Atheism does not exist

[ImmortalFlame]

Well, it's good, I guess, that no one here has asserted that words have no meaning.

You said that words a definitions "do not exist in some real sense". Obviously, you do take the position that the definitions for some words exist, otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell me so.

What I have said to you is that dictionaries are not Bibles. Words mean what you and i say they mean. The don't mean what the dictionary declares them to mean.

You were the first person to mention dictionaries. I have made no appeal to dictionaries in this entire debate, and have been very clear that my definition is a personal one.

For the record, linguistics was my field of study in college, and I have been an English teacher. Not to pull rank or anything.

Then surely you understand how all of this is basically meaningless rhetoric and digression to distract from the debate?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Again, this is an example of taking a word and being kind of fast and loose with it's meaning.

Hey, I'm a theologian, not a business-letter-writing instructor. What do you expect.

"Poetry" is just one method of expression, and I love poetry, but it isn't meant to be entirely descriptive, or even really accurate. It's an artistic use of language intended to express or convey thoughts or feelings, but it's not useful when trying to express a more literal idea of reality.

What if someone forgets to label his writing as 'poetry'? It's a serious question. How do you determine whether a thing is poetry or whether not? Must it rhyme? Must it contain more white space than 'non-artistic' language?

To me, your understanding of 'poetry' seems much like your understanding of 'god.' You seem to have accepted your culture's standard views of them. Which is fine, but it's not an outlook which I share.

Anyway, I'll try to keep your literalistic view of 'poetry' in mind.

No, God is a literal thing that is claimed by some people to actually exist.

How odd. You really can't see outside of the Abrahamic concept, can you. It's as if the other concepts don't even exist for you.

Stay here. Fight with people about religious issues. You may come to see things differently.

"Bigfoot" exists "as a concept" as well, but when talking about bigfoot we are talking about a creature that either exists or doesn't exist in actual reality.

Right. Thanks goodness God is not a creature. How boring that would be.

This is kind of presumptuous and perhaps insulting to any Christian theologians, and probably a lot of theologians in general. How is saying that people who have "thought deeply about God" share your particular interpretation of God any different than saying that only people who have "thought deeply about God" come to the conclusion that that it must be the Conservative Christian idea of a God?

I said all of that for you, man -- not for the lurkers. Of course my views are insulting for most traditional religionists. Obviously so. I wish there were some way to express my truth without giving such offense, but this is religion. It's the heart of our being. I respect those traditional religionists who are willing to come here and be offended by contrary truth.

It's not easy for them. They're courageous.

But the word [God]that refers to a literal thing that either exists in reality or does not exist in reality.

So you keep saying. But I'm able to see outside of my cultural assumptions. Why should I allow the Abrahamics to control the meaning of 'God'? Nah, God is much too important to concede to current popular opinion.

Again, I think this referring to other versions of God as "primitive" is quite arrogant on your part, and kind of contradictory to some of your earlier arguments.

Well, it's your fault if I sound arrogant. You keep insisting that only the Abrahamic God is legitimate. I have no choice but to express my opinion that the Abrahamic God is, in fact, a primitive and inferior conception.

This is why a definition of God is always required for these sorts of interactions - both a general one on behalf of the questioner and a personal one on behalf of the person answering.

I'm not much interested in the general one. It always turns out to be the Abrahamic God.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

You said that words a definitions "do not exist in some real sense". Obviously, you do take the position that the definitions for some words exist, otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell me so.

You said you're an English student. I'm assuming it's English Lit and not linguistics, yes?

If you'd like to discuss definitions and how they work, I'll be glad to do that with you, but you don't seem much interested, so I won't push it on you. You'll have to ask.

You were the first person to mention dictionaries. I have made no appeal to dictionaries in this entire debate, and have been very clear that my definition is a personal one.

Of course you have been appealing to dictionaries. You claim that 'God' can only mean 'some really-existing, literally-existing Being (of the Abrahamic sort).' You're proclaiming that only the current most-popular definition of God, in your specific culture, is legitimate. I'm sorry but that is a bald-faced appeal to the dictionary. Isn't it?

Then surely you understand how all of this is basically meaningless rhetoric and digression to distract from the debate?

Hey, if you're an English student, then surely you understand that a discussion of language is at the very heart of any discussion about whether atheism exists.

 

[ArtieE]

Then surely you understand how all of this is basically meaningless rhetoric and digression to distract from the debate?

Just give up. I tried once too but gave up. He's just here to play with words and has nothing substantial or interesting to offer.

 

[Willamena]

Any discussion about definitions which takes the position that words have no meaning is utterly and completely pointless.

I hear Guy taking the opposite approach: that words ONLY have meaning. To add to that something more, something literally beyond the word, is to give the word more power than it deserves.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Just give up. I tried once too but gave up. He's just here to play with words and has nothing substantial or interesting to offer.

