Atheism: A belief?

[Kilgore Trout]

Editted.

Do you believe that I'm wearing a blue shirt?

 

[Falvlun]

Do you believe that I'm wearing a blue shirt?

I do not believe you are, no.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I do not believe you are, no.

So, you do not believe that I am wearing a blue shirt?

 

[Copernicus]

It's not so much about attacking your character as it is about attacking why you're making the argument you're making. You feel (in your arrogance) that you know our minds better than we do. If you drop that thinking, we can have a real discussion.

When you accuse someone of being arrogant, it is a direct attack on that person's character. Let's not try to pretend otherwise. I am not preventing you from having an honest discussion. You can end the character attacks any time. Your behavior is not under my control.

You mischaracterized what I said. I did not say I knew your mind better than you did. What I did was say that your intuition of what you say may not match your actual usage, and you ought to understand why I said that, given that you have had some training in linguistics. There is not a shred of arrogance in that position. Usage is debatable, and linguists do not take such claims at face value.

You're the one who keeps saying "This is how we use it...". I'm countering that statement. And I'm pretty sure when I say "atheist" it means what I say it means.

But I've backed it up by citing statements by Alceste and others that appeared to confirm my suspicion. Penguin is now trying to maintain that people don't call babies atheists just because the topic never comes up in conversation. In other words, if it did, they would supposedly judge that babies really are atheists. We can actually test that claim. I'll also offer more evidence for my claim by talking about metaphorical extensions of the words "atheist" and "agnostic" in another post.

 

[Copernicus]

You're moving the goalposts. Your definition didn't mention anything about a "supernatural level".

A definition is just a succinct, generalized statement that tries to express one word sense in a dictionary. Meanings are much more complex than definitions, since they involve a web of associations that differs according to the different experiences of individual speakers. So I will modify the definition to address criticisms of it. The point I am making is that there is a coherent core meaning for "god", and there are reasonable definitions of it. Atheists are people who reject belief in beings that fit the definition. If my original definition failed to express a salient property of a god, then I should be allowed to refine it, shouldn't I? That does not invalidate the principle that the word has a coherent meaning. Definitions of that meaning are going to be more or less useful to users of a dictionary. Lexicographers argue all the time over the adequacy of their definitions, and they frequently revise those definitions to meet criticisms.

Of course I have an idea of what I understand the term "god" to mean, but that's beside the point.

No, it is very much the point, because "atheism" is about beliefs and gods. If you don't know what gods are, then you do not understand what "atheism" means.

I don't need any understanding of the word "god" myself to simply say "your definition implies that X is a god. Do you think that X really is a god?"

But you do have opinions about what a god is. If someone calls their kitchen table a "god", then you immediately form an opinion of some things that that person would believe about the table, if his claim were taken at face value. You cannot accept his claim as true and still remain an atheist.

Yes, you were wrong. And it's not the first time in this thread that I've had to correct you when you've jumped to conclusions about me.

I'm sorry, but you were behaving like a non-cognitivist, and I felt I had a legitimate reason to believe that. Now you claim that you are not, and I am content to let the matter go. I still have no idea how you distinguish yourself from a non-cognitivist atheist, but the label is unimportant.

It's not a matter of me asking for special treatment for "god". It's a matter of me recognizing that your definition of "atheist" puts demands on the definition of "god" that we don't normally place on words.

My point was that part of the argument you use to claim lack of belief in god--the semantic vagueness and/or ambiguity of the term "god"--could be used to claim lack of belief in mundane objects (doors, trees, rocks, etc.). BTW, this is one of the main arguments that philosophers use against non-cognitivism, which your position seems to bear a similarity to. You could claim to lack belief in doors because you have not seen every possible thing that someone could apply the label "door" to. Ultimately, you are driven into an untenable position of losing definitions of other words by seeking to avoid defining the "god" word.

As an analogy, I realize that the word apple, for instance, has ambiguity around the edges (does it include Apple computers? Crabapples?). However (AFAIK), nobody's trying to come up with a special word for "people who hate all apples".

