Atheism: A belief?

[Orias]

Alan says "I do not believe Bigfoot exists". This is because Alan has yet to be convinced of Bigfoot's existence - however, neither has Alan been convinced of Bigfoot's nonexistence.

Judy says "I believe Bigfoot does not exist". This is because Judy has yet to be convinced of Bigfoot's existence, and also has been convinced of Bigfoot's nonexistence.

Now, do you understand the difference between belief and absence of belief?

This is an enormous assumption on your part. I have heard atheists both describe their "lack of belief" by saying "I do not believe X exists" and, "I believe x does not exist". The strength of these two relaying messages is pretty obvious, but absolute conviction is clear, not a shaddy difference in wording.

I have also heard atheists try and use this argument against me, the "truth" of the matter is either statement will change with the prove of this existence, and certainty of this conviction will be made clear by One who truly does not "believe" in such existences.

But that doesn't make absence of belief a belief. Once again, you're shifting and equivocating.

It's all relevant. I cannot make you chose to see the subsequent points.

I've not once said I don't have a belief about something. Now, stop avoiding the question.

I never said you didn't and I mean it is pretty clear that you do. The point to my comment was, if you don't believe that "atheism" is not a belief, why are you here positing what you believe atheism to be?

Is the absence of food a meal?

If not, then the absence of belief is not a belief.

Is the absence of meat on a cow, still make a cow a cow?

You forgot to add "in the existence of "God(s)" following absence of belief. I noticed it is a mistake you continually make, so what is it?

I agree with you - I believe that the absence of a belief is not a belief. But how does that make the absence of belief itself a belief?

It is believed...

You've done this hundreds of times now. I've already demonstrated that your logic is flawed with these arguments, because "believing I am correct in defining X" does not make "X" itself a belief.

You're right, it's not a belief until you define it, which you have done countless times.

Now you're just being silly. The words are right there - you said them. Atheism is the absence of belief in God. You are now literally arguing like this:


"The definition says that it is the absence of belief in God, but you're just using that statement to support your argument that atheism is the absence of belief in a God."

Actually, that's not even close. Try re-reading and post again.

If atheism were a belief, why would the definitions include the "absence of" part, Orias?

Because it's in relation to the absence of belief in the existence of "God" , not specifically the existence of the absence of belief. Now you are the one that is equivocating.

Finally, you're getting it.

You're not.

Actually, you've not said anything even remotely resembling that in our discussion so far, but let's see where this leads...

Not one for actually reading posts are you?

Yes, I do believe that.

Now, how does my believing that make absence of belief a belief?

Because you believe that it is certain.

I dunno. I finding this pretty easy.

Me too, it's just starting to bore me. You're not really arguing anything I haven't heard before, therefore making me lose interest in anything you have to offer.

I shouldn't have to - it's pretty explicit. The absence of X is not X, therefore the absence of belief is not a belief. This isn't even basic logic, it's basic English.

You should, otherwise your posts are baseless if you do not realize how much they apply to you.

I prefer hookers.

:biglaugh:

Oh, I'm perfectly fallible. It's just that, while being fallible, I also happen to be right in this instance. And I have the dictionary definitions to back me up.

No you don't, nowhere in the dictionary does it imply that "atheism" is not a belief when it redundatly references atheism as a conspicuous belief.

Perhaps you should just admit that you're wrong already. I've been waiting for several posts now...

I'm not wrong, because you sit here and continually express your belief about how atheism is the belief that it isn't a belief.

So, you're not just "playing ignorant", then?

It's very universal friend.

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food. But look, food is right there in the definition! Looks like I just solved world hunger.

:faint:Another point that you failed to catch. Whipe the butter of your fingers man.

Now, stop playing dumb and answer the question. It was very specific to begin with, and the more you intentionally misunderstand it the more telling it is that you are backed into a corner.

Not at all, I'm digging a whole underneathe you.
I have answered, I cannot make you chose to see the points that follow.

I have always been stating that the definition is "absence of belief in a God". You have repeatedly stated that "absence of belief" is not a belief. I have been trying to explain to you that this is not the case by explaining that "absence of belief" is not a belief, and in this context atheism is an "absence of belief" in a God. You are clearly twisting my words.

Perhaps you should be more clear with them again.