ImmortalFlame seems like a brave debater. I think he may stay in the dialogue with me.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I hear Guy taking the opposite approach: that words ONLY have meaning. To add to that something more, something literally beyond the word, is to give the word more power than it deserves.

You'll hear someone like ArtieE claiming that 'atheism means X.' To my ear, that is magical thinking. It's as if some people believe that definitions exist somehow outside of human heads.

I blame it on the dictionary. It's like TV or the internet. If someone sees a word defined in a dictionary, it's got to be true!

 

[Willamena]

You'll hear someone like ArtieE claiming that 'atheism means X.' To my ear, that is magical thinking. It's as if some people believe that definitions exist somehow outside of human heads.

I blame it on the dictionary. It likes TV or the internet. If someone sees a word defined in a dictionary, it's got to be true!

It's the most natural thing in the world, though, to add a dimension to words, and because it's transmitted culturally and not specifically taught, it goes unrecognized and unaddressed. We have to UN-learn the power of words.

 

[Falvlun]

Atheism is rejecting whatever it was you understood "god" to be, just as theism is accepting whatever it is you understood "god" to be.

Neither would seem to be a significant default.

I rather like this.

 

[Falvlun]

Sorry for dredging stuff up, but I'm in the mood to respond again. If anyone is interested, this stuff is from pages in the early 30s.

I know that. I just do not see the benefit or usefulness of defining atheism as a mere lack of belief, especially since it muddies the waters by including people that shouldn't be included and is contrary to how the word is used in the general population.

Why shouldn't they be included? I think you're mixing up connotation and denotation. IMO, a baby being an atheist is no more of a problem than an elderly, celibate priest being a bachelor (i.e. an unmarried man). Yes, neither one matches the stereotypical image of "atheist" or "bachelor", but I think that this just shows that our preconceptions are sometimes wrong.

Actually, it's a great demonstration of why taking a literal definition of a word fails. No English speaker would consider babies to be bachelors. The connotation of the word precludes that. Just because the word can "technically" include them-- due to the inherent and unavoidable simplification involved in creating a defintion-- does not mean that they should be considered bachelors.

My response regarding the beer was regarding your position (I think?) that you won't claim to have the belief that gods don't exist since you haven't encountered every possible god concept and there might be one out there that you do accept.

If we applied that criteria to everything, then we wouldn't be able to have very many beliefs. And in fact, I doubt that you apply that criteria to many other beliefs that you do have.

No, I don't. And this points to a problem with your approach: other than beer, I can't think of any other descriptor that needs me to reject any and every variation on something vague.

Seriously? Beer and gods are the only thing too complex to be able to categorically sort? Any statement of any sort will run into the same issue if you put it on a similarly high pedestal.

Do you claim you must meet every dog, try every dish in a particular cuisine, watch every movie with a particular actor, read every book in a particular genre, and ad infinitum, before you can make a statement about whether you like or dislike them?

Do you need to research every aspect of Bigfoot, mermaid, fairy, alien, Santa Claus, dryad, nymph, etc lore in order to claim whether you believe they exist or not?

Every thing in your life that you have made a decision about has been made despite the fact that you have not known everything you could possibly know, experienced everything you could have possibly experienced, and researched everything you possibly could research on the subject.

And you claim that only beer and god fall into this category. Open up your eyes, man!

Claiming that atheism is the belief that gods don't exist no more requires you to reject every possible god concept that has been or will be conceived than saying that you don't believe in fairies requires you to know of every single type of fairy ever imagined... or to watch every single Nicholas Cage movie before determining that he sucks as an actor... or pet every single dog to know that you like dogs.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Actually, it's a great demonstration of why taking a literal definition of a word fails. No English speaker would consider babies to be bachelors. The connotation of the word precludes that. Just because the word can "technically" include them-- due to the inherent and unavoidable simplification involved in creating a defintion-- does not mean that they should be considered bachelors.

But a baby isn't a bachelor... not even technically:

bach·e·lor
noun
1. an unmarried man.

Bachelor | Define Bachelor at Dictionary.com

man
noun
1.
an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman.

Man | Define Man at Dictionary.com

A baby boy isn't an adult, so he isn't a man, which means he's not a bachelor.

Seriously? Beer and gods are the only thing too complex to be able to categorically sort? Any statement of any sort will run into the same issue if you put it on a similarly high pedestal.

Do you claim you must meet every dog, try every dish in a particular cuisine, watch every movie with a particular actor, read every book in a particular genre, and ad infinitum, before you can make a statement about whether you like or dislike them?

I think a person can merely not like something based on even limited experience. If you've never seen a Keanu Reeves movie, then I think it's fair to say that you don't like Keanu Reeves.