People only invent words that are useful to them. And please do not confuse ambiguity with vagueness. Ambiguity (homonymy, polysemy) refers to one word with distinct multiple meanings (word senses). Vagueness refers to lack of coherence. For example, the word "mountain" is vague in the sense that it is a countable object. In principle, you ought to be able to count the number of mountains in a mountain chain, but you would soon run across cases where you wouldn't know whether you were looking at a mountain or a "foothill" or two mountains or a single "saddle mountain". So people set up more or less arbitrary criteria when faced with classification tasks.

I think we may be talking past each other here, because my point here logically follows from the point just before that you agreed with.

No, we have a fundamental disagreement. You are not the ultimate arbiter of how you use words. You can be mistaken in your belief about your own usage, as can anyone, myself included. Usage is an empirical question, and it is not "arrogant", as mball maintains, to challenge people's claims about their own usage. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Usage is not a matter of opinion.

If I believe in God but lie about it, then my lie is irrelevant to my actual beliefs; I'm a theist. If I believe in something that someone else considers God but I really don't consider it God, then I'm not.

Not unless your concept of "god" conforms to ordinary usage of the word. Don't forget that language is governed by social convention. If your concept of "god" is skewed with respect to the speech community, then your concept of "atheist" will be similarly skewed.

No, I'm saying that as a null set; it has nothing to pin it down to any particular point. In this formulation, it's just as valid to say that the baby is an atheist as it is to say that he isn't one. Basically, the statement "this baby is not an atheist" would be logically indefensible.

Look, if you are working with my definition, then you have to understand that "reject" implies awareness of the thing being rejected. Babies do not "reject" belief in gods. To say that the set of things the baby rejects includes gods is patently absurd. That space in your Venn diagram does not contain the "meaning function" of "god" that generates the null set as its extension. If it did, then you would have a point. A Venn diagram of your preferred definition would look different, because then you would be talking about the set of "beliefs not held" rather than "beliefs rejected".

It's your petard and nobody's been hoisted. Look back through my post: I started this line of argument with your definition of atheism. This whole thing was an exercise in showing how your definition needs a workable definition of "god" that's external to the understanding of the individual whose beliefs (or lack thereof) we're talking about.

But it failed, because the set of all gods that the baby believes in (which has just null as its extension) is outside of the "rejects" circle. The set has to be inside the circle for the baby to qualify as an atheist by our agreed-upon definition. Therefore, the baby cannot be an atheist by my definition.

We did define the set. And you agreed: the statement "I believe in a god" is equivalent to "I believe in my understanding of a god." Therefore, if none of my beliefs include a belief in anything that I understand to be a god, then I do not hold the belief "I believe in a god".

I never agreed that your "understanding of a god" was correct. It must conform to social convention--usage--in order to be considered correct. You and I might well agree that Einstein was an atheist, even though he sometimes denied being one. He liked to use the word "God" metaphorically, but he also quite explicitly rejected belief in the conventional "God". One might correctly apply the label to him, even though he rejected it for himself because of the way people reacted to the label.

I'm not saying that I define English; I'm saying that I define my understanding of English.

Language doesn't work the way the caterpillar claimed in Alice in Wonderland. That is what made that character so funny. Words do not mean what individual speakers choose them to mean. They mean what a speech community chooses them to mean. If all atheists, and only atheists, use the term "atheism" to mean "a person who merely lacks a belief in a god", then they can go around calling babies "atheists" in their private language. When they talk to English speakers outside of their community, they have to accept general English usage conventions. Of course, atheists are not unanimous in defining atheism as mere "lack of belief".

 

[Copernicus]

Sure it is. It gets us to the point I've been arguing all along: no information gives us no information. People don't normally refer to babies as atheists; they also don't normally refer to them as "not atheists". All we can infer from this is that people don't talk about whether babies are atheists.

What!? I refer to babies as "not atheists" whenever the subject comes up, and I maintain that most English speakers will agree with me if asked. Do you want to conduct a survey to find out who is right? I would say that babies are also not "theists". It is an excluded middle fallacy to claim that they must be one or the other.

You can't infer anything from a lack of mention, because if you do, then you have to give equal weight to the lack of mention of babies as "not atheists" as you do to the lack of mention of them as atheists.