Logic isn't applicable to the subject at hand?

The logic does not apply to the subject at hand. Try again.

Is that the sound of goalposts moving?

It's the sound of you failing to prove that you know anything.

[sarcasm]Because you're not showing any degree of certainty at all, right?[/sarcasm]

That is one of the many things I lack, because I can only belief what has yet to be proven (wrong or right).

 

[Orias]

A belief is a supposition that you hold to be true. The absence of a belief means that you do not hold that position yet to be true. There can be (and is) plenty to support the reasoning that the supposition that God exists has not demonstrated it's truth value.

Alright this clarifies a lot.

Your position is one that you belief is not yet true. The "truth" of this conviction is within your determination to prove me wrong. "Truth" does not exist, only because One can believe in it, not determine it.

Well they can determine it, on a personal level of course.

Again, you were the first person to quote from a dictionary. You obviously didn't think the definition was "misleading" at the time because you thought it supported your position. Since I have now shown you that it does not, suddenly dictionary definitions are "misleading".

Actually I knew it was very misleading, because I wasn't the first one to sport the dictionary in my favor. In this thread, yes I was, but this topic was being discussed in numerous different threads before I decided to make a thread specified towards it.

I mean just look at how many replies are in it I think I did a good job raising a an inconclusive topic

No, they are not misleading. There is a difference between a definition being misleading and it simply being misrepresented. Definitions are concise and straight-forward.

If this were "truly" the case, semantics wouldn't be argued. It bothers me that you fail to recognize that.

Considering it's a lexicographer's job to fashion concise definitions for words, it's pretty obvious. Lexicographers probably don't roll up their sleeves every morning and think "okay, I'm going to make this definition vague and inaccurate purely for the case of giving people the wrong idea about the word! Mwahahahahhaha!".

Ah yes, lexicographers are also not capable of viewing a word in the way that 7 billion different people are. They are just one person, and define the Aspect to what is clear and consice to them. Though a large amount of consideration to the public is taken into consideration, it cannot be achieved, simply because their mind does not encompass the world population.

You are correct - something that is believed to be is a belief.

Since atheism is not a belief in something that is - it is the absence of a belief that something is - it is therefore not a belief by definition.

That's not what I was getting at.

"Atheism" is, obviously otherwise it wouldn't be discussed as it is. It doesn't exist in a material fashion, but is concrete enough to be observed and followed by partakers and Opposition as well.

At this point, I am just getting tired.

I'd like to see you try keeping up with 10 different people like me (that's contrary I realize) for 1,200 posts.

 

[Orias]

ImmortalFlame let me ask you this...

Do atheists lack the belief that they lack belief?

Do you have any amount of doubt in any of your assertions?

 

[filthy tugboat]

Actually it doesn't igore the point that atheists and non-theist are the exact same thing, because they're not. If they were then they wouldn't be labled "atheist", and "non-theist".

To be honest I think people associate with non-theist because "atheist" is a very stigmatized word. But the definition of atheism is in it's most general and correct form, "Without theism".

An apatheist can be either a "theist" or an "atheist", but the matter does not simply imply that the chosen meaning describes the position.

Indeed, how is this relevant?

Atheist roots from the term "without God", this does not root non-theism into specific theism since like I provided, angostics can be either "theist" or "atheist" as well as apatheists.

I still am not really following the relevance of these comments.

It's all subjected to what a person wants to be, who is anyone else to determine what is what, and what is right?

Although these definitions are personal and different people may come at atheism for different reasons that does not negate the fact that atheism is most loosely defined as "without theism" anybody who associates with atheism submits to that definition and perhaps other more specific definitions. If you are unsure of a persons religious position, stick to the loose definition of the term they associate with and then ask them for specifics.

The title of this thread misleads you doesn't it?

The question mark in the title assumes that the thread is debating whether atheism is a belief, you seem to have assumed that answer already but as of yet I cannot see a reason as to how you came to the conclusion that it is a belief.

So far your the only person to figure this out. Even though I have made it blantly obvious in previous posts, people have a tendancy to avoid points that they don't know how to respond to.

Otherwise they just say that it's wrong, or incorrect, without supporting their assertion.

