Atheism - a lack of belief in all gods?

[endlessvoid2018]

So, in your opinion, what is atheism exactly? I know it all revolves around the basis of a lack of belief in deities.
The broadness of the subject though makes me question it. I have heard it surmised several ways;

"a lack of belief in gods."

"a lack of a belief in a god, or gods."

So, wouldn't the latter imply simply scenario where it could be possible to disbelieve in one particular deity, and possibly be agnostic towards others?
Wouldn't this imply a form of Agnosticism as well?

I personally think the gods of all religions are man-made, and not real. I don't believe in them. On paper, this would make me an atheist. But beyond religious claims of gods, and any knowledge I have myself, I do not know whether there is actually any deities, or anything that could be equatable to a god. This would be most likely your classic "agnostic atheist," stance.

 

[LuisDantas]

Atheism is indeed a lack of belief in the literal existence of any sort of deity.

But there is some nuance there, mostly because the concept of "god" is so ill-defined and abused.

It is also true that there is a lot of misuse of the word "atheism" going around, even by many sincere atheists, when correlated but very different ideas would be more proper and descriptive. Secularism, laicism, humanism, transhumanism, philosophical naturalism, and even anti-theism have all been neglected because many people don't really realize how different they are from atheism as such.

Sometimes it is a simple mistake coming from the assumption that there is more to atheism itself than just being such a simple, prosaic idea.

There is also the epistemological aspect to it. Quite a few people are (consciously or otherwise) adepts of magical thinking and have come to value belief itself as a moral value of some sort, and therefore see atheism as a personal offense to their beliefs.

 

[LuisDantas]

"a lack of belief in gods."

"a lack of a belief in a god, or gods."

So, wouldn't the latter imply simply scenario where it could be possible to disbelieve in one particular deity, and possibly be agnostic towards others?

Sure. But in practice that means very little, if anything at all.

Truth be told, belief in the literal existence of a deity is a bad habit even by the parameters of explicitly theistic doctrines.

Wouldn't this imply a form of Agnosticism as well?

Yes. But agnosticism is both entirely compatible with atheism and barely meaningful in practice.

It is an essential yet very, very minor component of intellectual honesty and nothing more.

I personally think the gods of all religions are man-made, and not real. I don't believe in them. On paper, this would make me an atheist. But beyond religious claims of gods, and any knowledge I have myself, I do not know whether there is actually any deities, or anything that could be equatable to a god. This would be most likely your classic "agnostic atheist," stance.

Indeed. But I want to point out that literally anything or anyone - real, abstract, imaginary or of exotic categorization - can be called a god by whoever wants to. That word is the ultimate placeholder, despite often being treated as if it had some sort of inherent and even important meaning (it does not).

 

[endlessvoid2018]

Truth be told, belief in the literal existence of a deity is a bad habit even by the parameters of explicitly theistic doctrines.

How exactly? This is what Theism is at its core, is it not? Belief in a deity?

 

[Kfox]

So, in your opinion, what is atheism exactly? I know it all revolves around the basis of a lack of belief in deities.
The broadness of the subject though makes me question it. I have heard it surmised several ways;

"a lack of belief in gods."

"a lack of a belief in a god, or gods."

So, wouldn't the latter imply simply scenario where it could be possible to disbelieve in one particular deity, and possibly be agnostic towards others?
Wouldn't this imply a form of Agnosticism as well?

I personally think the gods of all religions are man-made, and not real. I don't believe in them. On paper, this would make me an atheist. But beyond religious claims of gods, and any knowledge I have myself, I do not know whether there is actually any deities, or anything that could be equatable to a god. This would be most likely your classic "agnostic atheist," stance.

I think an atheist is a person who doesn't call anything God. Because what does it mean to "believe in"? Is it just a matter of accepting the claims theists make of their particular deity? And what is a deity/God? There are people who deify things and people who are as real as you and I. there are those who worship Nature, the Sun, I know of Rastafarians who deify Haile Selassie; (former president of Ethiopia) There is a sect of Hinduism that consider Kumari of Nepal God (my understand Haile died in the 1970's but Kumari is still alive today) So as an atheist, I will admit what you call God may be real, and depending on the claims you make of this God, I may even accept the claims you make of it; but I don't call it God, I call it something else.

