Atheism is not a default position

[lewisnotmiller]

Providing they aren't indoctrinated at birth or in childhood, then Secularism is the neutral, default choice.
Babies and children are secular in my opinion, at least until some adult tells them about a God.

Babies believe in the separation of Church and state?
*is confused *

 

[Aquitaine]

Babies believe in the separation of Church and state?
*is confused *

Forgive me, perhaps I am using too liberal a definition of "Secular". I just mean it as "non-religious".

 

[jojom]

This is unnecessary pedantry (take it from an expert).

So after our vollies and again the ball lands in your court you decide to cry "unnecessary pedantry." Just a matter of time wasn't it.

You are welcome to believe in false and uncertain things if you like, but I won't be convinced that you are actually believing in them.

I give up. Your difficulty with English simply isn't worth my time to straighten out. Have a good day.

 

[Curious George]

So after our vollies and again the ball lands in your court you decide to cry "unnecessary pedantry." Just a matter of time wasn't it.

I give up. Your difficulty with English simply isn't worth my time to straighten out. Have a good day.

Ikr, don't these realists know we are already skeptical of them?

Lol

 

[Thief]

I'm afraid I simply do not understand this reply, would you mind rewriting it with greater clarity please?



Providing they aren't indoctrinated at birth or in childhood, then Secularism is the neutral, default choice.
Babies and children are secular in my opinion, at least until some adult tells them about a God.

There is nothing neutral about being a part of this world.
When you walk the street you are part of this world.
Other parts will target your passing.

Assuming there is no god....is not neutral.
You have made a choice.
You did so for reason.

That you reason doesn't mean you got it right.

 

[Thief]

Babies don't make choices......a poor support for discussion.
Let's find our support from those who can speak.

Children are vulnerable to input.
I would like to think most are taught cause and effect....FIRST.

Then as they move through this 'secular' world...they might wonder the Cause

 

[Diderot]

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.

Oh no, this rhinoceros is well alive and charging trust me, but let's discuss it anyway.

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.

Already you face a huge problem, your definition of something that is "by default" is false.
What is by default, is what amongst a mess of options doesnt change without any external/internal actions.
Then you define belief as something else than an action which does seem like a cope out but we'll let it slide (this is no attempt at poisoning the well by the way, just saying "To believe" is not "to do something" seems strange to me but, hey, why not ?)
Even if we dont consider belief as an action from the subject, it is still a world view that was taught by his parents or that was adopted by himself, therefore the state before any reasonnement on belief would be the default position.
What would be the default position then ?

A hundred percent untouched Agnosticism. Doubting everything, studying the facts on each sides. Making no claims what so ever.
So the default position is pure agnosticism, problem now:

You know nothing, believe nothing.
Here are the claims.

- There is no god.
- There is a God, his name is Jesus.
- There is a God, his name is Yawhe.
- There is a God, his name is Allah.
- There are many Gods, all written in Hnduism
- There are many Gods ... Etc.

Among this claims only one Stands out. Absence of deity.
But it does not say anything FOR the beliefs in that claim.

So let's examine what each claims have in their favor:

- There is no God: We have no proofs of a creature that reassembles an external, all powerfull, all mighty, all knowing being, therefore we can say such creature is not real until further proofs.
- There is Jesus: Bible, ancient books, no contemporary accounts, no actual proofs.
- There is Yawhe: Torah, ancient myths, no contemporary historical accounts, no actual proofs.
- There is Allah: See above.
- There are many Hindu Gods: See Above.

But what we know is that:

- Many old religions are now widly considered myths but they had the same "proofs" as the actual ones.
- Many actual religions are considered false by practicians of other religions while they hold the same "proofs".

So rejecting 99% of religions is something most humans do.
We do not need proves to adhere to atheism for the logic behind science is something is false unless it is proven otherwise (that's why we dont debate for hours on the existence of the Loch Ness monster).

Therefore the default position is Pure Agnosticism, but the logic position is atheism.

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.

True the atheist does not fail to say something about the world unlike the agnostic, but he says the most rational thing about it.

It's a little like saying:

I believe George went to the store.
What makes you think that?
People told me he did.

And on the contrary.