The fact that people do not constantly bring up the subject of whether to classify babies as atheists may be related to the fact that they do not constantly bring up the subject of whether babies are dentists. If you want to find out what people think, then bring the subject up and ask them.

So... based on these conversations, when the question of whether babies are atheists comes up, what's the general consensus among the people who express an opinion on the subject?

Well, my position is that they deny it. Shall we actually do an experiment and find out? Here is the survey question:

Given that a baby does not have a concept of a "god", which of the following is most true?

A) The baby is a theist.
B) The baby is an atheist.
C) The baby is neither a theist nor an atheist.

No valid reason that I can think of, but it follows the same apparent reasoning as your "people never call babies atheists, therefore they're not atheists" argument.

That is actually your argument, not mine. My belief is that most people will deny that the term even applies to babies. It is an absurd claim to make.

BTW - I think it would sound very weird if a friend told me that he was going to take his "conveyance" to my house.

That would really depend on the context of the statement. The word "conveyance" is not normally used to refer to a specific vehicle, but to a means of transportation. If you were in a conversation where the term were being used to refer to the different vehicles owned by people, than it might be perfectly reasonable for your friend to say that he was going to bring his "conveyance" to your house. You just need to use your imagination to come up with a reasonable scenario.

 

[Copernicus]

Here is another argument to support my claim that atheist means "rejection of belief in gods", not mere "lack of belief in gods".

Words can be extended metaphorically in conversation, and that tells us something about their meaning composition. For example, if I say "Suzie is the apple of my eye" (an idiom that represents a frozen metaphor), the association of apples with enjoyment allows us to extend that meaning component to Suzie.

Now let us use "atheist" and "agnostic" metaphorically and compare them:

1) I am an agnostic with respect to the moon landing.
2) I am an atheist with respect to the moon landing.

If you ask people what those two statements mean, I believe that most people will say that (1) suggests lack of commitment to a belief, whereas (2) suggests rejection of a belief. But don't take my word for it. Try it out on people. The question of what "agnostic" and "atheist" mean to ordinary speakers of English is open to investigation, and this is one way to test out my hypothesis that "atheism" really suggests a rejection of belief in gods for most speakers of English.

 

[Copernicus]

So, you do not believe that I am wearing a blue shirt?

Not only that, but I believe that you have not washed it for quite some time now.

 

[Falvlun]

So, you do not believe that I am wearing a blue shirt?

It is my belief that you are not wearing a blue shirt. I also do not believe that you are wearing a blue shirt. I also do not hold the belief that you are wearing a blue shirt. I believe that you are not wearing a blue shirt.

 

[Copernicus]

It is my belief that you are not wearing a blue shirt. I also do not believe that you are wearing a blue shirt. I also do not hold the belief that you are wearing a blue shirt. I believe that you are not wearing a blue shirt.

I would say that I do not hold a belief that Kilgore is wearing a blue shirt, not that I hold a belief he is not wearing a blue shirt. I get his point in asking the question, but I do not think that atheism means lack of belief. I think it means rejection of belief in most cases of ordinary English usage. Rejection of belief entails lack of belief. It is not synonymous with lack of belief.

 

[Falvlun]

I would say that I do not hold a belief that Kilgore is wearing a blue shirt, not that I hold a belief he is not wearing a blue shirt. I get his point in asking the question, but I do not think that atheism means lack of belief. I think it means rejection of belief in most cases of ordinary English usage. Rejection of belief entails lack of belief. It is not synonymous with lack of belief.

I find all those formulations to be largely synonymous in everyday language; I would use them interchangably. I have a hard time, actually, keeping it straight in the atheist definition debate which implies belief and which doesn't, since they all really mean the same thing to me. Two of those formulations imply lack of belief; two imply presence of a negative belief.

Personally, while I respect the "lack of belief" definition as it's really not my place to say what others mean, I have a hard time understanding it, unless you have never heard of a god concept (unlikely) and/or you have definite proof that god doesn't exist (impossible).

If the options are mutually exclusive, (ie, Kilgore can either be wearing a blue shirt, or he can not be wearing a blue shirt; there is no other option), and you don't believe he is wearing a blue shirt, by default, you also believe that he is not wearing a blue shirt.

