Atheism is not a default position

[ImmortalFlame]

All babies are also implicit anarchists. They don't believe in governments.

No. An anarchist is someone who advocates society without governance, and that forms of government are harmful to human society in general. Babies aren't born with those beliefs either.

They're also implicit deniers of atheism, because they don't believe in atheism.

"Believe in atheism" is a misnomer since atheism is a lack of belief. How can you "not believe in not having a belief"?

Babies are implicit nihilist since they don't believe in life.

Again, no. I have no idea where you're getting your definitions from, but a nihilist is someone who believes life is without value. A baby doesn't possess that belief either.

And on top of that, they think you're wrong, because implicitly they don't believe you're right.

Now you're just not making sense. Since it has already been explicitly stated throughout this thread countless times that "not accepting X is true doesn't mean you must accept Y as true", a baby can not believe you're correct while also not believing you're wrong. Again, they don't posses those beliefs either.

But it doesn't stop there, babies also don't believe that there's not a God, which makes them... theists...

No, it doesn't. As has been firmly established in this thread and others, an atheist is someone who does not believe in a God, not just someone who believes there isn't a God.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

And how is it means of understanding the default position?

Because we are all born without belief, and beliefs are obtained over time as a result of various factors. It is the default position on all matters to not believe a proposition until such a time as it convinces us. By saying "we are all born atheists" I am not putting a ring fence around all the world's children and herding them into my private club and snarling "these are mine!" like some lunatic, I am making a simple statement of fact: we are ALL born without beliefs, and atheism can be defined as that absence of belief with regards to single claim. I very much doubt that if this subject were about identifying the default position on giraffes people would be so up in arms about it, but I accept the exact same position with regards to that as I do to this. I don't think it is in any way "point scoring" to claim babies are atheists, because we are also born without belief in giraffes. It is about communicating the idea that atheism is more than just a narrow view of believing there is no God, but that it is a broader position of simply being in a state of not accepting the existence of God as true. I believe this frames the debate in a more helpful light, as it sheds the imaginary middle-ground that so many people prefer to hide in, and it also correctly identifies the default state of belief and where the burden of proof lies.

 

[Ouroboros]

No. An anarchist is someone who advocates society without governance, and that forms of government are harmful to human society in general. Babies aren't born with those beliefs either.

Still, a baby doesn't believe a government is a good thing.

"Believe in atheism" is a misnomer since atheism is a lack of belief. How can you "not believe in not having a belief"?

Babies don't believe atheism to be true or accurate. Babies don't believe you're right either.

The issue here is that babies aren't believing or not-believing. They're in a state of ignorance. It's the in-between state that you have in fuzzy logic or in circuits between .1 and 4.0 V or whatever it is. It's the neither-or-either state.

Again, no. I have no idea where you're getting your definitions from, but a nihilist is someone who believes life is without value. A baby doesn't possess that belief either.

A baby doesn't have belief in the value of life.

Now you're just not making sense. Since it has already been explicitly stated throughout this thread countless times that "not accepting X is true doesn't mean you must accept Y as true", a baby can not believe you're correct while also not believing you're wrong. Again, they don't posses those beliefs either.

Again, there's a third state. The unknown or undefined state. Atheism represents a state, not the nil-state.

Null value:

1. A value of NULL indicates that the value is unknown. A value of NULLis different from an empty or zero value. No two null values are equal. Comparisons between two null values, or between a NULL and any other value, return unknown because the value of each NULL is unknown.

No, it doesn't. As has been firmly established in this thread and others, an atheist is someone who does not believe in a God, not just someone who believes there isn't a God.

I didn't say that. You're twisting what I'm saying. I didn't say that an atheist is someone who believes there isn't a God. An atheist is 1) a person, 2) someone with a view/thought/idea/opinion about God, 3) someone who has spend at least 5 minutes thinking about the issue. Atheism is not the state of ignorance about God, that's called ignorance, not atheism. Atheist usually have reached their atheism based on ... actually living, breathing, and thinking. Not just being a vegetable without a single though through life.

Babies don't have the neural capacity to reason, think, or conclude any formed decision, opinion, or view about what God is and is not or if God exists or not.

It's a false dichotomy to claim atheism-theism is a bivalent system. It's a multi-value logic system, like this one: Three-valued logic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every term and label includes more than just the simplified summary. "Not believing in God" requires definition of what "believing" is and what "God" is that this person is "not believing" in. Or the value of "God" is "not defined" which means that the "not believe in not-defined" can have any value or no value. It leaves it just unknown.

 

[atanu]

Yes, I am aware of this. However, I'm just wondering whether there are people here who are of the opinion that calling a rock an "atheist" is somehow meaningfully descriptive.

Probably there are.

 

[atanu]

We can only say that we lack belief once we are aware of that which we have the option to believe in...
Prior to forming said belief, we lack belief - hence implicit atheism/default position.

....

I only wish to point out that this definition of implicit atheism that includes babies who never had any idea about the matter as an atheist and then concluding that atheism is the default position is some people's thought.