To go beyond mere "not liking" to active dislike of a whole category of thing, you have to have experienced enough of the thing for your experience to be reflective of the whole.

In the case of dogs, for instance, if you've experienced a wide variety of dogs - all sorts of breeds, large and small, high- and low-energy, well-trained and rambunctious, well-mannered and aggressive - then I'd say that you probably can say that you dislike dogs as a category even if you haven't met every single dog. If you have lots of experience with labs, say, then we probably already have a good idea of what you'd think of duck tolling retrievers even if you haven't met one.

Do you need to research every aspect of Bigfoot, mermaid, fairy, alien, Santa Claus, dryad, nymph, etc lore in order to claim whether you believe they exist or not?

Every thing in your life that you have made a decision about has been made despite the fact that you have not known everything you could possibly know, experienced everything you could have possibly experienced, and researched everything you possibly could research on the subject.

And you claim that only beer and god fall into this category. Open up your eyes, man!

Again: not every aspect. You just need to know enough of a thing that your experience is reflective of the category as a whole.

I would agree that fairies, like gods, can be a bit difficult to pin down as a category, but even they don't have the problems that we get when we try to pin down gods... vagueness is one thing; internal contradiction is another: can you come up with a definition for "god" that includes the Norse and Greek pantheons but excludes angels? Even before asking whether or not we believe in gods, we have to ask ourselves whether "god" is even a coherent concept. My approach to the term "atheism" doesn't need it to be coherent; yours does, IMO.

Claiming that atheism is the belief that gods don't exist no more requires you to reject every possible god concept that has been or will be conceived than saying that you don't believe in fairies requires you to know of every single type of fairy ever imagined... or to watch every single Nicholas Cage movie before determining that he sucks as an actor... or pet every single dog to know that you like dogs.

First off... the dog thing probably muddies the waters, because I don't think the analogy works entirely. If a person believes in one god and rejects all others, then we'd call him a theist, but we wouldn't say that a person who likes only one dog and hates the rest "likes dogs". The language we use in those cases isn't directly analogous.

When it comes to fairies, I reject their existence because I can recognize a common element to all fairies: fairies are magical beings. I reject the existence of magic, and therefore I reject the existence of magical beings, including fairies.

When it comes to gods, what's the common element that I can reject? So far, the only thing I've been able to find that's common to all god-concepts is that they're all objects of worship... but I don't reject the existence of all objects of worship.

 

[Falvlun]

But a baby isn't a bachelor... not even technically:

Bachelor | Define Bachelor at Dictionary.com


Man | Define Man at Dictionary.com

A baby boy isn't an adult, so he isn't a man, which means he's not a bachelor.

I thought you included babies there too since we were talking about babies. I see you were just talking about priests. If a priest is unmarried, I don't see why the word "bachelor" wouldn't be suitable for him, to be honest.

Regardless, the specific example wasn't the point. The point is that often taking a literal definition of the word, in spite of normal usage and connotation, results in expanding that word to include things that it shouldn't and normally doesn't.

I think a person can merely not like something based on even limited experience. If you've never seen a Keanu Reeves movie, then I think it's fair to say that you don't like Keanu Reeves.

For real? This doesn't even make sense. It's just more evidence of the semantic gymnastics this stance requires.

On one hand, you think you require extraordinary experience and knowledge of something before you will be willing to say you don't believe it, and on the other hand, you think it's just fine to never have one experience with something before you claim not to like it at all.

To go beyond mere "not liking" to active dislike of a whole category of thing, you have to have experienced enough of the thing for your experience to be reflective of the whole.

There is no difference between not liking something and disliking something, Peng. Again, in this made up semantic world, you could claim there is, but if 100 people came up to me and said "I don't like Keanu Reeves", then 100 times I would take it to mean that they disliked him. And you would too, because that's how normal English conversation works.

In the case of dogs, for instance, if you've experienced a wide variety of dogs - all sorts of breeds, large and small, high- and low-energy, well-trained and rambunctious, well-mannered and aggressive - then I'd say that you probably can say that you dislike dogs as a category even if you haven't met every single dog. If you have lots of experience with labs, say, then we probably already have a good idea of what you'd think of duck tolling retrievers even if you haven't met one.


Again: not every aspect. You just need to know enough of a thing that your experience is reflective of the category as a whole.

That's all that my atheism definition requires then. Actually, less. If you don't believe that any of the god concepts you've encountered so far exist, then that's good enough for me.

Can this put to rest your strawman once and for all?

