Atheist by birth?

[Acim]

I read a study once that said around 80% of all arguments involve mere semantic differences.

I once did a study where I discovered that 42% of all statistics were made up.

 

[lunakilo]

That I can agree with.

"Atheism" is defined by the software.

"Atheism" was defined by people with software, but that doesn' t mean that it only applies to the ones witch have software.

 

[work in progress]

But atheism has nothing to do with potentials. You're making a simple concept much too complicated.
Babies are born with a potential for language as well, but they're not born linguists. They're born without language; without even a concept of language. They're a-lingual, if you will.

Our potentials are not unbounded. They are constrained by genetics and brain development. There doesn't seem to be any way a child who is capable of thinking and learning will begin to understand the world without following this pattern of teleological thinking (which doesn't stop, it always remains within us). And if we go back to the beginnings of human culture, there are common assumptions about the natural world that have their foundation in teleology. It takes a lot of development before some people start to realize that their assumptions about the world are probably wrong, and start looking for new ways to understand the world. An early, primitive hunter/gatherer society could not have been an atheistic community. If there are no predispositions towards thinking that leads to belief in gods and goddesses, we should have seen at least one primitive atheist society without any supernatural beliefs.

 

[Acim]

When "lack" implies that they should be having something.

Lack | Define Lack at Dictionary.com

The linked definition doesn't include the word "should."

All babies are very likely (overwhelmingly so) to develop ideas, concepts, beliefs about the world. Somewhere between conception and after finishing their little crying spat on day one, they are lacking in this phase of development.

Or at least we think they are. We think a whole bunch of things about "them" and we think we are right.

 

[Songbird]

I see. My point though is if there really is anything to be informed about from atheist perspective. You may as well have thought up of a new imaginitive creature to add to the supernatural realm while considering it informing them. FSM was probably a better example when everyone wasn't so familiar with it.

It could be, but it also could be a conclusion not based on any supernatural thing in particular as a criterion, just the supernatural itself as one.

 

[Willamena]

An aspect of idea, but not thought?

I'm not excluding thought, I'm just being specific. Idea is more accurate.

Just to be clear with what you've said about belief, it is a choice, yes? Something composed by a person about the world?

Not a choice, not if it is, as you say, thought. The thing about "a choice" is that it was made between options. Thought offers no options. We believe in things, propositions about the world, because they hold the appearance of truth. We don't choose the truth for them.

You realize that doesn't make sense?

I'm not lacking gold bars, I just don't have any.
Nor am I lacking degrees in law, I just don't have any.
Plus, I absolutely do not lack invisible pink unicorns in my garage, I just don't have any there (right now).

I realize that people misuse words, especially in informal conversation. They make themselves understood.

Doesn't make it right. And sometimes makes it very wrong.

Sometimes even changes the meaning of words.

As a human, my antennae are not lacking.

Which is what I would argue, but there are some, very assertive, self identified atheists who argue that it is lack of belief, and not rejection of a belief. World of difference for those who want to practice particular brand of atheism, and argue for it on forums.

Vive la diversity.

 

[Sunstone]

I once did a study where I discovered that 42% of all statistics were made up.

Yours wasn't published in a peer reviewed journal though.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I never understood the phrase that atheism is a "lack" of belief. Not having this belief isn't some kind of deficiency or not having something that is needed, so my absence of belief in the existence of gods isn't a lack of anything. It's simply an absence of holding that belief.

 

[lunakilo]

My point is that children come into the world with preconceived ways of learning about the world; and the assumptions that everything has a cause and a purpose will naturally lead to some sort of man-like or woman-like powerful creature who is the cause....that would be a deity from the way I see it.

And my point is that I do not accept the examples given as examples of teleological thinking.

I am also not convienced that children come into the world with preconceived ways of learning about the world.

 

[lunakilo]

When "lack" implies that they should be having something.

Lack | Define Lack at Dictionary.com

So are you saying I don't lack x-ray vision?

 

[lunakilo]

I never understood the phrase that atheism is a "lack" of belief. Not having this belief isn't some kind of deficiency or not having something that is needed, so my absence of belief in the existence of gods isn't a lack of anything. It's simply an absence of holding that belief.

I agree with you there.

But then again doesn't tha same apply to babies?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I agree with you there.

But then again doesn't tha same apply to babies?