For me, it is untenable and contradicts even the common sense. A baby has neither a belief nor a disbelief in any deity. It is not atheism .. whatever Smith et al. may believe or propose.

Further, the tenet of Implicit atheism, in general, is beyond my understanding. When there is a lack of belief on the subject of one or more or all deity then what is the subject? What is the argument? What a conscious man cognises when he realises that he possesses/has a lack of belief in deity?

 

[atanu]

No such state of things exist. Something is either true or untrue, it cannot be both or neither.

I know that for your understanding this may be impossible. Nevertheless, I will give it a last try.

A thirsty man runs after a mirage.

Ultimately his thought that there was water in the mirage was found wrong. But as long as he is under ignorance, he suffers and believes that there is water. In Indian philosophy the knowledge of such state of ignorance is called mAyA .. magic, which is neither true nor untrue.


Another common sense example is our every day life and our strivings based on a false belief in existence of a separate self. This striving is based on a knowledge that is neither true nor untrue. This striving is based on illusion.

 

[atanu]

Time to lay this rhinoceros to rest. If you accept that atheism describes the person who has no interest in, no knowledge about, or no particular belief about god, then atheism cannot be described as a "default position" on a scale of beliefs.

Default: Amongst a mess of options, the default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing.

Thing about this: belief isn't an act. It's not something we do, and especially not something we choose to do. It's a description of the world, nothing more, nothing less.

Take the world.

The world is the case.

If we wish to examine truth or untruth, belief or doubt, certainty or uncertainty about the world, then we must hold the world distinct from those things we wish to examine. Hence, we will refer to it, and all its parts, as "the case."

The world is the case, and of the case things may be true or false, hence they may be believed or doubted, with degrees of certainty or uncertainty.

If I say, "I believe George went to the store," that lends it uncertainty. It says that because of insufficient knowledge there may some amount of doubt about George's activities, but still I have a degree of certainty about it. Similarly, to say, "I don't believe George went to the store," is to assert its uncertainty. Belief is the case described in such a way as to hold a degree of certainty.

If I say "George went to the store," then asserting the truth of that lends it a face that says there is no doubt, no uncertainty about George's journey. Truth is the case described as apart from me, apart from the certainty a consciousness might know.

That's because a consciousness is distinct from the world it knows.

The default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing. The world is the case.

Both asserting a degree of certainty to the world and describing it as apart from me, apart from any degrees of certainty, are things we do. They are dong something, not nothing. Where the default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing, asserting belief and truth--and their counterparts disbelief and falsehood--about what is the case are doing something.

In discussion, we do not fail to do something about the world.

Can we return here? Can we refute this instead of bringing in other theories/propositions/beliefs?

 

[leibowde84]

Some people are incorrigible. Accepting their own mistake is impossible for them.

I repeat that I talked about a category called "Neither true nor untrue" and not "True and untrue".

When the truth value of a proposition is indeterminate then the knowledge of such state is called "Neither true nor untrue".

That in itself is a logical fallacy. There is a possibility for everything to be known, but that is beside the point. You are trying desperately to create a state of being that doesn't even contradict your opposing argument.

No one is saying that the state of being ignorant, not able to consider a proposition or concept doesn't exist. We are saying that an entity in that state still lacks belief, whether it be in God, gods, or any other metaphysical concept. You are only arguing with yourself. You haven't even disputed the claim that the absence of a specific belief does not require understanding or comprehension of any kind. You keep on making this seemingly ludicrous claim that consideration is required to lack a belief, but you have provided no supporting evidence.

 

[leibowde84]

Time to lay this rhinoceros to rest. If you accept that atheism describes the person who has no interest in, no knowledge about, or no particular belief about god, then atheism cannot be described as a "default position" on a scale of beliefs.

Default: Amongst a mess of options, the default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing.

Thing about this: belief isn't an act. It's not something we do, and especially not something we choose to do. It's a description of the world, nothing more, nothing less.

Take the world.

The world is the case.

If we wish to examine truth or untruth, belief or doubt, certainty or uncertainty about the world, then we must hold the world distinct from those things we wish to examine. Hence, we will refer to it, and all its parts, as "the case."

The world is the case, and of the case things may be true or false, hence they may be believed or doubted, with degrees of certainty or uncertainty.

If I say, "I believe George went to the store," that lends it uncertainty. It says that because of insufficient knowledge there may some amount of doubt about George's activities, but still I have a degree of certainty about it. Similarly, to say, "I don't believe George went to the store," is to assert its uncertainty. Belief is the case described in such a way as to hold a degree of certainty.

If I say "George went to the store," then asserting the truth of that lends it a face that says there is no doubt, no uncertainty about George's journey. Truth is the case described as apart from me, apart from the certainty a consciousness might know.

That's because a consciousness is distinct from the world it knows.

The default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing. The world is the case.