I dont believe George went to the store.
What makes you think that ?
I checked the store, he wasnt in any of the alleys. And his shoes are still home.


The second one is more reasonable than the First. Also both assert a claim. Therefore we will for now conclude Georde did not go to the store, until further investigations.

 

[Willamena]

Is your argument, then, simply that atheism is not a belief?

Not at all. It's not about defining atheism, it's about clarifying how atheism does not qualify as any sort of default.

 

[Windwalker]

Quoted you for 2 reasons, hopefully I can make them clear.

At the outset, thank you for this excellent post. I respect it.

I cannot reject all theisms, since I am unaware of them all. No-one is aware of them all.
But I'm an atheist because none of the ones I am aware of have convinced me. Not a theist, therefore an atheist.

Thank you. This is something I have tried to convey many times, but have learned that some need to believe their current understanding has to be the right one. I too self-identified as atheist for a good number of years as I rejected the typical literal anthropomorphic views of God as it could not be squared with rationality. I dropped the label because I found while it is valid in one area, it's too limiting of a definition for a reality far larger than what words can categorize and define for us. Terms such as theism and atheism are both valid, and invalid. Theism can be more than a Zeus-type caricature, and atheism can be more than a Richard Dawkins-type caricature. So why limit myself to single points of view? There is validity to speak in terms of both, or in terms of neither. It's all relative.

So, in a sense, atheism IS my default position. Does that convey it with more surety? Well, no...I could be ignorant of most theistic viewpoints, arguments could have been put to me poorly, I could just be stubborn, whatever. These is no judgement on the quality of my decision (and in my case, it is a decision). But it's my lack of theism which makes me an atheist, not an ability to declare theism unilaterally wrong.

I certainly understand the position. I think at this point if I had to define a default position, which is good how you are describing it as your own personal base position, for me to venture a guess at a term I'd call it trans-theism/atheism. What captures that simpler would be to simply call myself a nondualist. The value of that as a 'default position' is that it can assume contradictory points of view unproblematically. It can embrace the validity of strictly dualistic points of view, such as theism and atheism, without beholding itself to any. It gets rid of true/false dichotomies, yet can also embrace them as valid. I guess I would describe it as a freedom of movement.

But the whole point of this, is that the default position, is relative. It's something we learn. It's something that can change. We are not born with any "position" at all. And to say atheism is the same as that is dishonest. It is a position on a question. Not a blank slate. The atheist position is not a blank mind, by any stretch of the imagination. It's a point of view.

Is it useful to declare a baby an atheist? No. Indeed, I've argued that point at times. It appears to me that this argument is commonly used in the way you describe (ie. to confer superiority, or as part of a pissing contest). nevertheless, I thought it worth extrapolating a little on my thoughts in this area.

Yes, and I like the addition of the default position being someone's individual ground, and how that can and does change, as I've pointed out. If a child is raised in an atheistic culture, the default position will be atheism. If raised in a theistic culture, the default position will become theism. We are not born with a "default position" on anything whatsoever. The only position on reality is strictly functioning at the impulse/instinct level. It would be like saying the default position of a cell is atheism. That's absurd.

 

[Willamena]

Already you face a huge problem, your definition of something that is "by default" is false.

It's drawn from resources, and conforms to my own understanding of what a default is.

What is by default, is what amongst a mess of options doesnt change without any external/internal actions.

That is it, yes.

Then you define belief as something else than an action which does seem like a cope out but we'll let it slide (this is no attempt at poisoning the well by the way, just saying "To believe" is not "to do something" seems strange to me but, hey, why not ?)

Stretching the bounds, good on you. It's good to question what we believe so firmly as to take for granted.

Belief is not something we do because it takes no effort to accomplish. Not one neuron has to fire for it to be. It's just the data that already exists in memory that has been confirmed, that's all the stuff we believe.

Even if we dont consider belief as an action from the subject, it is still a world view that was taught by his parents or that was adopted by himself, therefore the state before any reasonnement on belief would be the default position.
What would be the default position then ?

This is the crux of the topic: if believing is a state and that state is being negated (essentially eliminated) in order to arrive at a picture of what "atheism" is, then it's not a default of "state of belief." Eliminating the state is not one of the options of being in the state.