 

[HonestJoe]

So, in your opinion, what is atheism exactly?

Atheism is a word. Like most words, it can be used in multiple contexts with multiple intended and/or interpreted meanings with multiple motivations.

It describes an individual characteristic rather than a type of person. Anyone for whom any of the varying conventional definitions of the word apply to will have a whole range of other beliefs and opinions, some linked, some parallel but most largely unrelated.

There is an all too common problem with people saying they want to define what atheism is when they're really declaring what atheists are (consciously or not). That can obviously come from people opposed to the concept of atheism but is actually not uncommon from people who identify with it, either to try to defend their wider belief system or to differentiate themselves from other people (self)identified as atheist.

As a rule, I find the word (and the others related to it) less than useless because of all these issues. I find it is rarely used positively other than in cases where a more detailed explanation of a set of beliefs or position would be more effective, as you sort of demonstrated in your post.

(This is also why I had to break my personal rule and join the DIR to post this reply )

 

[Revoltingest]

So, in your opinion, what is atheism exactly? I know it all revolves around the basis of a lack of belief in deities.
The broadness of the subject though makes me question it. I have heard it surmised several ways;

"a lack of belief in gods."

"a lack of a belief in a god, or gods."

So, wouldn't the latter imply simply scenario where it could be possible to disbelieve in one particular deity, and possibly be agnostic towards others?
Wouldn't this imply a form of Agnosticism as well?

I personally think the gods of all religions are man-made, and not real. I don't believe in them. On paper, this would make me an atheist. But beyond religious claims of gods, and any knowledge I have myself, I do not know whether there is actually any deities, or anything that could be equatable to a god. This would be most likely your classic "agnostic atheist," stance.

I don't believe in any gods.
Even the ones I've not yet heard of.

 

[F1fan]

So, in your opinion, what is atheism exactly? I know it all revolves around the basis of a lack of belief in deities.
The broadness of the subject though makes me question it. I have heard it surmised several ways;

"a lack of belief in gods."

"a lack of a belief in a god, or gods."

So, wouldn't the latter imply simply scenario where it could be possible to disbelieve in one particular deity, and possibly be agnostic towards others?
Wouldn't this imply a form of Agnosticism as well?

I assert that everyone is agnostic where it comes to god concepts. It doesn't matter the specific god concepts, as a category gods have no evidence of existing. Theists admit their belief, and some claim knowledge of their God existing, but they fail consistently to demonsytrate what they believe is actually knowledge. We humans aren't dealing with any facts about gods outside of the histioric lore about them. We know all about Hobbits, but we don't know that they exist outside of human imagination. The same applies to gods, regardless that there are many cultural norms that are adopted that specific gods exist. What cultural norms describe, and what people believe, is not evidence that religious concepts are true. It only tells us that people beleive.

So atheists and theists can know about gods, but there's no evidence that informs us about any gods existing, so we are all agnostic when we exposed to the ideas. We are only agnostic because religions are so prevalent through history, and into modernity as cultural traditions. We don't have to point out agnosticism over superheros or other fictional characters, and that's because there is no strong social pressure to accept implausible, fictional ideas as true.

I personally think the gods of all religions are man-made, and not real. I don't believe in them.

Right, and all theists will be in the same category about all others gods, just not their own.

On paper, this would make me an atheist. But beyond religious claims of gods, and any knowledge I have myself, I do not know whether there is actually any deities, or anything that could be equatable to a god. This would be most likely your classic "agnostic atheist," stance.

That is where logic is a useful set of tools. The logical default of any claim is that it is considered untrue UNTIL evidence can be presented that the claim/idea is true, or at least likley true. Any supernatural claim fails immediately since there is no evidence whatsoever of any suprnatural phenomenon existing. So our logical deefault upon hearing any claim of a god existing is that it isn't true, and ideally we ask for evidence that is compelling to move a rational mind from doubt to it being at least likely true.

If Jim claims he had a ham sandwich for lunch it is a mundane claim and we can accept it. Why? We know ham sandwiches exist, we know they can be eaten for lunch, and it's not an extraordinary claim. If Jim said he ate a ham sandwich because as he was lost in the woods a Bigfoot shared it with him. That's quite extraordinary and our skepticism kicks in. As Hitchens said, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence is required.