly even brainless things) that has no concept of a god. Hence, you claim that dogs and infants qualify for the label. I take the position that this violates our sense of acceptable usage in English. I believe that we have exhausted further discussion on that issue, and I am content with leaving it there, because I think that it fails the test of observational adequacy. That is, the definition makes false predictions about usage.

We can agree on what a "belief" is. A belief is a proposition that one holds to be true.
The final interesting question is what one can possibly mean by the word "god". I have provided a definition that you (and others) did not much like. Here is a somewhat modified version:

3) God: a supernatural agency that has volitional control over at least some aspect of reality and has worshipers

I have removed the words "absolute power" in order to eliminate the issue of whether the god qualifies as a "lesser god" in a pantheon. This definition excludes some of the less anthropomorphic concepts, which lack the property of agency. I think that most theists who downplay agency still have some level of anthropomorphism in their behavior and language, so I regard those attempts as ideologically-driven (not unlike your definition of "atheism"). To me, it is still valid to use the word "God" to describe some non-volitional force, but we are really using a different sense of the word. Most people think of gods as beings that they can communicate with through prayer.

Your position on what "god" means was somewhat surprising to me, because I did not previously think of you as a noncognitivist atheist. Alceste pretty clearly does take that position, and you appeared to agree with her. Noncognitivism is historically grounded in the Vienna School's theory of meaning: verificationism. In that theory, words (mostly just nouns) are said to lack meaning unless you can provide a method of verifying their reference. So "god" is synonymous with any nonsense word, e.g. Alceste's "fneeglemorph".

Now the interesting thing you came up with was this metaphorical "checklist" idea to validate your sense that you truly lack a belief in gods. Gods represent an infinite set of beings that appear on a checklist. In order to have a belief that gods exist, you have to verify at least one of the beings named on the checklist, and it is open-ended. You haven't encountered a verifiable "god" yet, and you are open about how something even gets on the list. You even express disinterest as to how something gets on the list, claiming that it is "not my problem".

That is our last area of disagreement. It think that it is very much your problem. You cannot call yourself an "atheist" unless you know how items get included in that list, whichis the set of all gods. Linguists and philosophers might refer to it as the extension of the word "god", whereas the meaning (intension) is the function that allows you to enumerate items on the list. The problem is that "god" is part of your definition of "atheist", so it must be meaningful in order for your definition to be meaningful.

Don't forget that you did say it would be a problem for you if someone's cat got on the list, because you would cease to be an atheist if anything that really existed got on the list. That list determines whether you can truly label yourself or anyone else an "atheist".

 

[Copernicus]

It really is rather arrogant to say "You don't actually use the word that way. You're only doing it in certain cases to support a particular argument. I know what you mean with your words better than you do". I would appreciate it if you would stop this arrogance.

Mball, in response to my posts, you have had the arrogance to tell me that you "do not actually use the word that way." And you have maintained that you know what "atheist" means better than I do. I would appreciate it if you would stop this arrogance. Alternatively, we could just make a sincere effort to debate the issues without engaging in bashing each other's character.

 

[Magic Man]

Wasn't sure if this got through to you at all.

Oh, it got through, but it doesn't really help anything. Do you communicate in English or not? Do you consider yourself human or not? You said I was conforming to a herd by labeling myself an atheist. I'm no more conforming to a herd by labeling myself an atheist than you are by using English. That was my point. By your logic, to not conform to a herd, you'd have to not use language at all.

Actually, no where in the definition of "atheism" does it say that it is not a belief. Until you can prove that it does, you are going no where with your feeble argument.

Yes, this is the main problem. You are actually trying to argue that when it says "lack of belief" it is somehow not saying it is not a belief.

Lack of belief in "God(s)" is the correct definition

OK, I'm glad we've established that. You're at least on the right track.

not just merely a lack in belief.

Huh? It is a lack of a belief. Some people have the belief "God exists" along with their other million beliefs. An atheist lacks that belief, so that they have one fewer belief than the person who holds it.

Not to mention that you believe it. But I wouldn't expect it to get through to you, your not trying to understand anything.

Now, are you capable of viewing yourself from a perspective other than your own?

Have you given up even trying to make sense now? What do I believe, that atheism is the lack of belief? Of course I do, but believing something about atheism isn't even close to atheism being a belief.

Not really, countless numbers of them have told me that they make no claims, that they are in no position to make any "truthful" assertions.

If one were to do such a thing they would just as propagandistic as a Christian.

Um...we're not talking about making truthful claims about religion or God here. We're talking about truthful claims about words and their definitions.