A hundred percent untouched Agnosticism. Doubting everything, studying the facts on each sides. Making no claims what so ever.
So the default position is pure agnosticism, problem now:

You know nothing, believe nothing.
Here are the claims.

- There is no god.
- There is a God, his name is Jesus.
- There is a God, his name is Yawhe.
- There is a God, his name is Allah.
- There are many Gods, all written in Hnduism
- There are many Gods ... Etc.

Among this claims only one Stands out. Absence of deity.

Eliminating, through negation, the object, deity, is different from eliminating the state of relation to the object. Do you see?

But it does not say anything FOR the beliefs in that claim.

So let's examine what each claims have in their favor:

- There is no God: We have no proofs of a creature that reassembles an external, all powerfull, all mighty, all knowing being, therefore we can say such creature is not real until further proofs.
- There is Jesus: Bible, ancient books, no contemporary accounts, no actual proofs.
- There is Yawhe: Torah, ancient myths, no contemporary historical accounts, no actual proofs.
- There is Allah: See above.
- There are many Hindu Gods: See Above.

But what we know is that:

- Many old religions are now widly considered myths but they had the same "proofs" as the actual ones.
- Many actual religions are considered false by practicians of other religions while they hold the same "proofs".

So rejecting 99% of religions is something most humans do.
We do not need proves to adhere to atheism for the logic behind science is something is false unless it is proven otherwise (that's why we dont debate for hours on the existence of the Loch Ness monster).

Therefore the default position is Pure Agnosticism, but the logic position is atheism.



True the atheist does not fail to say something about the world unlike the agnostic, but he says the most rational thing about it.

It's a little like saying:

I believe George went to the store.
What makes you think that?
People told me he did.

And on the contrary.

I dont believe George went to the store.
What makes you think that ?
I checked the store, he wasnt in any of the alleys. And his shoes are still home.


The second one is more reasonable than the First. Also both assert a claim. Therefore we will for now conclude Georde did not go to the store, until further investigations.

 

[Blastcat]

I think I agree with that rationale- what is the 'default' result of a coin toss? claiming lack of belief in heads doesn't make tails default or vice versa.
no more than my skepticism of atheism makes theism the default..

You assume that the God question is a 50/50 coin toss.
This would mean that you automatically give God's existence ( heads ) a 50 percent probability of being true.

Why should we accept that high probability?

We know that the NATURAL world exists with a probability close to 1 ( or 99.9 something on a hundred ).
We know ... NOTHING of the supernatural or of any other gods.. or of THIS particular god. That would be a probability of something on the order of 0.0 something on a hundred )

So, if we HAD a coin toss, it would have 0.0 something on the HEADS side, and 0.9 something on the TAILS side.

That's ZERO to ONE odds.. in favor of NO.

Not 1 to 1.

When we make odds for something existing that is NATURAL in the NATURAL world, it automatically gets a HIGHER probability than anything supernatural, because NOTHING supernatural has ever been proved to exist PRIOR to our "coin toss".

But say I make a claim that I have a cup of coffee before me. Well, at least we can say that cups of coffee HAVE HAPPENED and CAN HAPPEN in the natural world.

But If I make a claim that a god is before me.. I don't happen to HAVE a prior proof that gods have happened and can happen.

My PRIOR probability is zero, or extremely close to zero. Not half and half sometimes we proved some god was real... NO..

That has NEVER happened before.

 

[Blastcat]

Atheism is not a default position

It never was.
Regards

You might be right.

But it should be.
Regards.

 

[leibowde84]

It does if one uses "natural" in the cognitive, evolutionary, or similar sense. Of course, "natural" is misleading. But in the sciences concerned, one might describe "religion" as "natural" to/for humans as is the tendency to form social or familial bonds. That is the sense that evolutionary psychologists, neuroscientists, and so forth intend by "religion is natural."

Do you think that children are born with an appreciation of the concept of God, or is it something that they learn from family, friends, schooling, etc.?

 

[leibowde84]

Atheism is not a default position

It never was.
Regards

If people aren't born with an innate belief in God, then atheism (or being "without" theism) must be the default position. Right?

