How do you define "Athesim"?

[Willamena]

one does not need to take a stand

you either have theism, or you dont

Well, we disagree. I don't agree that either term is useful as metaphysics.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Atheology would still be a theology.

"belief" requires either faith and/or proof

common definition only applies generic implications like an arrow pointing toward a school of thought

as a sine , Atheist and Theist would be polar opposites with agnostic the median.

"disbelief" also requires faith and/or proof

How about 'non-belief'? Does it require faith and/or proof?

 

[F0uad]

How about 'non-belief'? Does it require faith and/or proof?

Mostly Faith in my opinion.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Mostly Faith in my opinion.

OK. Thanks for answering. I see it differently. If I have no belief in yimrods, and don't even know what a yimrod is, then I can't think of my nonbelief as requiring faith.

To me 'faith' is a unshakable belief in the existence of something, often without sufficient evidence and sometimes in the face of strong contrary evidence.

But we all understand words differently.

 

[Willamena]

OK. Thanks for answering. I see it differently. If I have no belief in yimrods, and don't even know what a yimrod is, then I can't think of my nonbelief as requiring faith.

To me 'faith' is a unshakable belief in the existence of something, often without sufficient evidence and sometimes in the face of strong contrary evidence.

Or non-existence of something--referring to an "existence" state.

Your hypothetical yimrods hypothetically exist. Your hypothetical non-belief in them, then, despite hypothetical ignorance of them, represents--hypothetically--belief in the non-existence of something.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Or non-existence of something--referring to an "existence" state.

Your hypothetical yimrods hypothetically exist. Your hypothetical non-belief in them, then, despite hypothetical ignorance of them, represents--hypothetically--belief in the non-existence of something.

Yikes. I feel like I have been outworded! Bested at my own game.

I'm going to reduce your statement to its core and study it. You say:

Your non-belief in yimrods represents a belief in the non-existence of yimrods.

I hope you agree that my shortening matches your original meaning.

My response is that I'm not at all sure what a 'belief' is, but when I think very hard about it and try to define a 'belief' as tightly as possible, I come up with this definition:

A belief is a string of words, a statement, to which I'm willing to assent.

With that defintion in mind, I agree with you. I have a belief that, "Yimrods might or might not exist."

Still, it's hard for me to imagine that I have a belief about a thing (yimrods) which I can't even define or conceive.

If I had not made up the word 'yimrod', would I still have a belief regarding yimrods?

(That should give you grist for your wordmill -- at least for a little while.)

 

[Falvlun]

I personally don't see how I can "reject" that which I'm not even aware of; i.e., the many god concepts that I wasn't taught about. It seems unnecessary to me that I'd have to learn about all of them before I can say that I don't believe any of them to exist and have the attributes that they are claimed to have.

The same way you reject the general concept of all the fairy, Santa Claus, Big Foot, elf, and mermaid conceptions out there even though you've never heard of all the various conceptions. I really don't see why gods are unique or should be considered an exception.

 

[Draka]

The same way you reject the general concept of all the fairy, Santa Claus, Big Foot, elf, and mermaid conceptions out there even though you've never heard of all the various conceptions. I really don't see why gods are unique or should be considered an exception.

And there's no rule, as far as I can tell, that says that you're never allowed to change your mind were you to ever come across something that did make you rethink your position anyway. People do it all the time. Find faith...lose their faith. It's not like it's a written in stone thing or something. We're human, we doubt, we change our minds. It's our nature.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The same way you reject the general concept of all the fairy, Santa Claus, Big Foot, elf, and mermaid conceptions out there even though you've never heard of all the various conceptions. I really don't see why gods are unique or should be considered an exception.

The difference is that I can tell you what "mermaid" or "Santa Claus" means, but I can't tell you what "god" means.

I can give you examples of gods, but I can't define the term precisely enough to include each and every god while also excluding everything that has been defined as "not god".

 

[Falvlun]

Actually, the first thing that came to my mind when you said that is the Rain God character in one of the Dirk Gently novels by Douglas Adams. In his case, he is human and doesn't even realize he's a god. Still, clouds worship him, follow him, and rain on him all the time.

So? There was nothing in my definition about a god that says you have to know you're a god to be a god.