I would agree that fairies, like gods, can be a bit difficult to pin down as a category, but even they don't have the problems that we get when we try to pin down gods... vagueness is one thing; internal contradiction is another: can you come up with a definition for "god" that includes the Norse and Greek pantheons but excludes angels? Even before asking whether or not we believe in gods, we have to ask ourselves whether "god" is even a coherent concept. My approach to the term "atheism" doesn't need it to be coherent; yours does, IMO.

Can you come up with a definition of fairy that excludes angels?

Definitions don't work that way.

You understand what the word god means well enough to know whether you believe something of that sort exists or not. Once again, you are falling into the trap of assuming you need to know every single description of one.

First off... the dog thing probably muddies the waters, because I don't think the analogy works entirely. If a person believes in one god and rejects all others, then we'd call him a theist, but we wouldn't say that a person who likes only one dog and hates the rest "likes dogs". The language we use in those cases isn't directly analogous.

When it comes to fairies, I reject their existence because I can recognize a common element to all fairies: fairies are magical beings. I reject the existence of magic, and therefore I reject the existence of magical beings, including fairies.

When it comes to gods, what's the common element that I can reject? So far, the only thing I've been able to find that's common to all god-concepts is that they're all objects of worship... but I don't reject the existence of all objects of worship.

Unless you have absolutely no idea what I mean when I say the word "god", unless it is as absolutely meaningless to you as the word "jestinper", then your position is intellectually dishonest.

The fact that you can and do use the word "god" meaningfully with other people shows that you do know what it means, that it is a discrete concept to you, despite your protestations.

 

[Willamena]

I think a person can merely not like something based on even limited experience. If you've never seen a Keanu Reeves movie, then I think it's fair to say that you don't like Keanu Reeves.

To go beyond mere "not liking" to active dislike of a whole category of thing, you have to have experienced enough of the thing for your experience to be reflective of the whole.

It's not fair to say you don't like Keanu Reeves in this case, because that implies dislike. It is fair to say you've never seen a Keanu Reeves movie. "Liking" need not enter the picture at all--that's where the illogic appears, and where Falvlun's "gymnastic" events are evident, at the point where "liking" is forced into the picture in order to justify this use of "not liking." Until there's a possibility to "like," it's just a case of not having information.

 

[Willamena]

"Like," like "belief," happens for a reason. It happens because of us, and we are information processing machines. "Like" and "belief" are not floating around out there all the time, for us to be able to say that if we're not informed we're "lacking" them. They don't exist until we make them.

 

[idav]

"Like," like "belief," happens for a reason. It happens because of us, and we are information processing machines. "Like" and "belief" are not floating around out there all the time, for us to be able to say that if we're not informed we're "lacking" them. They don't exist until we make them.

Non-belief exists without having to make it or know about it.

 

[Willamena]

Non-belief exists without having to make it or know about it.

That's debatably another misuse of the language.

To see the misuse, know that non-belief in this case does not and cannot differ one iota in nature from non-chair, non-tree, non-happiness, non-hungry, non-idea, non-world, non-universe... nothing.

Nothing* doesn't exist.

*in this case, the equivalent of non-existence

 

[ArtieE]

There is no difference between not liking something and disliking something, Peng.

Of course there is.

1. I like something.
2. I neither like something nor do I dislike it. I just don't care. I'm undecided. I don't like it, I don't dislike it. I'm neutral.
3. I dislike something.

 

[LuisDantas]

Got it. Atheism is like aliteracy, at least by my view. It doesn't really take anything to be a part of it, because it is defined by the absence of a concept that had to be created independently.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

There is no difference between not liking something and disliking something, Peng.

In Penguin's specific usage, I'd agree. If we claim that we don't like some actor, we're almost always claiming to dislike that actor.

Of course in other usages, it can mean other things.

Words don't mean things. Only people can mean things. Which is why I find it so curious to hear folks arguing over the true definition of 'atheism' -- as if that definition exists external to themselves somehow.

Have you been exposed to much law? In criminal law, legislative assistants concoct specific language, lawmakers vote on that language, judges and juries study evidence and try to decide whether certain reported behaviors offended the language or whether not.

I have an idea. Let's try to make a law against atheism.

Anybody? If you were to outlaw atheism, how would you word the statute?

 

[ArtieE]

Got it. Atheism is like aliteracy, at least by my view. It doesn't really take anything to be a part of it, because it is defined by the absence of a concept that had to be created independently.

In a way. If nobody had invented deities there would be no such word as atheist. But since somebody invented deities, atheists became the word for those who didn't start to believe in these invented deities but just carried on as if nobody had invented deities in the first place. Before deities were invented the word atheist didn't exist, and after deities were invented atheists just carried on with their lives just like before deities were invented. So atheism is the default state of being. And "strong atheists" are the words for those atheists who wasn't content with carrying on as if nobody had invented deities, but go on tv and radio and write books and appear in newspapers telling everybody that deities are invented.