How do you define "Athesim"?

[Renji]

According to the definition of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA), under cultural/religious beliefs considerations: Atheism: a "belief" that there is no God/gods. It's more of the last option in the poll.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Over the past 50 years, Philosophers and linguists have worked out the rules that govern speech acts. Much of it started with the celebrated philosopher H Paul Grice, who recognized 4 maxims governing all conversation. Your scenario violates his first "Maxim of Quantity." That is, you said something that was "more informative than is required":

I'll answer your other message as soon as I can, but I wanted to jump in and observe that your rules governing speech acts look awfully dry and uninteresting to me. Any dialogue which rigidly followed those rules would look like a technical manual to me, and I'd lose interest in it very quickly unless there were some real-world reason to follow it.

Just curious: Do you consider poetry to be a speech act? How about wordplay between friends?

In a battle of wits and words with whatizname, the gay Brit playwright from last century, I wouldn't stand a chance. But I would listen to him for hours as he violated every one of those speech rules you've listed. Actually, that's what he did in The Importance of Being Earnest, if I remember right. It's been years since I saw it.

 

[idav]

According to the definition of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA), under cultural/religious beliefs considerations: Atheism: a "belief" that there is no God/gods. It's more of the last option in the poll.

So 'I don't know' wasn't one of the options perhaps 'none of the above'?

 

[Falvlun]

Language needs logic. Logic is math.

The purpose of language is to be intelligible, consistent, and convey the intended meaning. Everything else is just gravy, and if it gets in the way of those three things, then it is not useful.

Someone who has never encountered anything can be validly described as having rejected everything he's encountered.

No, it can't be. If you haven't encountered anything and if you've never rejected anything, you certainly cannot be said to have rejected the things you have encountered.

Logic doesn't always come to reasonable, or real-world, conclusions, even when properly applied, and I really don't think this is even sound argumentation.

1. If you have petted the puppies you have had, then you are a Gargle.
2. Bob has never had a puppy.
3. Bob has never petted a puppy.
4. Therefore, Bob is a Gargle.

How exactly do you get to (4) again?

I disagree.

What part do you disagree with? The part where a) we have personal opinions about what the word god means, the part where b) those personal opinions have been shaped and informed by what other large groups of people have considered gods, or part c) where the word "god" is an intelligible word? Because all of those seem pretty self-evident to me.

The only common criterion I've been able to come up with all gods is that a god is an object of worship by humans. But I've had theists dispute even that, claiming that God would still be a god even if nobody was around to worship him.

Your definition for troll doesn't include all and every troll concept, and even could include things that are not trolls. Name one thing that all animals have in common that is not shared by things that are non-animals. I think you'd be rather hard pressed. You are putting unreasonable, and unusual, expectations upon the word "god" that is not placed on any other word.

I think the 3 categories of god definition I gave covered the bases pretty well for everything that has commonly been considered a god, and what's more, those are precisely the concepts that people think of (with perhaps the exception of the third one) when they hear the word "god". Despite the word's inability to match your unreasonable requirements, it is a suprisingly well understood word, with common conceptions for what is being talked about. And of course, like any other word, it can be further described and specified by context and further description.

And even that criterion is shared by things I don't reject, because there have been plenty of real people, for instance, who have been worshiped.

When you say things like this it only makes it apparent that you do have an understanding of what the word "god" means. Otherwise, you wouldn't be bothered that "real people" would qualify for godhood under your definition.

I really do think that the only coherent way to define "god" is to simply list off all the gods, point to the list and say "a god is any of these."

There should come a point, however, when you've heard of enough different concepts of gods to get the picture of what a god is and whether you believe in things that fall in that category. This is basically how belief in any subject works. There will always be variation within individuals within a category. Do you really need to individually reject the pink version of Thor when you've already rejected the blue version?

This is why I made the point I did about this "reject" definition of atheism being rooted in monotheism: it strikes me that it's based on a notion that there is one "main" concept of God, which everyone hears about and either accepts or rejects, and the question of other gods only comes into play if you happen to accept one of those other "secondary" gods, which then disqualifies you from being an atheist. That's the only way that a definition of atheism based on rejection could ever allow for actual atheists to ever exist.

Not really. I reject the concept of gods existing, wholesale, not individual gods, and I'm an "actual atheist."

I think I see some of that in your argument here: that there's some core set of ideas that everyone is supposed to know are part of "god" (with or without a capital 'G') without considering the wide, full, varied and often strange spectrum of god-beliefs out there.

I believe that god is an intellible word, yes. And I believe that there are three broad types of god concepts which cover the wide spectrum of gods, which most people are aware of. Do you think there are any that my 3 categories missed? I'm always open to modification when new information is made available.