You might need to further define "good enough". Good enough for what? If information is not perpetuated does that make it meaningless or just of lesser meaning than information that is perpetuated? Is any knowledge perpetuated?

This is a good example of how "meaning" changes from person to person.

Let me ask you this, what is the first thing that pops up in your mind when you hear the term, "Reptile train"?

A long line of crocodiles.

You responded to the question with your expression of lacking knowledge in this concept. You have reached a conclusion because you concluded that you are ignorant about the subject at hand.

Not necessarily ignorant. The conclusion I reached was that I currently do not know. I'm yet to see you support the assertion that it is a definition of God.

Not to you at least.

So it would seem.

You tell me, you're the one trying to Oppose me.

You made a claim that I a inherently trying to understand a position, back up that claim and tell me what position I am inherently trying to understand.

What is there to clarify?

If someone asks you what "God" is, you and respond, "I don't know", you have concluded that you do not know what "God" is, therefore defining what you believe "God" to be.

It less defines what I believe God to be and is more of a representation of my lack of knowledge. How does saying "I don't know" suggest a definition for what God is? Expressing my own lack of knowledge has nothing to do with defining something, it certainly suggest nothing of what this God is or it's attributes. This is effectively a reiteration of previous statements, please expand on the position, not just repeat it in slightly different wording.

Formalities only exist to people who need rules to "win".

[/quote]

I don't follow, formalities do not only concern "winning".

 

[Magic Man]

Seriously...why are you even here?

This pretty much sums up my question to you. I'm here to see that the question of whether or not atheism is a belief is answered correctly. You seem to be here to defend a position that's backed you into a corner.

To simplify things, here are the facts:

Atheism (as you agree) is the lack of belief in gods.

Lack of a belief indicates the absence of that belief. Therefore, atheists lack the belief in gods. So, what defines atheism is not a belief, but the absence of a belief. What makes an atheist is the absence of a belief. In other words, atheism is not a belief.

Now, you're welcome to continue with your irrational, nonsensical ramblings like "you haven't proved you know anything", but you'd be better served realizing how absurd you sound, and just admitting that a lack of belief is not a belief. I know that would require going back on your pages of erroneous comments, but it's really the best option for you.

 

[Magic Man]

You make so many contradictory claims and U-turns it must be hard to keep track of what your beliefs actually are.

I don't think that's a problem. It doesn't seem like he wastes any energy trying to keep track of what his beliefs are.

 

[Magic Man]

What you said was:

No, because I also hold the belief that he is wrong as well as lacking the belief that he is right.

That looks very much like my analogy. You hold a belief that what he said was false. An atheist holds a belief that the existence of gods is false. You lack the belief that he was right. An atheist lacks a belief that God exists. I see a complete parallelism there.

Then you're seeing it wrong. As has already been said many times, atheists many times also hold the belief "God doesn't exist". In that case, they lack the belief "God exists" while also holding the belief "God doesn't exist". But Immortal Flame didn't say they have to meet both of those requirements to be an atheist. All they have to do is lack the belief that God exists. His statement in bold above is the equivalent of an atheist who does actually hold the belief "God doesn't exist", but that doesn't mean that all atheists have to hold that belief.

 

[Magic Man]

Clearly, if you do not belief in something then your absence in that belief is evident, while clearly believing that absence is a belief.

OK, since this is the heart of the matter, I want to address it directly. So, if you don't believe something, then you have an absence of belief in that thing. If you realize that you lack that belief, then you believe you don't have that belief.

What people are trying to explain to you is that whether or not you believe that you lack that belief is irrelevant to the fact that that lack of belief is not itself a belief.

Let's try it this way:

I'm holding a bottle.

I believe I'm holding a bottle.

Now, do you see the difference between the two statements? If I say the latter, does that mean I a holding a bottle? Does it mean that a bottle is a belief? No, it doesn't mean either thing.

I'm not holding a bottle.

I believe I'm not holding a bottle.

Same things apply.

I'm not holding belief X.

I believe I'm not holding belief X.

The first one is explaining that I'm an atheist. The second is explaining that I believe I'm an atheist. I also believe that I'm a human, but being human is not a belief.