It describes their belief in such achieved aspects.

This doesn't actually make sense, but the main part of it is wrong. It does not describe their belief. It describes how they act or feel about a certain belief.

In your integrity, your definitions of "atheism", your heart felt and continual appeal to what you belief.

Until you can prove that you know anything, you will sit and wither away.

You completely misrepresent the point.

I meant challenged by Opposition, not someone who decides to take the concept for a crash course.

In other words, you're not interested in communicating effectively, choosing instead to sound like you're on acid because you think it sounds cool. Got it.

I think my two years in A.P physics has lead me to enough formalities.

Interesting that this is the second time in two days someone has tried to justify their misunderstanding of science with the fact that they took some science classes. All this tells me is that your time in AP Physics didn't teach you the fundamental nature of scientific theories.

No, you are completely wrong.

A majority of the Earth's population is Christian, Islamic, animsistic. Are you saying that because a majority agrees that it makes it so?

I think not.

OK, try to keep up. Yes, most of the time an appeal to popularity is a fallacy. However, we're talking about language. The only way language works is when people agree on meanings. The meanings of words are arbitrary. We agree on them so that we can communicate. If every single person agrees that atheism means "light-saber pen", then that's what the word means.

This is not analogous to religion or other majority opinions for the reasons stated.

I don't really get what you're missing here. You completely believe in your own argument.

And you said I was the one ignoring you.

Where in the definition of "atheism" does it say that it is not a belief? You can make all of the assumptions and implications you want, but it does not prove anything.

If it is not so much as a belief, then it shouldn't be defined with belief. Not only that, if it wasn't a belief we wouldn't of gone through 800 different posts of you describing to me what you belief atheism is.

Clearly you are very oblivious to your own resourcefulness.

OK, let's go over this. You accuse me of just repeating myself, and yet that is all you're doing. You're denying that "lack of belief in gods" means "no belief in gods". Why? Atheism is not defined as a belief. It is defined as a lack of belief, to which you have explicitly agreed. "Lack of belief" specifically means "not a belief". It's like I'm saying "The sky is blue, so it is a color", and you're saying "I agree that the sky is blue, but nowhere does that say it's a color".

And again, my beliefs about atheism have nothing to do with what atheism is. Regardless of what I believe about a computer, "computer" is still an electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations. I can tell you what I believe about books, but that doesn't make books beliefs.

 

[Magic Man]

Mball, in response to my posts, you have had the arrogance to tell me that you "do not actually use the word that way."

Huh? What I've told you is how I and others use the word. That is not arrogance.

And you have maintained that you know what "atheist" means better than I do. I would appreciate it if you would stop this arrogance. Alternatively, we could just make a sincere issue to debate the issues without engaging in bashing each other's character.

This was a poor attempt, and missed my point. My point was that your assertion is that Penguin and I, among others, don't actually use the term "atheist" the way we say we do, as if you know how we use terms better than we do. That's an arrogant assertion. My assertion is that some of us use the term "atheist" to mean "someone who lacks a belief in gods". That is not an arrogant assertion.

 

[Copernicus]

Huh? What I've told you is how I and others use the word. That is not arrogance.

It is when all you do is insist on it no matter what anyone says. You simply ignore what you do not want to hear. People do not refer to babies and dogs as "atheists". Most of those advocating the "lacks belief" definition admit that, and I take their intuition, which agrees with mine, as endorsement of my usage claim. You have presented no alternative argument about usage other than to repeat your mantra. Penguin, at least, has had the courtesy to offer alternative arguments, and that is why I have preferred to discuss the matter with him.

This was a poor attempt, and missed my point. My point was that your assertion is that Penguin and I, among others, don't actually use the term "atheist" the way we say we do, as if you know how we use terms better than we do. That's an arrogant assertion. My assertion is that some of us use the term "atheist" to mean "someone who lacks a belief in gods". That is not an arrogant assertion.

It is not an arrogant assertion if one has special training in the area and actually does it for a living. I'm not saying that you are wrong because I am an authority, but you really ought to stop inserting your ego into the argument. It is fair game to criticize my arguments. It is not fair game to criticize my personality. I may be wrong, but you are not going to win the argument by making the case that I am bad, stupid, or arrogant.

 

[Magic Man]

It is when all you do is insist on it no matter what anyone says. You simply ignore what you do not want to hear. People do not refer to babies and dogs as "atheists". Most of those advocating the "lacks belief" definition admit that, and I take their intuition, which agrees with mine, as endorsement of my usage claim.

First, none of that makes it arrogance. If this part were true, it could mean it's stubbornness, but not arrogance.