Besides, I'm absolutely positive that that was not or is the only connotation you get when you read or hear the word god. You are an intelligent, English speaking person who has thought about this a lot, and have grown up in a culture which has exposed you to many different concepts of gods. Why this need to feign ignorance?

- I have no problem with (1).
- I have major problems with (2). There are and have been actual religions (the Greek or Norse pantheons, for instance) where gods aren't necessarily "rulers of some aspect of nature", but are just a more powerful class of being. Also, I don't think it's possible to come up with a definition for a polytheistic god that wouldn't classify at least some angels, demons, saints, spirits or other "non-god things" as gods. For instance, does the Archangel Michael meet the criteria to be considered a god? By the Greek model, I think he would. By the Christian model, he is definitely not a god.

"Ruler of some aspect of nature" does not imply omnipotence, just like a king can be considered a ruler but not have absolute power.

And it doesn't matter if angels or demons could classify as a god. They aren't gods, and we know we aren't talking about angels or demons when we use the word god. No definition is ever perfect, but context and usage clarify, exclude, and define.

- I think (3) is incomplete, because it needs some sort of characteristics for God. You need to be able to tell the difference between an "everything" that is God from an "everything" that is not God. Otherwise, if you're jus going to allow "everything" or "the universe" as one of the things that meets the criteria for godhood, then practically everyone's a theist. Take me: I believe the universe exists. Does this make me a theist?

None of them were specific definitions. They were broad categories, and seeing as you understood precisely the god conception I was talking about in each of them, I think that just proves my point.

Pantheism is everything, just called God. Panentheism is everything called God with consciousness. Cliff note version, anyway. Unless you consider everything a God, or consider everything to be a God and have consciousness, then no, you aren't a theist.

No more then you would be forced to say you believed in unicorns because narwhals exist.

-And I'm saying that this isn't really how the category "gods" is defined. I think it's actually been defined by effectively throwing anything that a person calls "god" into a big set, and after the fact trying to pull common factors out of a disparate grab bag of ideas. We can't come up with a set of categories that cover all god things without also including a whole bunch of non-god things.

I just did. Angels and demons etc, by definition, are not gods. Therefore, it doesn't matter if they share characteristics with gods.

And that does seem to be the crux of it. Just because something shares characteristics with something else doesn't make the definition nebulous. I mean, both cats and dogs have four legs, fur, like to hunt things, are companion animals, etc.

This means that the only way to become an atheist by that definition is to reject exact god concept one by one, which is something that nobody has ever done.

And nobody ever does with anything. Have you done that with every single fairy, Sasquatch, Santa Claus, unicorn, mermaid, alien, etc conception? Do you claim that somebody must research every single one in order to claim that they don't believe that Santa Claus exists?

And the idea of having to reject concepts you've never even heard of is ridiculous. The fact is that you have rejected all the god concepts you have heard of. That's how it works for everything else, and there's no reason to put gods on some pedestal. Just because you can't reject the ones you don't know about doesn't mean that you somehow can ignore the fact that you have rejected, you have an opinion and a belief, about the ones you have.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Or non-existence of something--referring to an "existence" state.

Your hypothetical yimrods hypothetically exist. Your hypothetical non-belief in them, then, despite hypothetical ignorance of them, represents--hypothetically--belief in the non-existence of something.

Why would you say that?

Do you believe that I had pancakes for breakfast this morning?

Assuming your answer is "no" (since I assume that you have no beliefs about what I had for breakfast this morning), does this mean that you believe that I did not have pancakes for breakfast?

IOW, does "I have no idea what you had for breakfast" somehow become "I believe you either had something other than pancakes or skipped breakfast altogether" just because of how I phrased the question to you?

 

[Falvlun]

The difference is that I can tell you what "mermaid" or "Santa Claus" means, but I can't tell you what "god" means.

I can give you examples of gods, but I can't define the term precisely enough to include each and every god while also excluding everything that has been defined as "not god".

Define "animal" to perfectly include everything that should be considered an animal and everything that shouldn't. Okay, now try to define "alive".

Don't waste your time, because biologists can't, which means you won't be able to either.

Are you unable to develop a general concept of what an animal is? Is your general concept of life dependent upon individual examples of life? No? Then why is this a problem for gods?

And I'm pretty sure you don't know every single specific conception of elf, Santa Claus, and fairy out there, some of which no doubt are different than your general conception.

 

[Falvlun]

Why would you say that?

