Atheism does not exist

[Willamena]

Got it. Atheism is like aliteracy, at least by my view.

Alright... We already have a word for people who are unwilling to read. Why do we need another one?

 

[idav]

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

You make it sound as if it is impossible to not believe.

 

[Willamena]

You make it sound as if it is impossible to not believe.

Not at all. There's lots of things I don't believe in, but I am capable of putting each one into a sentence.

 

[idav]

Not at all. There's lots of things I don't believe in, but I am capable of putting each one into a sentence.

So you have beliefs but some beliefs remain absent....interesting.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

So you have beliefs but some beliefs remain absent....interesting.

I really think that if people want a close definition of atheism, they need to investigate the nature of 'a belief.'

Atheists don't believe in God? OK, but putting aside for the moment what 'God' might mean... what does it mean 'to believe' something, or 'to have a belief'?

Let's talk about plate tectonics, forty years ago. Did geologists believe in plate tectonics? Well, I'd say that most of them kinda believed and kinda didn't -- depending on how you phrased the question, whether they'd studied the latest evidence, how distracted they were about personal problems, and the politics of their academic departments.

I guess what bothers me most is that some people seem to see belief and non-belief as ON/OFF things. In my view, that's just the language fooling them. Since we have opposite words, we think that there are actually opposite things (belief states) out there to which the words refer. Actually I think that the existence of the words themselves may tend to push some folks into one camp or the other. They assume that they must either believe or not believe.

That's kinda sorta how it seems to me, anyway.

 

[Almustafa]

thats fine, Atheists dont beleive the description given in religions is accurate enough truth.
so ya go to something else... nothing wrong with that, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with being theist

 

[LuisDantas]

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.

Pretty much. Not all strong atheists become famous, but other than that, I agree.

Alright... We already have a word for people who are unwilling to read. Why do we need another one?

Which would that word be? Far as I can tell aliteracy isn't always, or even mainly, a matter of willingness.

 

[LuisDantas]

thats fine, Atheists dont beleive the description given in religions is accurate enough truth.
so ya go to something else... nothing wrong with that, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with being theist

Definitely!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

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.

If I have no knowledge of a thing, then I neither like nor dislike it. This entails both "not liking" and "not disliking" the thing.

If we decide to categorize people as either "fan of Keanu Reeves" or "not a fan of Keanu Reeves", then all the people who know nothing of Keanu Reeves would be in the "not a fan" category, even though in everyday speech, we use "I'm not a fan of Keanu Reeves" as a euphemism for "I dislike Keanu Reeves."

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I wonder if anyone would be silly enough to put infants into the category of "not fans of Keanu Reeves?"

 

[LuisDantas]

I definitely would. One doubt less for you.

 

[ArtieE]

thats fine, Atheists dont beleive the description given in religions is accurate enough truth.

Atheists neither believe nor disbelieve the description given in religions.

so ya go to something else... nothing wrong with that, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with being theist

They don't go to something else. Theists go to something else. Atheists stay where they've always been. Just think of a simple conversation:

Two people from the same village meet after a while. One says: "I have started believing in God and become a theist will you also become a theist?" The other one says "No, I'll just live as I've always lived with no change whatsoever." And so you have one theist and one atheist.

 

[Willamena]

So you have beliefs but some beliefs remain absent....interesting.

Semantic incongruity...

What do you mean by "some beliefs remain absent"? That makes no sense to me.

In what way are any beliefs "remaining absent" of me?

 

[Willamena]

Which would that word be? Far as I can tell aliteracy isn't always, or even mainly, a matter of willingness.

Aliteracy

We have a concept of people who can read. Based on that information, not on no information, we have a concept of people who can't read.

 

[Willamena]

I wonder if anyone would be silly enough to put infants into the category of "not fans of Keanu Reeves?"

I'm sure all the people who are not fans of my dad would.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I wonder if anyone would be silly enough to put infants into the category of "not fans of Keanu Reeves?"

"Fans of Keanu Reeves" and "not fans of Keanu Reeves" form a MECE set of categories, so everyone is in exactly one. Saying that they're not "not fans" implies that they're fans, which I don't think makes a whole lot of sense.

 

[ArtieE]

I wonder if anyone would be silly enough to put infants into the category of "not fans of Keanu Reeves?"

I wonder if anyone would be silly enough to put infants into the category of "fans of Keanu Reeves?" Wouldn't it be better to say they are neither fans nor not fans of Keanu Reeves? That they neither like nor dislike him? Like atheists neither believe nor disbelieve in gods?

 

[Willamena]

Wouldn't it be better to say they are neither fans nor not fans of Keanu Reeves? That they neither like nor dislike him? Like atheists neither believe nor disbelieve in gods?

Sort of, Artie.

It would be better to say they are neither fans nor not fans of Keanu Reeves in the same way it would be better to say they are neither theists nor atheists.

 

[LuisDantas]

Aliteracy

We have a concept of people who can read. Based on that information, not on no information, we have a concept of people who can't read.

Oh, thanks. Then I meant that atheism is akin to illiteracy, not aliteracy.

 

[LuisDantas]

Sort of, Artie.

It would be better to say they are neither fans nor not fans of Keanu Reeves in the same way it would be better to say they are neither theists nor atheists.

I actually agree, in that both are actually misleading.