I hope this helps you understand it.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

This is an enormous assumption on your part. I have heard atheists both describe their "lack of belief" by saying "I do not believe X exists" and, "I believe x does not exist". The strength of these two relaying messages is pretty obvious, but absolute conviction is clear, not a shaddy difference in wording.

And how does that impact my argument whatsoever? It doesn't matter what an atheist describes their position as being - provided they lack a belief in a God their position with regards to God comes under the heading of atheism.

I have also heard atheists try and use this argument against me, the "truth" of the matter is either statement will change with the prove of this existence, and certainty of this conviction will be made clear by One who truly does not "believe" in such existences.

This paragraph doesn't make even the least bit of sense. Logically or grammatically.

It's all relevant. I cannot make you chose to see the subsequent points.

No, it's not relevant to the definition of the word.

I never said you didn't and I mean it is pretty clear that you do. The point to my comment was, if you don't believe that "atheism" is not a belief, why are you here positing what you believe atheism to be?

Because what I believe atheism to be is the subject of the thread, and I believe atheism is the absence of belief in a God.

How does my belief with regards to what atheism means in any way to impact what atheism actually is? This is the hurdle you have yet to overcome with any kind of reason, and instead you just keep repeating it ad nauseum. It didn't make any sense 100 pages ago, and still doesn't make sense now. You are equivocating.

Is the absence of meat on a cow, still make a cow a cow?

It would be more accurate to ask "does the absence of a cow still make a cow".

You forgot to add "in the existence of "God(s)" following absence of belief. I noticed it is a mistake you continually make, so what is it?

I didn't "forget" to add it. I thought it was pretty obvious. Nor was it a mistake. It's very simple, look:

The absence of belief in a God is not a belief, it is an absence of belief. What that absence is in regards to is the existence of a God, but regardless it is an absence of that belief and therefore can be summarized as an absence of belief.

Do you want me to count up the number of times you referred to atheism as "a belief" without adding "in the nonexistence of God"? Because you did the exact same thing. Don't play dumb.

It is believed...

How does that make the absence of belief a belief?

You're right, it's not a belief until you define it, which you have done countless times.

Moving goalposts, yet again.

Actually, that's not even close. Try re-reading and post again.

Re-read it about three times. Perhaps you should go and read it again.

Because it's in relation to the absence of belief in the existence of "God" , not specifically the existence of the absence of belief. Now you are the one that is equivocating.

You don't often get how language works, do you?

The absence of belief in a God is an absence of a belief.

Also, you don't seem to know what equivocation is.

You're not.

No, I understand your point very well. You're asserting that atheism is a belief because we have beliefs about what atheism means and the applications of it, etc. What you don't seem to get is that none of those beliefs impact on the actual definition of atheism itself as an "absence of belief".

Not one for actually reading posts are you?

Then tell me where you said it.

Because you believe that it is certain.

We are in agreement - I believe something with regards to my definition of atheism (regardless of certainty, since certainty has absolutely nothing to do with belief).

How does that make atheism itself a belief?

Me too, it's just starting to bore me. You're not really arguing anything I haven't heard before, therefore making me lose interest in anything you have to offer.

Well, if you stopped making the same, refuted, illogical arguments and logical fallacies maybe you'd actually be able to relinquish some of your arguments and finally move the discussion forward instead of endlessly repeating them and misunderstanding what other people tell you.

You should, otherwise your posts are baseless if you do not realize how much they apply to you.

I just did. The absence of X is not X. That is a logically demonstrable position.

No you don't, nowhere in the dictionary does it imply that "atheism" is not a belief when it redundatly references atheism as a conspicuous belief.

It says atheism is the "absence of belief in God" or the "disbelief in God", both of these positions regard the absence of a belief.

Once again, it also doesn't say atheism is "not a flavour of soup". Your are engaging in another logical fallacy.

I'm not wrong, because you sit here and continually express your belief about how atheism is the belief that it isn't a belief.

And how does that make atheism itself a belief?

:faint:Another point that you failed to catch. Whipe the butter of your fingers man.

Your logic is exactly the same.

Not at all, I'm digging a whole underneathe you.
I have answered, I cannot make you chose to see the points that follow.

Because I can actually read, apparently.

Perhaps you should be more clear with them again.

I was always clear. I was never even the least bit ambiguous, and you know it. Stop playing dumb.

The logic does not apply to the subject at hand. Try again.