Second, I'm not ignoring anything. I've responded to your arguments. My argument is that people use it the way I say they do. Your argument is that we don't. What else do you want me to say? I've explained it, as have others. If you don't want to accept it, there's not a whole lot else I can do.

No, most of the time people don't refer to babies as atheists. So? That's meaningless. Most of the time babies are the children of theists, and so of course they wouldn't call them atheists. Other times, talking about whether or not a baby believes in God is irrelevant to discussion or just unhelpful. None of that implies anything about the real definition of atheism.

It is not an arrogant assertion if one has special training in the area and actually does it for a living.

Yes, it is. You're still claiming that you know what I mean with my words better than I do. It's an arrogant and condescending claim, regardless of whether you have any special training.

I'm not saying that you are wrong because I am an authority, but you really ought to stop inserting your ego into the argument. It is fair game to criticize my arguments. It is not fair game to criticize my personality. I may be wrong, but you are not going to win the argument by making the case that I am bad, stupid, or arrogant.

OK, here's what's happening. We're saying we use the term "atheism" to mean something, and you're saying "No, you don't". That really doesn't leave any room to argue with you, so I choose to instead point out the arrogance of your claim.

It's like I'm saying "I don't believe in God" and you're saying "Yes, you do, and I should know since I'm a psychologist". What do you want me to say? I use "atheist" to refer to one who doesn't hold a belief in God. Many others use it the same way. We don't just use it that way in special cases; we use it that way whenever we use it. That's really all there is to it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Penguin, thanks for the long discussion. Rather than to go point-by-point through your last post, I feel it better to summarize our positions, as I see them. The OP asked whether atheism was a belief, and you (Alceste, Mball, Kilgore, and some others) said "no". I took the lonely atheist position of "yes". If one wants to attain the coveted label of "atheist" along with its level of social respect and approval, then here are two competing definitions:

1) Atheist: a person who lacks belief in gods. (Penguin, Kilgore, Alceste, Mball, etc.)
2) Atheist: a person who rejects belief in gods. (Copernicus, Atanu, etc.)

We have established that "lack of belief" can apply to any being with a mind (and possibly even brainless things) that has no concept of a god. Hence, you claim that dogs and infants qualify for the label. I take the position that this violates our sense of acceptable usage in English. I believe that we have exhausted further discussion on that issue, and I am content with leaving it there, because I think that it fails the test of observational adequacy. That is, the definition makes false predictions about usage.

Of course, you realize that you threw in a qualifier that takes care of most of your objections: if you define "atheist" as "a person who lacks belief in gods", then that excludes things like dogs and rocks without resorting to your approach of defining "atheist" in terms of rejection of belief.

I guess this is my way of saying that you're kinda setting up a false dichotomy: there are more options beside the one I'm arguing and the one you're arguing, so a point against my argument is not necessarily a point for yours (or vice versa, I suppose).

We can agree on what a "belief" is. A belief is a proposition that one holds to be true.
The final interesting question is what one can possibly mean by the word "god". I have provided a definition that you (and others) did not much like. Here is a somewhat modified version:

3) God: a supernatural agency that has volitional control over at least some aspect of reality and has worshipers

Um... I have volitional control over at least some aspect of reality. If I find some worshippers, will I be a god?

I think your definition is too broad now, since IMO it includes things that demonstrably exist... mortal human beings who are worshipped, for instance.

Your position on what "god" means was somewhat surprising to me, because I did not previously think of you as a noncognitivist atheist.

Who says I'm a non-cognitivist? You keep on jumping to conclusions about me.

I'm not saying that the term "god" has no meaning at all; I'm saying that the term has multiple meanings, and that these meanings are so varied that there's virtually no characteristic that's common to all of them. The only one I've been able to come up with myself is worship.

Now the interesting thing you came up with was this metaphorical "checklist" idea to validate your sense that you truly lack a belief in gods. Gods represent an infinite set of beings that appear on a checklist. In order to have a belief that gods exist, you have to verify at least one of the beings named on the checklist, and it is open-ended. You haven't encountered a verifiable "god" yet, and you are open about how something even gets on the list. You even express disinterest as to how something gets on the list, claiming that it is "not my problem".

Arrgh. Forget the checklist, because it seems like you completely misunderstood my point. I'll try again.

Imagine a Venn space that contains the region "gods". Imagine another region (or collection of regions, if you want) "things I reject". To meet your definition of "atheist", i.e. a person who rejects belief in gods, the region "things I reject" must completely contain the region "gods". IOW, there can be no part of the region "gods" that is not also within the region "things I reject"; if there is, then I'm not an atheist.