Do you believe that I had pancakes for breakfast this morning?

Assuming your answer is "no" (since I assume that you have no beliefs about what I had for breakfast this morning), does this mean that you believe that I did not have pancakes for breakfast?

IOW, does "I have no idea what you had for breakfast" somehow become "I believe you either had something other than pancakes or skipped breakfast altogether" just because of how I phrased the question to you?

I think you just demonstrated why it is incorrect to label babies as atheists. "I don't know" doesn't equate to disbelief.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So? There was nothing in my definition about a god that says you have to know you're a god to be a god.

Besides, I'm absolutely positive that that was not or is the only connotation you get when you read or hear the word god. You are an intelligent, English speaking person who has thought about this a lot, and have grown up in a culture which has exposed you to many different concepts of gods. Why this need to feign ignorance?

I have ideas about gods in the broad strokes, sure, but things get very fuzzy at the edges of the concept. The way I define atheism, the edges don't matter too much, because the stuff that's out there I haven't really given much thought... but by your definition, not only do I have to think about all of that, I have to reject it.

"Ruler of some aspect of nature" does not imply omnipotence, just like a king can be considered a ruler but not have absolute power.

So since human beings are an aspect of nature, kings are gods?

And it doesn't matter if angels or demons could classify as a god. They aren't gods, and we know we aren't talking about angels or demons when we use the word god. No definition is ever perfect, but context and usage clarify, exclude, and define.

It doesn't matter in my case because I don't believe in ghosts, angels or demons either, but if we're talking about a general definition that's supposed to apply to everyone, then it's going to have to handle cases like the person who says that they believe in "spirits" but reject most forms of "gods".

None of them were specific definitions. They were broad categories, and seeing as you understood precisely the god conception I was talking about in each of them, I think that just proves my point.

I can use the terms, but like I said, they tend to get fuzzy on the edges of the definition. But when you require atheists to reject each and every god, the edges matter.

Pantheism is everything, just called God. Panentheism is everything called God with consciousness. Cliff note version, anyway. Unless you consider everything a God, or consider everything to be a God and have consciousness, then no, you aren't a theist.

No more then you would be forced to say you believed in unicorns because narwhals exist.

Wait a minute: thing seems to me that this goes against what you said before. If all I have to do to be an atheist is not believe in anything that I consider to be a god, well, babies do that. But you said that babies aren't atheists.

I believe that the universe exists. Does the universe satisfy the definition of "god" or not? If it does, I'm a theist.

I just did. Angels and demons etc, by definition, are not gods. Therefore, it doesn't matter if they share characteristics with gods.

And that does seem to be the crux of it. Just because something shares characteristics with something else doesn't make the definition nebulous. I mean, both cats and dogs have four legs, fur, like to hunt things, are companion animals, etc.

But then that doesn't allow all atheists to reject the existence of all gods.

If a person rejects both demons and gods, then the dividing line between demon and god doesn't matter too much: it might be hypothetically possible to say "I reject the existence of all beings that have characteristics A, B, and C (shared by both gods and demons), so therefore I'm an atheist"... but that doesn't work if the person believes in demons, because they can't say the first part of that statement.

As an analogy, if we're interested in differentiating cat owners from non-cat owners, for me, they would be able to say, "since Penguin has no furry quadrupeds, he is a non-cat owner." But that doesn't work for a non-cat owner who happens to own a dog, since they do have a furry quadruped.

The point I'm getting at is that we have to keep in mind the purpose of the definition we're using here: it's to differentiate atheist from theists. If you've listed off a bunch of characteristics for gods that also apply to other things, then you need to get more precise and come up with more characteristics that differentiate gods from non-gods.

And nobody ever does with anything. Have you done that with every single fairy, Sasquatch, Santa Claus, unicorn, mermaid, alien, etc conception? Do you claim that somebody must research every single one in order to claim that they don't believe that Santa Claus exists?

Of course not, but this is mainly because we don't look at these things in terms of rejection of belief; we look at them in terms of lack of belief. If a kid from some other country grew up never hearing of the Tooth Fairy, I have no problem with saying "she doesn't believe in the Tooth Fairy." Nobody goes around saying that she has to gain an understanding of what the Tooth Fairy means before we can truly say that she doesn't believe in it.

And the idea of having to reject concepts you've never even heard of is ridiculous.