Actually, it does, since it indicates that your logic is flawed.

It's the sound of you failing to prove that you know anything.

I know that the definition of atheism is the absence of belief in a God. To compound this, you even posted it.

That is one of the many things I lack, because I can only belief what has yet to be proven (wrong or right).

And yet here you are arguing with me in absolute certainty that atheism is a belief.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Orias.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Alright this clarifies a lot.

Your position is one that you belief is not yet true. The "truth" of this conviction is within your determination to prove me wrong. "Truth" does not exist, only because One can believe in it, not determine it.

Well they can determine it, on a personal level of course.

More philosophy 101. Please, spare me this epistemological babble in future. If "truth" does not exist, then belief cannot exist either, so your entire argument is just a giant, collapsing hole of nothing.

Actually I knew it was very misleading, because I wasn't the first one to sport the dictionary in my favor. In this thread, yes I was, but this topic was being discussed in numerous different threads before I decided to make a thread specified towards it.

Then why did you post the dictionary definition and claim that it supported your position that atheism is a belief, when it clearly does not?

If this were "truly" the case, semantics wouldn't be argued. It bothers me that you fail to recognize that.

Except we're not arguing semantics. You're arguing with logical fallacies and definitions, I'm defending those definitions.

Ah yes, lexicographers are also not capable of viewing a word in the way that 7 billion different people are. They are just one person, and define the Aspect to what is clear and consice to them. Though a large amount of consideration to the public is taken into consideration, it cannot be achieved, simply because their mind does not encompass the world population.

Hence why people need to be properly educated with regards to what certain words and phrases mean.

Hence my efforts to educate people that atheism is the absence of belief in a God, no a belief in the nonexistence of one.

That's not what I was getting at.

"Atheism" is, obviously otherwise it wouldn't be discussed as it is. It doesn't exist in a material fashion, but is concrete enough to be observed and followed by partakers and Opposition as well.

At this point, I am just getting tired.

I'd like to see you try keeping up with 10 different people like me (that's contrary I realize) for 1,200 posts.

I've done it before. Very frustrating.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

ImmortalFlame let me ask you this...

Do atheists lack the belief that they lack belief?

Nope.

Do you have any amount of doubt in any of your assertions?

I always possess a reasonable doubt. In this case, very little, since I am supported by the actual definitions of the words, have extensive personal experience in debating this particular definition and have a firm grasp of logic and logical fallacies.

 

[Willamena]

In this case, very little, since I am supported by the actual definitions of the words...

I don't believe in actual definition.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I don't believe in actual definition.

This explains a lot.

 

[Willamena]

This explains a lot.

Hopefully. But I remain skeptical.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Hopefully. But I remain skeptical.

No need - it's quite illuminating.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I do not buy your assumption that you have to examine every god in order to come to the conclusion that they are mythical beings.

What's the "they" you're concluding are mythical beings? Isn't it based on your understanding of the word "god"?

If that understanding doesn't cover all gods, then have you really rejected all gods?

No. I do not think of the meaning of "god" as a collection of beings but a kind of function that generates models of all possible gods to compare against the the object you are classifying.

Okay... so then however you define your category or "model", it does have to generate all possible gods, correct? If not, then when you reject the results of the model, you haven't rejected all gods.

That's an oversimplification, but it differs markedly from your approach, which seems to ignore the difference between the function that generates a set (intension) and the elements generated (extension).

That's not my approach. And since I've explained my approach several times now, I don't know how to make you understand what it actually is.

Meanings are more like set intension than set extension, and you can reject belief in a category on the grounds that beings with the features that describe it are not likely to exist. It is on that basis that I reject belief in gods.

But at the same time, you acknowledge that you can't tell whether every single god actually falls into the category you've rejected. So how can you honestly say you've rejected all gods?

I accept the fact that word meanings are fuzzy around the borders. There will be speakers who think of djinns and kamis as gods. Remember my discussion of "mountain", where countability depended on sometimes arbitrary criteria of height and separability from neighboring mountains. The concept of "god" also has some vagueness in terms of how much "godiness" an entity possesses.

I was just trying to say that if you come up with a rejection that works for all supernatural entities (for instance), I'd accept this as a rejection of all gods as well. The important thing is that the category "gods" is entirely contained within the category "things I reject".