I can do up a diagram in Paint if it'll help you visualize what I'm talking about.

That is our last area of disagreement. It think that it is very much your problem. You cannot call yourself an "atheist" unless you know how items get included in that list, whichis the set of all gods. Linguists and philosophers might refer to it as the extension of the word "god", whereas the meaning (intension) is the function that allows you to enumerate items on the list. The problem is that "god" is part of your definition of "atheist", so it must be meaningful in order for your definition to be meaningful.

Don't forget that you did say it would be a problem for you if someone's cat got on the list, because you would cease to be an atheist if anything that really existed got on the list. That list determines whether you can truly label yourself or anyone else an "atheist".

It's not a problem for me, because my beliefs are based on my understanding: if a person says "I believe in God" we can interpret this as them implicitly saying "I believe in what I understand to be God".

I'm the ultimate arbiter of my understanding and my belief. If I don't believe that a particular thing is a god, then believing in it doesn't make me a theist.

However, you don't have this option open to you... not unless you're willing to budge on your "babies can't be atheists" position.

Remember the Venn diagram I mentioned before? Well, if "god" isn't meaningful for a baby, and if we base things on the individual's understanding of "god", then for that baby, the set "gods" becomes an empty set. IOW, the "gods" region takes up zero area in the Venn diagram. When that happens, there is no part of the region "gods" that is outside the region "things the baby rejects"... IOW, the baby's an atheist. If you use the person's understanding of "gods" as the criterion, anyhow.

So... in my case, I can base my "checklist" on what I understand to be a god. I don't need to worry about any god I haven't thought of, because none of them are within my understanding of "god". But in your case, you need some sort of external, established definition for the term before you can go any further.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It is when all you do is insist on it no matter what anyone says. You simply ignore what you do not want to hear. People do not refer to babies and dogs as "atheists".

I think you're committing a divide-by-zero error. People don't generally talk about the beliefs of babies and dogs at all.

Not outside of discussions like this one, anyhow, but you've repeatedly said that this discussion doesn't count for these sorts of determinations.

Another way of putting it would be to say that people refer to babies and dogs as "atheists" in 100% of the instances where the beliefs of babies and dogs are discussed.

 

[Copernicus]

I'll respond to your prior post later, after I've had time to read and absorb it. This is a quicky.

I think you're committing a divide-by-zero error. People don't generally talk about the beliefs of babies and dogs at all.

Nonsense. We attribute beliefs to babies and dogs all the time. We just do not expect them to think or know about what a "god" is. That comes later for the baby and never for the dog. A dog does not need to have a language in order to hold the belief that it is better to whimper by the door rather than poop on the carpet. It knows lots of things about the world and holds lots of opinions. It just doesn't know about gods.

Not outside of discussions like this one, anyhow, but you've repeatedly said that this discussion doesn't count for these sorts of determinations.

Intuitions about how a word applies count as data. Linguists use that kind of data to draw conclusions about language. We even draw up maps and use isoglosses to represent geographical divisions between different kinds of usage.

Another way of putting it would be to say that people refer to babies and dogs as "atheists" in 100% of the instances where the beliefs of babies and dogs are discussed.

And I've just refuted that. All you need to do is observe people communicating with dogs and babies. We talk about what their beliefs are all the time. We just don't think of them as atheists, because you have to know what "gods" are before you can accept or reject the likelihood of their existence.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Dogs don't hold opinions. They respond according to their conditioning. This applies to human infants up to a certain age as well.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And I've just refuted that. All you need to do is observe people communicating with dogs and babies. We talk about what their beliefs are all the time. We just don't think of them as atheists, because you have to know what "gods" are before you can accept or reject the likelihood of their existence.

How many times have you heard a baby or a dog referred to as "not an atheist"? Outside this thread, for me, the answer is zero.

In normal conversation, the question of whether a baby is an atheist or not just doesn't come up. This fact provides no information at all for either your side or mine. You're trying to draw an inference from nothing.

 

[Magic Man]

We talk about what their beliefs are all the time.

We do? I can't remember the last conversation I had outside of one like this that discussed the beliefs or babies or dogs. Maybe I'm just not part of that "we", just like I'm not part of the "we" that doesn't define atheism as a lack of belief in gods.

We just don't think of them as atheists, because you have to know what "gods" are before you can accept or reject the likelihood of their existence.

There's that "we" again. You should really stop using that, unless you're actually talking about an all-inclusive "we". I think of them as atheists, and I rarely, if ever, talk about their beliefs outside of discussions like this. So, your "we" isn't very inclusive.