I agree. And since your definition requires me to reject all the gods I've never even heard of, I consider it ridiculous.

The fact is that you have rejected all the god concepts you have heard of. That's how it works for everything else, and there's no reason to put gods on some pedestal.

I think we may be talking past each other, because it seems to me that this is the approach that your definition specifically excludes.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think you just demonstrated why it is incorrect to label babies as atheists. "I don't know" doesn't equate to disbelief.

But it does equate to lack of belief. You don't need to have considered my breakfast options and decided that I probably wouldn't have picked pancakes for you not to believe that I had pancakes. Any random person who doesn't e en know who I am, let alone my breakfast habits, does not believe that I had pancakes for breakfast.

 

[Falvlun]

but by your definition, not only do I have to think about all of that, I have to reject it.

No you don't. What do you think my definition is? As far as I can tell, it is your definition that depends on your inability to define the edges. "I can't say for sure that I reject every single possible god concept, even the ones I've never heard of, therefore, I feel squeamish about claiming that I don't believe that gods exist. Therefore, I will only claim that I lack a belief in gods."

EDIT:
It is only the people who argue on your side of this issue who claim we must know every single possible god concept. I think a broad concept is perfectly acceptable, just like it is for anything else.

 

[Falvlun]

But it does equate to lack of belief. You don't need to have considered my breakfast options and decided that I probably wouldn't have picked pancakes for you not to believe that I had pancakes. Any random person who doesn't e en know who I am, let alone my breakfast habits, does not believe that I had pancakes for breakfast.

"Lack of belief" is not a correct definition for "atheist" precisely for this reason. Atheism is about describing what you believe, not what you don't know.

 

[Falvlun]

So since human beings are an aspect of nature, kings are gods?

Have you ever read the word "king" and said, "Oh, they are talking about a god." Have you ever read the word "god" and said, "Oh, they are talking about Richard the Lionheart." No. You can give all those examples you like, but it just comes off as dishonest. I know you know what god means because the only reason why you would give those examples is because you know they are ridiculous. You know they aren't gods, and you know that I wouldn't consider them gods either. How would you know that unless you knew what the word god meant? How would you be able to anticipate what I would consider a god to be?

The very fact that you are able to come up with examples that are obviously not gods in an attempt to stump me, or prove my point wrong, proves that the word "god" has a clear enough meaning to understand what is "not god".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"Lack of belief" is not a correct definition for "atheist" precisely for this reason. Atheism is about describing what you believe, not what you don't know.

I was taking "I don't know" in the colloquial sense. I define "atheist" as "a person who does not have any god-beliefs." For the purposes of this definition, I base the term "god-belief" as what the person themselves regards as a god.

Yes, this means that by this definition, babies are atheists. I don't really care about this by itself, but I realize that this definition, which I think is how people do actually use the word, doesn't work if we refuse to allow for babies to be atheists.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Have you ever read the word "king" and said, "Oh, they are talking about a god." Have you ever read the word "god" and said, "Oh, they are talking about Richard the Lionheart." No. You can give all those examples you like, but it just comes off as dishonest. I know you know what god means because the only reason why you would give those examples is because you know they are ridiculous. You know they aren't gods, and you know that I wouldn't consider them gods either. How would you know that unless you knew what the word god meant? How would you be able to anticipate what I would consider a god to be?

The very fact that you are able to come up with examples that are obviously not gods in an attempt to stump me, or prove my point wrong, proves that the word "god" has a clear enough meaning to understand what is "not god".

I explained my position on this to Willamena before. I recognize that there is a set of things commonly called gods, but I think it is defined thing-by-thing: Thor is in, Superman is out. The Sun is in when it's Helios or Sol Invictus (or any of the other sun-gods) and out otherwise. Mercury, the messenger of Jupiter, is in; Gabriel, the messenger of Jehovah, is out.

I have a list of gods, but I know it doesn't include every god worshipped by humans. By my definition (which I explained in my last post), that doesn't matter: the things that *I* regard as gods is a finite and rather short list, so I don't need a rigorous definition of god to recognize that I don't believe in anything I consider a god.

But I realize that the same is true for a baby: a person who has no concept of "god" is incapable of believing anything he considers to be a god. It's trivial, but a necessary implication of my definition... which, as I alluded to earlier, is how I think people generally use the term.