 

[Copernicus]

Personally, while I respect the "lack of belief" definition as it's really not my place to say what others mean, I have a hard time understanding it, unless you have never heard of a god concept (unlikely) and/or you have definite proof that god doesn't exist (impossible).

OK, but it is the place of lexicographers to worry about usage vs subjective impressions of usage, is it not? When you open a dictionary, you do not expect to see definitions that are the result of political compromise. You expect to see definitions that reflect the way people actually use the word. Right?

If the options are mutually exclusive, (ie, Kilgore can either be wearing a blue shirt, or he can not be wearing a blue shirt; there is no other option), and you don't believe he is wearing a blue shirt, by default, you also believe that he is not wearing a blue shirt.

What about the case where you know that he is not wearing a blue shirt? In that case, you lack a belief that he is wearing a blue shirt, but you also have a belief that he is not wearing one. based on your personal experience. If you genuinely do not know whether he is even wearing a shirt, then you can lack a belief that he is wearing a shirt. Whether or not the shirt he is not wearing is blue is moot. He could, in fact, be wearing no shirt at all.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A definition is just a succinct, generalized statement that tries to express one word sense in a dictionary. Meanings are much more complex than definitions, since they involve a web of associations that differs according to the different experiences of individual speakers. So I will modify the definition to address criticisms of it.

Hmm.

I don't really care whether you call it "meaning", "definition" or "butterscotch sundae". If you can, just tell us what you mean by "god" with enough detail that the rest of us would be able to tell whether any given thing would or wouldn't be considered a "god" in your formulation... without all the dancing around.

The point I am making is that there is a coherent core meaning for "god", and there are reasonable definitions of it.

Great. What are they?

Atheists are people who reject belief in beings that fit the definition. If my original definition failed to express a salient property of a god, then I should be allowed to refine it, shouldn't I?

I never said you couldn't, but the longer you go without giving us a workable definition (or meaning, if you like that word better) of "god", the less likely it seems that one exists and you know what it is.

No, it is very much the point, because "atheism" is about beliefs and gods. If you don't know what gods are, then you do not understand what "atheism" means.

So in your view, a faulty form of atheism isn't necessarily atheism at all?

But you do have opinions about what a god is.

Sure, but the fact that I have an opinion is irrelevant to whether your definition is actually correct.

My point was that part of the argument you use to claim lack of belief in god--the semantic vagueness and/or ambiguity of the term "god"--could be used to claim lack of belief in mundane objects (doors, trees, rocks, etc.).

Yes, it probably could, but it's rarely relevant the way that the vagueness of the term "god" is relevant to your definition of "atheism". I can't think of any term used to talk about doors, trees or rocks that requires a person to do something for the entire category in question.

For instance, there's no such thing as "a-geology" (which I'm defining as the study only of things that aren't rocks), so we don't need to ask whether a paleontologist studying fossils qualifies as an "a-geologist" or not.

BTW, this is one of the main arguments that philosophers use against non-cognitivism, which your position seems to bear a similarity to. You could claim to lack belief in doors because you have not seen every possible thing that someone could apply the label "door" to. Ultimately, you are driven into an untenable position of losing definitions of other words by seeking to avoid defining the "god" word.

No. You've got it backward.

If I depend on an external definition of "door" and not just my own understanding of the term, I can't say that I reject belief in doors until I've considered every possible door.

People only invent words that are useful to them.

Yes! And "atheism" follows a pattern that isn't generally useful in other contexts. Hence why the term "atheism" creates problems that we don't normally encounter with other words... at least when we try to apply your definition.

No, we have a fundamental disagreement. You are not the ultimate arbiter of how you use words.

Exactly who else is deciding what I mean when I communicate, then?

You can be mistaken in your belief about your own usage, as can anyone, myself included.

Yes. And if I was an atheist because I'd based my understanding of "god" on an incorrect definition, then I'd be an atheist for bad reasons. But I'd still be an atheist.

Not unless your concept of "god" conforms to ordinary usage of the word. Don't forget that language is governed by social convention. If your concept of "god" is skewed with respect to the speech community, then your concept of "atheist" will be similarly skewed.