... though to look at monotheism from a different perspective, there's something else to consider: if we get to impose our ideas of "god" on babies when deciding whether they're atheists, do we also get to impose widely-held ideas about "god" on Christians? Can we say that they're polytheists because they believe in the Trinity, angels and Satan? So far, even though *I* would consider such things to be gods and I think many, many people would agree with me, I haven't done this. Is it proper to do so?

IMO, if there is an intelligible concept of what it means to be a god, then Christians (and Muslims, and any other so-called "monotheists" who believe in things like angels and Satan along with God) are polytheists. If you're going to argue that they're monotheists, then I'll respond by saying that we do not have an intelligible concept of "god".

I'm not pushing any concept of gods on babies. Only you have made assertions about what babies believe.

Some people do believe that Christians are polytheists. The difference is not their concept of god, however, it's how they describe the characteristics of a specific god, Yahweh. They believe he is 3 Gods, rather than just one. That's not a problem with their general concept of god, though.

 

[Falvlun]

My professional record so far is zero earned runs. There isn't a pitcher who's ever played professionally who can match that.

I'm sure that if I ever did pitch in the major leagues, I would be quickly whupped badly, but nobody's offering me a major leage pitching spot so far, so my perfect record is likely to stand for the foreseeable future.

What "professional record"? You don't have one. You can't have a perfect score if you don't have a score at all.

 

[Orias]

Are we bragging about sports records?

Well I'm 1 - 0

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is a technical reason why your argument about "accuracy" is misleading. A more accurate statement would be that you have no professional record at all, so assigning a value to it implies that you have one.

This speaks to the point I was making about connotation vs. denotation. You're reading into the statement common preconceptions about what usually go along with what I'm saying, not what the strict meaning of the terms actually implies.

That being said, this example was probably the weaker of the ones I gave. I think a clearer example of the distinction I'm talking about was that "too many penises and not enough vaginas" line.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What "professional record"? You don't have one. You can't have a perfect score if you don't have a score at all.

Everyone has a professional record, even if it's just "no innings played."

It's like that old joke about the "psychic" who can predict the score of any football game before it starts ("tied zero-zero").

... but like I said to Copernicus, you're focusing on the weaker of my analogies. I think the example I gave about the guy not being my type because he had "too many penises and not enough vaginas" is clearer: even though it evokes mental images of weirdness about hermaphrodites with redundant gentials, when you unpack it, it's entirely consistent with "I prefer women to men."

 

[Falvlun]

It stems from people claiming you need faith to not believe. which is just moronic.

I agree. I think the "lack of belief" definition is partly a backlash from debates with theists.

But I think it equally incorrect to pretend like there is no belief at all involved in atheism, just to avoid the incorrect theist assertion that a belief implies faith. Why not simply educate about what belief is, and how all beliefs are not created equal?

 

[Falvlun]

Everyone has a professional record, even if it's just "no innings played."

I'm pretty sure you are wrong here. MLB does not have a record somewhere of every person on the planet. Hence, you do not have a professional record. And even if they did, you still have the problem that "no score" does not somehow equate to "perfect score".

I mean, do you have a criminal record, Peng? Be honest now.

It's like that old joke about the "psychic" who can predict the score of any football game before it starts ("tied zero-zero").

... but like I said to Copernicus, you're focusing on the weaker of my analogies. I think the example I gave about the guy not being my type because he had "too many penises and not enough vaginas" is clearer: even though it evokes mental images of weirdness about hermaphrodites with redundant gentials, when you unpack it, it's entirely consistent with "I prefer women to men."

I don't think jokes should be the basis of how we should define real topics. Word play is a primary category of jokes, and what makes them funny is precisely because the normal intended meaning is subverted.

Also, I am having trouble remembering what point we each were trying to illustrate by this train of thought, but I have a vague feeling that your "perfect record" example was more analogous than either of these ones.

Is your refridgerator running, btw?

 

[Falvlun]

What changed is what informs your belief.

I'm still unhappy about this.

I agree that what informed my beliefs have changed, but my belief changed too.

For instance, someone could believe that God exists because:
a) her mother told her so
and when she gets older, it could change to
b) she had personal experiences that cannot, in her worldview, be interpreted as anything other than God existing.

What informed her belief changed, but her belief stayed the same.

Now, say the same girl suddenly decides that God doesn't exist after all because her cat dies. What informed her belief has changed-- the death of her cat is apparently not consistent with the existence of God-- and her belief changed as well.