 

[Windwalker]

Even if we dont consider belief as an action from the subject, it is still a world view that was taught by his parents or that was adopted by himself, therefore the state before any reasonnement on belief would be the default position.
What would be the default position then ?

A hundred percent untouched Agnosticism. Doubting everything, studying the facts on each sides. Making no claims what so ever.
So the default position is pure agnosticism, problem now:

For argument sake I'm going to run with this supposed "default position" you propose above, assuming it occurs in the mind of a very young child before any conceptual frameworks of reality are programmed into its mind through linguistic symbols by its parents; a child at a preverbal stage to be exact in technical terms. Anything after language enters in and conceptual models begin operating is no longer capable of functioning at the 'blank-slate' default position, if such itself is even possible. So then, is the preverbal stage an agnostic one? Is the preverbal stage capable of points of view?

Firstly, if anything that you could define that reality through the eyes of a preverbal child as it would be one of wonder and discovery and one of fear of death. It absolutely cannot be defined as you stated above as, "Doubting everything, studying the facts on each sides." That would be ludicrous. If we are to look at the only place we could to find some 'virgin soil', of the mind, as it were, it would be the infant mind. I honestly don't think anyone who uses the term "agnostic" imagines that as an Oceanic state of infantile bliss, a reality full of fear and wonder. That does not describe agnosticism in the least. Agnosticism engages the cognitive mind, and as such it is not, nor can function at a state of 'virgin soil', to use that term, this imaginary 'default position' people wish to imagine can exist.

This "default position" is a myth. It can only be related to as a cognitive point of view, and those are all defined and created and shaped by linguistic structures which are programmed into us culturally. This "default position" claim falls into the "myth of the given", which has been shown to not in fact be possible. The myth of the given is one that assumes there is the default reality just laying around out there they we can get to if only we can clear the table of our preconceptions and ideas about it. But it is not possible for us to see anything without the lenses of language and symbols and concepts programmed into us. And that fact scares the hell out of people who think they can find reality by just studying it hard enough, getting back to the basics, doing really good science, and so forth. There is no ground reality anyone can touch, without all of these mental constructs, essentially 'co-creating' that reality for us. Our ideas are fused with that world, and as such, the "default position' is in fact relative to those structures.

This whole infant mind being the 'agnostic' position only has value if you can escape verbal structures. Does the atheist do this? No. Does the theist do this? No. Does the agnostic do this? No. All of these have points of view created by language and culture thoroughly embedded in them. If you wish to mean the word agnostic to mean an "oceanic state of fear of wonder" without any concepts whatsoever, then that changes any understanding I have ever heard the word used to describe.

 

[Blastcat]

If people aren't born with an innate belief in God, then atheism (or being "without" theism) must be the default position. Right?

Oh maybe he meant never in a HISTORICAL sense.. as in, as soon as people could THINK about gods.. they believed in them, too.

By default.

But to prove my hypothesis. we would need that time machine and that mind reading tool.
Let's get working on those machines and stop the speculation.

That's how I think religions happened and why they continue to seem so darn TRUE to most people. Most people on the planet by default are raised in some kind of religion or other. ( at least a good majority of them.. not sure on the stats )

But.. as to a baby?....

Once we get that baby mind reading tool... were going to actually know.

 

[leibowde84]

Oh maybe he meant never in a HISTORICAL sense.. as in, as soon as people could THINK about gods.. they believed in them, too.

By default.

But to prove my hypothesis. we would need that time machine and that mind reading tool.
Let's get working on those machines and stop the speculation.

That's how I think religions happened and why they continue to seem so darn TRUE to most people. Most people on the planet by default are raised in some kind of religion or other. ( at least a good majority of them.. not sure on the stats )

But.. as to a baby?....

Once we get that baby mind reading tool... were going to actually know.

I don't think we need a baby mind reading tool. I feel that it is an impossibility that a baby would have any concept of God, as they don't have a concept of anything at that point. They are still learning how to use their senses.

 

[Willamena]

Again you have not addressed a person believing both propositions or rejecting both propositions.

The default position is that which we begin our exploration. Such that nothing has changed with our resolution to the truth. While this is certainly true as you have pointed out, if one did nothing. However, one can do something and still arrive at this same position.