So I'd be a skewed atheist. Still an atheist, though.

Look, if you are working with my definition, then you have to understand that "reject" implies awareness of the thing being rejected.

Yes, I know that. That's what I've been trying to argue this whole time: rejection of all gods implies awareness of all gods. This is where the problem arises if you want to define atheism in terms of rejection.

Babies do not "reject" belief in gods. To say that the set of things the baby rejects includes gods is patently absurd.

If we use some established definition of the term "god" and not the baby's (non-existent) understanding, then sure. But that's not what I was arguing.

But it failed, because the set of all gods that the baby believes in (which has just null as its extension) is outside of the "rejects" circle. The set has to be inside the circle for the baby to qualify as an atheist by our agreed-upon definition. Therefore, the baby cannot be an atheist by my definition.

We actually get into something close to a divide-by-zero error. AFAICT, whether the baby is an atheist or not is undefined, which means that you can't say with certainty that the baby's not an atheist.

I never agreed that your "understanding of a god" was correct.

Doesn't matter. You agreed that the statement "I believe in _____" implies "I believe in my understanding of _____".

It must conform to social convention--usage--in order to be considered correct.

Again, doesn't matter. If my definition of "god" is incorrect, then I'm a misguided atheist... but still an atheist.

Language doesn't work the way the caterpillar claimed in Alice in Wonderland. That is what made that character so funny. Words do not mean what individual speakers choose them to mean.

My intended meaning is based on my understanding. Common usage may (and likely will) inform my understanding, but in the end, I can't base my intended meaning on anything other than my understanding. This is trivially true, so I don't see why it's such an issue for you.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What!? I refer to babies as "not atheists" whenever the subject comes up, and I maintain that most English speakers will agree with me if asked.

I have only encountered one person who has ever told me that babies are not atheists: you.

Do you want to conduct a survey to find out who is right? I would say that babies are also not "theists". It is an excluded middle fallacy to claim that they must be one or the other.

Unless atheism is defined as "not theism", which I maintain it is.

The fact that people do not constantly bring up the subject of whether to classify babies as atheists may be related to the fact that they do not constantly bring up the subject of whether babies are dentists.

The fact that people don't bring up the subject of whether babies are dentists is largely irrelevant to whether babies actually are dentists are not. We don't need to rely on inferences from lack of usage to figure out whether a baby is a dentist; we just need to look at the characteristics of dentists, such as posession of a degree and licence in dentistry and maintenance of a dental practice. A baby does not meet any of these qualificiations, so the baby isn't a dentist. Whether people do or don't talk about whether babies are dentists doesn't even come into it.

If you want to find out what people think, then bring the subject up and ask them.

Why would I do that when I think the issue is irrelevant?

Well, my position is that they deny it. Shall we actually do an experiment and find out? Here is the survey question:

Given that a baby does not have a concept of a "god", which of the following is most true?

A) The baby is a theist.
B) The baby is an atheist.
C) The baby is neither a theist nor an atheist.

My answer's B, but I think you knew that. I reject A because a baby has no belief in gods, and I reject C because I define atheism as "not theism", and therefore there is no such thing as "neither a theist nor an atheist"; every person is one or the other.

That is actually your argument, not mine. My belief is that most people will deny that the term even applies to babies. It is an absurd claim to make.

It seems like you just re-phrased what I said. No?

That would really depend on the context of the statement. The word "conveyance" is not normally used to refer to a specific vehicle, but to a means of transportation. If you were in a conversation where the term were being used to refer to the different vehicles owned by people, than it might be perfectly reasonable for your friend to say that he was going to bring his "conveyance" to your house. You just need to use your imagination to come up with a reasonable scenario.

If you're not willing to use your imagination on the issue of using the word "atheist" to describe a baby, why should I use my imagination on the issue of using the word "conveyance" to describe a car? It sounds "weird" to me, and apparently that's all that matters... right? I mean, that's basically what your argument comes down to for the word "atheist": you think it sounds "weird" to apply it to a baby, therefore it must be wrong.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Here is another argument to support my claim that atheist means "rejection of belief in gods", not mere "lack of belief in gods".