 

[Falvlun]

In broad strokes, a troll is a fantastical character from fairy tales that lives under bridges. (Edit: and I don't believe they actually exist)

And I'm not saying that gods are an exception to any rule; I'm saying that we don't go around using expressions like "atrollist", let alone define it as "a person who rejects the existence of all trolls", so the question of defining exactly what a troll is doesn't really matter in any normal context. It matters because you've made it matter with the definition for "atheist" that you've chosen. If you go with a different definition for atheist, then it ceases to matter.

That is a valid difference. However (that dreaded however):

Atheism-- the disbelief, or lack of belief, that gods exist-- would exist regardless of how we define it. Just like beliefs about trolls exist regardless of the fact that we don't have a word to describe people with beliefs in trolls.

I think that if your argument-- that we cannot have (should not have?) general beliefs about gods unless we have an unambiguous definition-- is valid, this should apply to any and all beliefs. I don't think it should matter whether those beliefs have special names or not.

And to be honest, I don't just think that my definition for atheism is the correct one. I think that it is the more accurate one.

So, it's not that I am making an issue about it; I am not forcing people to come up with some god concept and make a decision about it. People who define themselves as atheists already have a concept of what god means, and they have already formed an opinion about it. They have a belief that gods don't exist. I just think that "belief" has become a dirty word in atheist circles, and a widely successful campaign is being waged to irradicate it from the definition.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The purpose of language is to be intelligible, consistent, and convey the intended meaning. Everything else is just gravy, and if it gets in the way of those three things, then it is not useful.

I agree. This is why I acknowledge, for the sake of consistency, that the normal usage of the word "atheist" implies that babies are atheists. Again, this doesn't do anything for me in and of itself, but it does mean that when a person uses the term "atheist" like I do when referring to adults but claims that babies aren't atheists, then I know they're committing some sort of inconsistency somewhere.

No, it can't be. If you haven't encountered anything and if you've never rejected anything, you certainly cannot be said to have rejected the things you have encountered.

There's no difference between not rejecting anything and rejecting nothing. If "the things you have encountered" is nothing more than "nothing", then there's no difference between rejecting the things you have encountered and not rejecting anything.

Logic doesn't always come to reasonable, or real-world, conclusions, even when properly applied, and I really don't think this is even sound argumentation.

1. If you have petted the puppies you have had, then you are a Gargle.
2. Bob has never had a puppy.
3. Bob has never petted a puppy.
4. Therefore, Bob is a Gargle.

How exactly do you get to (4) again?

Just like I said: if "the puppies you have had" is equivalent to "no puppies", and Bob has petted no puppies, then Bob has petted the puppies he has had (i.e. none).

Here's the problem: these aren't real-world scenarios to begin with, so it's unreasonable to demand "real world" conclusions.

BTW: what do you mean by "real world" conclusions anyhow? I'm having trouble seeing how this can mean anything other than "conclusions that adhere to my preconceptions". If that's the case, then you're really just arguing in circles: "conclusions I expect aren't valid because I don't expect them", effectively.

What part do you disagree with? The part where a) we have personal opinions about what the word god means, the part where b) those personal opinions have been shaped and informed by what other large groups of people have considered gods, or part c) where the word "god" is an intelligible word? Because all of those seem pretty self-evident to me.

I was referring to the thing right before "I disagree": "Your problem only exists if god is an unintelligible word that each person has made up a definition for, but it's manifestly not."

There is no established meaning for the term "god". None that's accepted cross-culturally, anyhow. We might be able to find a group of, say, Christians who agree on what "god" is, a group of Pagans who agree on what "god" means, and a group of deistic panentheists who agree on what "god" means, etc., etc., but when we put all these different groups together, they won't be able to come up with an overall definition of "god" that allows for all those separate definitions.

IMO, to argue that we do have an established meaning for the term implies a degree of cultural chauvinism: we have to pick one set of beliefs that have the "right" version of the meaning of "god" and disregard the rest.

Your definition for troll doesn't include all and every troll concept, and even could include things that are not trolls. Name one thing that all animals have in common that is not shared by things that are non-animals. I think you'd be rather hard pressed. You are putting unreasonable, and unusual, expectations upon the word "god" that is not placed on any other word.

No, your definition of the term "atheism" puts those unreasonable and unusual explanations on the word.

I think the 3 categories of god definition I gave covered the bases pretty well for everything that has commonly been considered a god, and what's more, those are precisely the concepts that people think of (with perhaps the exception of the third one) when they hear the word "god". Despite the word's inability to match your unreasonable requirements, it is a suprisingly well understood word, with common conceptions for what is being talked about. And of course, like any other word, it can be further described and specified by context and further description.

It's a surprisingly well understood word?

Okay then... tell me:

- is believing in the Trinity a form of polytheism?
- are angels and demons gods?
- does the universe satisfy the definition of "god"?