Up to a point, but it is hard to judge every case because of semantic vagueness.

But if you can't reject all gods, then how can you claim to be an atheist, which you say requires rejection of all gods?

Yes, and people do that all the time. For example, it is sometimes said that the Pythagoreans were the first cases of communists (small "c") on record. Besides being a believer in the principles of communism, a communist can also belong to the Communist Party. The category of "communist" can be as various as the category of "god". It is actually not a bad comparison, because communism is something of a rival belief system to religion.

I'm confused. It seems like you agreed that this person couldn't be a communist, but then your expanded answer seemed to suggest that you thought the label would work. Which is it?

Such examples are hard to come by, because god-belief is so ubiquitous that rejection of gods is a very noticeable thing. Rejection of belief in leprechauns or fairies is not as socially significant an event, so we don't need special words for that class of people. However, we are talking about the belief that gods are all probably mythical beings, and I see no reason why it should be so hard to imagine someone coming to that conclusion, based on the scarcity of corroborating evidence, elaborate efforts to "keep the faith", and other behaviors surrounding the belief.

I think you got off-point there. My point was that saying my use of the term "atheist" is a case of special pleading implies that we're treating the term "atheist" differently from how we treat other similar terms. It seems to me that you've acknowledged that there aren't really any similar terms, which makes me wonder what point of comparison you used to decide that special pleading was going on.

If you say so, but the prefix "a-" does not productively attach to nouns in English. It attaches to adjectives.

Yes... adjectives like abiogenesis and aphasia, right?

Perhaps if "geologism" were an accepted word, you could get away with an analogical attachment of the prefix.

You realize that it was a made-up word, don't you? I wasn't trying to say that "a-geology" is a real word; I was just using it for an illustrative example.

OK. We disagree on that. I think that you are trying to treat the word "god" as if it did not have the same level of vagueness that a great many other nouns do in the language, and I think you are just wrong about that. Having studied lexical semantics all my life, I actually don't have any doubt about it.

And I'm saying that your definition of the term "atheism" places demands on the definition of "god" that we don't normally demand of words. The only reason that I'm trying to treat "god" differently from other nouns is that, IMO, your definition requires that:

- it can't allow for babies to be atheists, so it requires active, volitional rejection of god-belief. To be an atheist under your definition, it's not enough just to not believe in any gods; a person must actively reject belief in gods.

- it can't allow for theists to be atheists, so it requires that all gods be rejected. If even one god-belief slips through, then it creates the potential for a theist to be an atheist, which I hope you would agree is the real logical absurdity.

Put these together and you need to have a way to actively reject all gods before you can apply the label "atheist" validly.

True, and wouldn't you say that you reject belief in cartoon characters?

Yes, I would... and it's the fact that I can come up with a precise definition for the term "cartoon character" that allows me to do this. This precision is missing with the term "god".

I can't think of many, but the world is full of all sorts of skeptics.

But skeptics don't reject belief in all things either. The whole point of skepticism is that a claim (either positive or negative) should not be accepted until it has sufficient support. It's not a matter of active rejection.

I think that "teetotaler" might be clearer, but "vegetarian" is not. There are people who consider eating eggs non-vegetarian and those who disagree.

Once you precisely define "meat", "vegetarian" is also precisely defined.

However, if you want greater precision, you can go with "vegan" or "ovo-lacto vegetarian".

You asked: Exactly who else is deciding what I mean when I communicate, then? The audience you are talking to is deciding what you mean.

Hmph. Now you're engaging in semantic vagueness.

The audience may form an opinion about what I mean to say, but my actual intent is an act by me and me alone.

Word-guided mental telepathy.

That's no answer. You're suggesting something that requires literal time travel and mind control. Metaphors don't speak to that.

Yes, but we still have faith that intended meaning is not the speaker's alone.

In the case of this statement, your intended meaning is yours alone, because I haven't the foggiest idea what you're trying to say.

I haven't moved anything.

Really. So it was a different Copernicus who wrote this?

Move that empty set outside of the rejection space, and you have an accurate description of my definition and no division by zero.