The difference is that my absence of the belief that gods exist is meaningful because I'm actually capable of forming and understanding beliefs. Babies do not have that belief, because they do not, and cannot, have any beliefs, so any discussion of their particular non-beliefs is meaningless and vapid. The same as discussing the particular non-beliefs of rocks or dogs.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm struggling to make the analogy. Maybe someone can help. Those who "haven't yet heard the bible" have no proposition, so they're not atheists.

You have a bit of a leap in your argument there. How does this make them "not atheists" (which would imply that they're theists)?

Well, it's sort of like calling a tree uneducated, or a koala bear apolitical. Some terms simply are not meaningfully applicable to some things.

Sure, but whether a fact is useful doesn't have much bearing on whether it's correct. The fact that it doesn't matter that a koala bear is apolitical doesn't imply that the koala isn't apolitical.

And saying that a koala is apolitical would make much more sense than saying that it's political. And since the terms "apolitical" and "political" are, by definition, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, the koala must either be political or apolitical; there are no other possibilities.

So you're basing your whole argument on sticking to one strict dictionary definition of atheism, while ignoring the assumptions and other criteria which the people who come up with dictionary definitions consider while defining words. Okay.

Well, based off the definition of "unemployed:"

un·em·ployed

   /ˌʌn

ɛmˈplɔɪd/ Show Spelled[uhn-em-ploid] Show IPA
adjective 1. not employed; without a job; out of work: an unemployed secretary.


Would you describe a rock as unemployed, since the definition does not specify people? Do you think it's meaningful to describe a newborn infant as "unemployed?"

In the largest context, sure - it would include an infant.

In normal usage, the scope of the definition gets narrowed down artificially (to people aged 15 or over who are actively seeking work but are not employed, IIRC).

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Sure, but whether a fact is useful doesn't have much bearing on whether it's correct.

True, but this is irrelevant as all my posts in this thread are discussing whether such distinctions are meaningful.

 

[laffy_taffy]

Just so. I disagree that the babies are missing (lacking) any beliefs, just as the rocks and trees are not missing any beliefs. Their beliefless worlds are complete and whole, and perfect and fine, just as they are.

Why people won't leave them alone, and instead insist on making them atheists, I don't know.

Do babies believe in god? No? That makes them atheists. They don't have to hold the belief that god does not exist to be considered an atheist. They just have to be without (lack) the belief that a god does exist.

 

[laffy_taffy]

Lol, atheists are at each others throats as much as Christians, but as soon as you say something they don't like they don't mind setting aside personal beliefs to team up with their mates.

A funny herd you guys are

I must have missed it. Which supernatural deity did you say that you believed in?

 

[Willamena]

You have a bit of a leap in your argument there. How does this make them "not atheists" (which would imply that they're theists)?

It doesn't make them theist, any more than it makes them Green Party.

 

[Willamena]

I must have missed it. Which supernatural deity did you say that you believed in?

That one! Over there! ...Behind you!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It doesn't make them theist, any more than it makes them Green Party.

Atheist = not theist

Not atheist = not not theist = theist


But that aside, how does "not having heard the proposition" make a person "not an atheist"? Why is it necessary for a person to have heard "the proposition" before we acknowledge that the person has not accepted it?

From my point of view, it's a given that a person has not accepted any proposition he hasn't heard of. Do you disagree?

 

[laffy_taffy]

Beliefs are a relation between a person and a proposition that they've composed about the world, or more specifically possible worlds (possible ways the world is). So, not so much an aspect of awareness or thought as an aspect of idea or concept.


I haven't thought about it much --I don't know any infants. I'm sure they develop beliefs at some point in their first year. But it doesn't affect my arguments any.


"Whole", "complete" and "perfect" are synonymous. If "divine" is added as synonymous, its use with the other words lends it meaning in addition to the meaning it has for you (and me). I would take it as poetic, but maybe that's just me.

There is a name for the doubters, whose worldview defines things into non-existence: exclusivism. I'm not the exclusivist.


My argument is that babies do not "conform" when it comes to the utilization of such a relatively meaningless term as "lack of belief." Babies aren't "lacking" beliefs, they just don't have any.

Additionally, as a separate argument, I disagree that people who have no beliefs are atheists. I think the term "atheism" specifically refers to a disbelief in God. People with "no belief" have no information, i.e. no propositions in which to invest belief.

Did anyone else catch this? What do you think it means to lack something? It means to not have it, to be without. It doesn't just mean "missing" as you seem to be focused on. Anyway, "missing" is just referring to something missing vs. being present. The absence of a belief.