Words can be extended metaphorically in conversation, and that tells us something about their meaning composition. For example, if I say "Suzie is the apple of my eye" (an idiom that represents a frozen metaphor), the association of apples with enjoyment allows us to extend that meaning component to Suzie.

Now let us use "atheist" and "agnostic" metaphorically and compare them:

1) I am an agnostic with respect to the moon landing.
2) I am an atheist with respect to the moon landing.

If you ask people what those two statements mean, I believe that most people will say that (1) suggests lack of commitment to a belief, whereas (2) suggests rejection of a belief. But don't take my word for it. Try it out on people. The question of what "agnostic" and "atheist" mean to ordinary speakers of English is open to investigation, and this is one way to test out my hypothesis that "atheism" really suggests a rejection of belief in gods for most speakers of English.

I've never heard the term "atheist" used in that way. If I heard someone say "I am an atheist with respect to the moon landing", I'd probably interpret that as something like "I don't think God did it."

As for your first statement, I think the direct meaning is "I don't know". It only gets to "I lack commitment to a belief" from the fact that we commonly use "I know" to mean something like "I believe with certainty".

 

[Alceste]

I would say that I do not hold a belief that Kilgore is wearing a blue shirt, not that I hold a belief he is not wearing a blue shirt. I get his point in asking the question, but I do not think that atheism means lack of belief. I think it means rejection of belief in most cases of ordinary English usage. Rejection of belief entails lack of belief. It is not synonymous with lack of belief.

The word "shirt" is an actual, existing thing, with a fixed and universally understood definition. The word "god" represents a purely subjective concept that could mean practically anything. Therefore it is LESS rational (by a country mile) to insist "a lack of belief in god" = "the belief that god does not exist" than it is to insist your lack of belief "KT is wearing a blue shirt" = the belief that he is not.

 

[Alceste]

It is my belief that you are not wearing a blue shirt. I also do not believe that you are wearing a blue shirt. I also do not hold the belief that you are wearing a blue shirt. I believe that you are not wearing a blue shirt.

So you're guessing.

 

[Willamena]

"I don't believe he's wearing a blue shirt" is synonymous with "I believe he's not wearing a blue shirt" where some information about the shirt's colour is available.

"I don't believe he's wearing a blue shirt" is synonymous with "I have no belief one way or another" where no information about the shirt or its colour is available.

That's the ambiguity.

 

[atanu]

Personally, while I respect the "lack of belief" definition as it's really not my place to say what others mean, I have a hard time understanding it, unless you have never heard of a god concept (unlikely) and/or you have definite proof that god doesn't exist (impossible).

I agree.

By the definition "lack of belief", only stones, and may be babies etc. can be atheists.

Actually the definition goes a bit further -- it is not mere 'lack of belief' or mere 'lack of belief in God'. It is actually lack of belief in existence of something that each atheist has come to define as god. This is not empty of a belief of god.

 

[Magic Man]

When you accuse someone of being arrogant, it is a direct attack on that person's character. Let's not try to pretend otherwise. I am not preventing you from having an honest discussion. You can end the character attacks any time. Your behavior is not under my control.

You mischaracterized what I said. I did not say I knew your mind better than you did. What I did was say that your intuition of what you say may not match your actual usage, and you ought to understand why I said that, given that you have had some training in linguistics. There is not a shred of arrogance in that position. Usage is debatable, and linguists do not take such claims at face value.

Look, what I'm saying is that if not for your arrogance in pretending you understand our use of English better than we do, you'd have a better grasp on what we're saying. I'm saying the only reason you're disagreeing is this preconceived idea of yours that we can't possibly be using it the way we say we are.

But I've backed it up by citing statements by Alceste and others that appeared to confirm my suspicion.

Where? All I've seen is the group of us continue to support the fact that we use it the way we say we do.

Penguin is now trying to maintain that people don't call babies atheists just because the topic never comes up in conversation. In other words, if it did, they would supposedly judge that babies really are atheists.

Yes, that's what some of us have been saying. We don't generally talk about the beliefs of babies. When we do (in conversations like this), some of us maintain that they are atheists.

Many people still wouldn't call them atheists, but I'd say that's more because most people are theists, and wouldn't want to consider their babies atheists.