Well, you wrote this before the stats changed back to roughly a dead heat. On the two other boards that I've tried this on ([email protected] and Secular Cafe), the stats are now running 2-to-1 in favor of "neither label applies". In the case of those experiments, there was no discussion to skew the results.

And exactly what percentage of people agreeing with me would be low enough for you to conclude that my definition is invalid?

I still think that people are letting an ideological position influence how they categorize "igtheist" babies.

I say the same thing about your position. I think it's the product of a culture that deems babies to have the religious affiliation of their parents, and therefore not be atheists.

But you ought to face the fact that your definition is only going to be popular in a venue where people argue about what atheism really means. In the general public, the perception seems to be that atheists positively reject belief in the existence of God(s). On Secular Cafe, one atheist has even pointed this out without any prompting from me.

In the general public, a substantial percentage of the people say that atheists believe in God, but are just rebelling against him. If usage is the be-all and end-all of meaning as you suggest, shouldn't you work that in somewhere?

Right, but the results are still limited to discussion boards with a heavy presence of non-believers. And this is the only board where the results are even in a dead heat.

So what's the number? What percentage of people need to use a term a certain way before the usage is considered "valid"?

Also, as I said before, I think you wouldn't be as dismissive of the results of your survey if the results had swung your way.

 

[Falvlun]

OK, well, I've provided examples. What you seem to be saying is that there is no example of what I'm saying in your opinion. Any example I gave you where there is no implication of the negative belief would just qualify as an example of an implication of the negative belief it seems.

Mball, if I showed you apple pie, cherry pie, and banana creme pie and said that I just gave you examples of cake, would you be convinced that they were cake?

Some of the examples didn't apply, and some just don't compute.

Actually, I can. The best definition of atheism is "lack of belief in gods, sometimes accompanied by the belief that gods don't exist". To fit the description, all you have to do is lack belief in gods.

The dictionary.com definition for automobile is:

a passenger vehicle designed for operation on ordinary roads and typically having four wheels and a gasoline or diesel internal-combustion engine.

Now, some automobiles these days have an electric engine, so they wouldn't qualify for this full definition. So, you couldn't say "An automobile has a gasoline or diesel engine" because that would exclude electric cars. The broader definition of an automobile doesn't include a specification on engine type.

In the case of atheism, some atheists don't hold the belief "Gods don't exist". So, you wouldn't say "atheism is a belief" unless you exclude them from the group "atheists". The broader definition of atheism doesn't specify that you need to believe that gods don't exist.

One definition is applicable in some circumstances, and the other definition is applicable in other circumstances. If it is under the "lack of belief" circumstance, it is correct to state that atheism is not a belief. If it is under the "negative belief" circumstance, it would be correct to state that atheism is a belief. It all depends upon which definition is most appropriate. More on that later.

 

[Falvlun]

I never think about god/s, the definition of god/s, or whether or not god/s exist. I sometimes contemplate or appreciate particular god-concepts as anthropomorphic representations of my values (such as Guan Yin for compassion), but other than that I am too busy thinking of other things to "maintain a catalogue of god definitions". Usually annoying songs. Sometimes two or three at once!

I find your denial of having a sustained understanding of various definitions of god to be perplexing.

All my beliefs are rational except those that are intentionally irrational but pragmatic (such as "if I try hard I will succeed"). None of my beliefs, irrational or otherwise, have anything to do with god. My rational beliefs "about god" centre on the observed phenomenon of theism and possible psychological or biological explanations for it. They have nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of god. That entire topic is simply absurd.

Why is it absurd?

Do you also reserve judgement for things like unicorns?

 

[Falvlun]

My thoughts on the appropriate usage of both definitions for atheism.

Lack of Belief atheism: Only applies to those who have no concept of god, those who are indifferent, those who are undecided, and those who actively refrain from taking a stance (due to hard-core agnositicsm).

Negative belief atheism: Applies to anyone who has actively taken the position that god does not exist.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

My thoughts on the appropriate usage of both definitions for atheism.

Lack of Belief atheism: Only applies to those who have no concept of god, those who are indifferent, those who are undecided, and those who actively refrain from taking a stance (due to hard-core agnositicsm).

Negative belief atheism: Applies to anyone who has actively taken the position that god does not exist.

It's not an either-or matter. "Lack of belief atheism" includes "negative belief atheism".