Sorry, George.
I'll respond as soon as I can.

 

[Diderot]

For argument sake I'm going to run with this supposed "default position" you propose above, assuming it occurs in the mind of a very young child before any conceptual frameworks of reality are programmed into its mind through linguistic symbols by its parents; a child at a preverbal stage to be exact in technical terms. Anything after language enters in and conceptual models begin operating is no longer capable of functioning at the 'blank-slate' default position, if such itself is even possible. So then, is the preverbal stage an agnostic one? Is the preverbal stage capable of points of view?

Firstly, if anything that you could define that reality through the eyes of a preverbal child as it would be one of wonder and discovery and one of fear of death. It absolutely cannot be defined as you stated above as, "Doubting everything, studying the facts on each sides." That would be ludicrous. If we are to look at the only place we could to find some 'virgin soil', of the mind, as it were, it would be the infant mind. I honestly don't think anyone who uses the term "agnostic" imagines that as an Oceanic state of infantile bliss, a reality full of fear and wonder. That does not describe agnosticism in the least. Agnosticism engages the cognitive mind, and as such it is not, nor can function at a state of 'virgin soil', to use that term, this imaginary 'default position' people wish to imagine can exist.

This "default position" is a myth. It can only be related to as a cognitive point of view, and those are all defined and created and shaped by linguistic structures which are programmed into us culturally. This "default position" claim falls into the "myth of the given", which has been shown to not in fact be possible. The myth of the given is one that assumes there is the default reality just laying around out there they we can get to if only we can clear the table of our preconceptions and ideas about it. But it is not possible for us to see anything without the lenses of language and symbols and concepts programmed into us. And that fact scares the hell out of people who think they can find reality by just studying it hard enough, getting back to the basics, doing really good science, and so forth. There is no ground reality anyone can touch, without all of these mental constructs, essentially 'co-creating' that reality for us. Our ideas are fused with that world, and as such, the "default position' is in fact relative to those structures.

This whole infant mind being the 'agnostic' position only has value if you can escape verbal structures. Does the atheist do this? No. Does the theist do this? No. Does the agnostic do this? No. All of these have points of view created by language and culture thoroughly embedded in them. If you wish to mean the word agnostic to mean an "oceanic state of fear of wonder" without any concepts whatsoever, then that changes any understanding I have ever heard the word used to describe.

The default position I described NEVER occurs. It is an hypothetical position for argument's sake. Debating on it is sterile.
What I mean is that the default position would be absoulte agnosticism (Allias: Ignorance of the existence of the concept of a god, and lack of any reflection about our origines.)

The "reality" is what lies around us without being perceived, once it goes through our sense it is no more the objective reality but subjective analysis of reality.
But if we cant perceive reality (as the reality that IS) we can try to sharpen our analysis of reality through objective modeling.
Therefore analysing the hypothesis presented by religion through logic leading to the reasonable position of atheism, can sharpen ones view of reality, getting closer to it, by abandonning, what has been proven to be unreal.

We might perceive things differently, but the maths and logic of the world stay the same.
That's why we have to rely on science and not personnal feeling to understand what IS the world.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Sorry, George.

The default position is the one that attains if we do nothing. Belief happens in the here and now. I could come to believe in invisible circle-squares tomorrow--something could happen and give me data about them. I did nothing to cause this data to come my way. Is my disbelief today in invisible circle-squares the default of my belief in them tomorrow? That's not how I understand defaults to be. I still have the same resolution to the truth as much tomorrow as today.


Default isn't about what happened before, it's about what is. It's "what is if we do nothing."

To define is to paint a picture in words of what the meaning is, trying to capture it. The picture or "essence" that is captured is here and now.

In the scenario, if as you say we take that instant before a person is confronted with either proposition, then there is no data, so there's no essential belief or disbelief. How can we claim anything as a default of belief if there's no belief present?

The default with regards to the belief of the existence of anything is to lack a belief in its existence. We are born without a belief in the existence of Giraffes, pyramids, stars, supermarkets, chutney, Ipswich and God, amongst many other things. That means that the default position with regards to God is to not believe in their existence, ergo atheism is the default position.

I really don't get why this is so difficult for so many people to understand...