leibowde84
Veteran Member
Then the way you define "atheism" is merely different than the way that they do. You cannot claim that your definition is better or more common without providing verifiable support. That would be unreasonable.
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Atheism is not a default position
- Thread starter Willamena
- Start date
Thief
Rogue Theologian
If he didn't say it.....He made no declaration.
and you might be mistaken about your assumption.
McBell
Unbound
way to miss the point
He's implicitly made the declaration you've made for him by tagging him with a label.
He has? How do you know this?
What if I was wrong and Bill is actually a theist? Would he still have "implicitly made the declaration" that he's an atheist just because I had said that he was one?
Sure: I could be wrong... but I could be right.
... and if I am right, then Bill is an atheist despite not declaring this. Therefore, no "declaration" is necessary for atheism.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
well....following THAT kind of logic....
your silence allows me to paste ANY label I care to.....on YOU!
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
Just for clarification, does that first line admit that babies are apolitical?
I'm not sure how you're using the term "default" - Because I simply don't see how a null state is not the default human position for just about anything we wish to discuss.
As babies we have no other option in regards to politics or religions or anything else, other than what we are taught from external sources. As we grow and develop we choose to value and weight that which we have been taught. In that way, how we develop is entirely dependent on the information that was put into us during that process. Our default setting, for everyone ever, is essentially the same. This is why you aren't a Twirling Dervish and I'm not a praying 5 times a day while facing East... You know what I'm saying? We are not those things because we were never surrounded by those variables and influenced towards them one way or another.
No one is born a Mormon, and destined to be a Mormon for life. No one is born a Republican, and destined to be a republican for life. No one is born an activist, and destined to be an activist for life.
We are born blank, and formed by our environment over a number of years, both directly and indirectly, and then after some period of formative development we start to make decisions and formulate conclusions on our own. This is true of absolutely everything about us.
You're absolutely right about the ball. But always remember the null state of that ball.
If nothing ever acted on that ball - how could it be kicked? How would it ever move, without external input?
What else could possibly be the default human position in regards to politics if it's not apolitical? I highly doubt that you or I were born rooting for any party or candidate, right?
I know that even as a child I had certain tendencies and possibly inclinations that would be considered left or right on the modern political scale, but I was still very much apolitical until sometime after my sophomore year of High School. I would wager my next paycheck that you were the same way, unless of course your parents were super political people, but then you'd have to attribute your political activism to something your parents taught you.
See how that works? Without any external political input whatsoever, how many years would it take a developing infant to get involved in politics?
What is wrong with saying that the default human position in regards to the particular parameter of politics is to be apolitical, if it's factually accurate?
Not a negation - don't make the same mistake as others in this thread. Babies aren't making a negative decision in regards to a theistic claim. They are simply without of even the concept of deity, let alone what we call it, what attributes we give it, and what "realm" it exists in, or anything else regarding it. As such, they necessarily cannot be theists, just like they cannot be political.
Every single person who has ever been born has the capacity to be a theist. I'll readily admit that. But, as with everything else, they are not born one.
** I had to edit some of that first paragraph because after re-reading it I realized I left out some words and it made no sense.
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Call me whatever you want; if you're correct, it will still be correct even without me saying so.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
this doesn't really work for the word....atheist....
I think you know that.
How about I call you a clown and refuse your denial?
nothing personal mind you....
just making display where your line of thought would go.....
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Because of what the words mean.
Actuality doesn't matter--it's implied.
So when I say, for instance, "Willamena is wrong", it's not only implied that you ARE wrong, but that you've come out and declared this?
Well... at least you've acknowledged that this approach is divorced from reality.
It works just fine.
I don't think you have the first clue about the implications of what I'm saying.
It states that the term is applicable.
As I said earlier, "default" doesn't mean "what came before."
Suppose you are travelling down a road. You might turn at Junction 39 or at Junction 42 ahead, but if you don't turn you will continue on the same road. Continuing on the straight road, then, is the default. The term isn't applicable to the state of having no knowledge, and then, down the road, so to speak, acquiring one little, tiny piece of knowledge about god. Junction 39, 42, and the straight road are fixed, necessary options. Belief in something arbitrary and particular is not a necessary option.
Default doesn't mean "the one with no other option." If there's no other option, there's also no default. The road, in the above example, is one of a few options.
And, frankly, twirling a dervish isn't an option for me, either. It's a piece of information I'm aware of, so a potential belief, but I'm under no obligation to consider it an option for belief.
The null state describes no ball.
The steady state is not the default of the change to the ball in motion, any more than the ball in motion is the default of the change to steady state. They're just two states that are potential for the ball. To use the example of the road, it's the failure to decide to turn that creates a default. Otherwise, it's just three roads.
No person is a potential theist or atheist. Both states require a "god" spec of information, which, for a person ignorant of it, may or may not exist (it isn't a necessary bit of information).
If you want to default to ignorance, that suggests you've remained on that path of ignorance despite the options available to you. Politicalness, like religion, is arbitrary not fixed, dependent upon the environment, and so there is no guarantee of it being any sort of option. No options, no default option.
I don't believe that beliefs require a "default" of any sort, since the information we are each exposed to is arbitrary and constantly in flux.
With or without any political influence, you just are what you are.
I meant negation in the philosophical sense of "not."
Not believing. Not having knowledge. Not knowing. Those are the negations of believing, having knowledge, and knowing. The positives exist--they are part of the world, constituent of the world. The negatives don't exist, they are just the positives "notted," so to speak. To claim "not belief" for a person, on behalf of a positive state that they can exist in, is a reification of negation. That's what atheism is for a lot of people. Not so much for others.
It makes no sense that a reified negation is any more "default" of positive than a positive is "default" of a negation.[/QUOTE]
Wrongness, in that instance, isn't implied, it's explicit. You've declared it.
No. If there are no other options, there's only the default.
I have; YOU haven't. We're talking about your declarations (or Bill's, in my original example).
No, we were talking about implicit atheism.
Edit: If your declaration is, "That person is an atheist," that's explicit on your part. That's the explicit part. That atheism means something about what that person believes is the implicit part. That's their declaration.
Per your "wrongness" example, wrongness means nothing about what I believe and only something about what you believe. That's why it's subjective.
An implicit atheist has made no "declaration", implied or otherwise, about their atheism.
No. When *I* declare "that guy is an atheist", the only person making a declaration is *me*.
I think that you believe something that's factually incorrect, but this has nothing to do with your beliefs? Come again?