Both asserting a degree of certainty to the world and describing it as apart from me, apart from any degrees of certainty, are things we do. They are dong something, not nothing. Where the default is the option that will obtain if the chooser does nothing, asserting belief and truth--and their counterparts disbelief and falsehood--about what is the case are doing something.

In discussion, we do not fail to do something about the world.

I'm sorry but this is flat out wrong, unless you are making up your own meaning for the term "default". It is not any position that one "obtains" or "attains" in any way shape or form. It is the state of absolute non-bias that we all start with BEFORE doing or learning ANYTHING.

 

[leibowde84]

Religion is natural implies, as I understand it, that a society will normally come up with religious beliefs (e.g. beliefs in gods) since it's natural for humans to develop such concepts.Also if not every individual in a given society may come up with this concept on their own, they will normally hear about such concepts as part of their socialization and education.
And if someone has such a concept, he or she must have a position towards the truthfulness of that concept, i.e. either it is true, or it is false, or one doesn't know. Even the position of not knowing it is one that normally arises out of a thinking process, so, when confronted with the concept of religion one can not do nothing about it, the same as one can not do nothing about the world, a point on which I agree with Willamena.

We aren't talking about anyone considering anything. We are discussing what simply lacking or being without a belief can apply to.

 

[leibowde84]

Atanu is using "true" just fine. Where reality is an unknown, or especially unknowable, any statement made about it would automatically neither conform to nor be accordance with reality. It would be neither true nor false (have no truth value), until the lights come on (until its truth can be assessed).

Knowledge has everything to do with.

Our knowledge of the truth plays no role in whether something is true or untrue. You are talking about honesty.

 

[Willamena]

I'm sorry but this is flat out wrong, unless you are making up your own meaning for the term "default". It is not any position that one "obtains" or "attains" in any way shape or form. It is the state of absolute non-bias that we all start with BEFORE doing or learning ANYTHING.

Can you support that atheism is ignorance?

 

[leibowde84]

Can you support that atheism is ignorance?

No, but would you like me to support that atheism can include those that are ignorant of the concept of God? Because that is all that I and everyone else here have claimed. I'm happy to do it though. Just want to make sure you understand my argument.

 

[Ouroboros]

No, but would you like me to support that atheism can include those that are ignorant of the concept of God? Because that is all that I and everyone else here have claimed. I'm happy to do it though. Just want to make sure you understand my argument.

But that's the problem. Atheism is not defined as "ignorant of the concept of God" but as the "disbelief in God." An atheist isn't ignorant of the concept of God, but very aware and informed. The atheist has a concept of what God is, and disbelieve the actual existence of that concept. A baby doesn't have concepts to disbelieve in. A baby even disbelieve that pi and the radius of a circle have any correlation, simply because they don't have the faculties to believe or disbelieve anything. They're like divide-by-zero at that point. It takes learning, training, information gathering, and so on to form a state of mind. Before that, it's like measuring the speed of the non-existent car. The baby has no car to be measured yet. There's no speed, and there's no zero-speed either where there's no car to test.

 

[Willamena]

Our knowledge of the truth plays no role in whether something is true or untrue.

Can you support this claim?

 

[Willamena]

No, but would you like me to support that atheism can include those that are ignorant of the concept of God?

I was more interested in support for your claim, "It is the state of absolute non-bias that we all start with BEFORE doing or learning ANYTHING." And, of course, before we learn anything we are in a state of ignorance about it.

 

[atanu]

No one is saying that the state of being ignorant, not able to consider a proposition or concept doesn't exist. We are saying that an entity in that state still lacks belief, whether it be in God, gods, or any other metaphysical concept.

Dear L. That is your position, your belief that a baby lacks a particular belief.

Our position is that in case of a baby, the question of a particular belief is meaningless. The baby has not entertained the particular belief, this way or that way.

You keep on making this seemingly ludicrous claim that consideration is required to lack a belief, but you have provided no supporting evidence.

And you keep on insulting people.

Our knowledge of the truth plays no role in whether something is true or untrue. .....

In dream you may frolic with a lady and lose sperm, although there was no lady.

Our beliefs do shape the truth for us. Else a Jesus would not have died to provide us with a view to his wisdom.

But I think that that is beyond you, at present.

 

[Thief]

I will neither agree nor disagree.

pick a side....any side.....flip a coin.....
(debate section)

 

[atanu]

I'm sorry but this is flat out wrong, unless you are making up your own meaning for the term "default". It is not any position that one "obtains" or "attains" in any way shape or form. It is the state of absolute non-bias that we all start with BEFORE doing or learning ANYTHING.

I thought that the blue highlighted part was Willa's point in the OP.

Some people however go further and call that non bias as atheism. I suppose that is their bias.

 

[Thief]

Relations are connections drawn from observation. Any connection between things is not inherent. Consciousness organizes the information it garners about the world and makes connections.

The world as we understand it to be does not match the "objective" world. Relations are an understanding about the world.

Connections happen as a result of thought.
(oh...sorry.....obviously some people are lacking consideration and posting anyway)
not you of course.....I like you