When you say things like this it only makes it apparent that you do have an understanding of what the word "god" means. Otherwise, you wouldn't be bothered that "real people" would qualify for godhood under your definition.

*I* have a personal - albeit hard to pin down - definition, but I recognize that it's subjective to me.

If we're going to use my personal definition of "god" in the word "atheist", then Christians and Muslims are polytheists, and pantheists, deists and sun-worshippers are atheists. Do you think this is how we use - or should use - the terms involved?

There should come a point, however, when you've heard of enough different concepts of gods to get the picture of what a god is and whether you believe in things that fall in that category. This is basically how belief in any subject works. There will always be variation within individuals within a category. Do you really need to individually reject the pink version of Thor when you've already rejected the blue version?

Me personally? No. I reject a whole lot more than gods, so the difference between "pink Thor" and "blue Thor" don't matter - I reject both. But I recognize that there are people out there like the Raelians and the Scientologists who don't believe in what they call "gods", but believe in ultra-powerful, ultra-intelligent aliens who come pretty damn close to the very blurry line. Are Raelians and Scientologists atheists? Whether they are or not depends on the nitty-gritty of how "god" is defined.

... unless, as I've been suggesting all along, we just go by the person's own conception of what "god" means when deciding whether they're an atheist or not.

Not really. I reject the concept of gods existing, wholesale, not individual gods, and I'm an "actual atheist."

And I agree that you're an atheist... because you do not believe in any of the things you consider to be gods. The fact that you reject them as well is just icing on the cake.

But wait... do you reject them? I thought you call yourself an agnostic as well; doesn't that mean you feel that you can't reject the existence of gods (or of all gods, at least)? That's how I define the term.

I believe that god is an intellible word, yes. And I believe that there are three broad types of god concepts which cover the wide spectrum of gods, which most people are aware of. Do you think there are any that my 3 categories missed? I'm always open to modification when new information is made available.

Just to remind myself, I went back and checked what you gave for your three definitions:

I believe there are roughly 3 major categories of gods. 1) monotheistic omnimax sort of God, 2) polytheistic, rulers-of-the-universe or some specific aspect of nature or human experience sort of gods and 3) pantheistic and panentheistic, everything-is-god/within-god sort of concepts. Deist conception is a subcategory of 1, with the split being between a God that is interested in humans and a God that is not.

As I touched on before:

1) Sure, I'd agree that's normally considered a god, though it's not the full definition of "god" by itself (though I realize you don't intend it to be).

2) This one just doesn't work. I kinda get that you're hinting at Thor, Poseidon and friends, but as I said before, there are plenty of god-concepts through history that haven't been out-and-out "rulers" of some specific aspect of nature. When you re-phrased this as things that merely have "control" over some aspect of nature, it's too broad: *I* have control over aspects of nature (in a small way, but still); I don't think it's reasonable to call me a god.

3) This one doesn't work either. It describes some people's usage of the term without saying whether their usage is correct. Does the universe satisfy the definition of "god" or not? I think it depends on who you ask, so this just doesn't work in a rigorous definition.

I'm not pushing any concept of gods on babies. Only you have made assertions about what babies believe.

Hang on - isn't the whole crux of your argument that babies aren't atheists because they don't believe anything?

Some people do believe that Christians are polytheists. The difference is not their concept of god, however, it's how they describe the characteristics of a specific god, Yahweh. They believe he is 3 Gods, rather than just one. That's not a problem with their general concept of god, though.

You skipped the rest of my point about Satan and angels: is Satan a god? I would say yes.

I would also say that the Christian model of God and Satan is nearly a perfect match for the Zoroastrian model of Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Angra Mainyu is a god; Satan is not. Why? They're virtually the same thing. In fact, I think a fair argument can be made that Zoroastrianism was a major influence on the dualism in Christianity.

What objective definition of "god" could you possibly give that includes Angra Mainyu but excludes Satan? It would be like coming up with a definition that includes Blue Thor but excludes Pink Thor.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That is a valid difference. However (that dreaded however):

Atheism-- the disbelief, or lack of belief, that gods exist-- would exist regardless of how we define it. Just like beliefs about trolls exist regardless of the fact that we don't have a word to describe people with beliefs in trolls.

I think that if your argument-- that we cannot have (should not have?) general beliefs about gods unless we have an unambiguous definition-- is valid, this should apply to any and all beliefs. I don't think it should matter whether those beliefs have special names or not.

And to be honest, I don't just think that my definition for atheism is the correct one. I think that it is the more accurate one.

Really? I don't think I've rejected a number of the god-concepts I've heard of. How could I ever reject deism, for instance? It's practically manufactured so that there can never be any grounds to actually reject it. The best I can do is say "hey, that looks manufactured" and "I don't think you deists have good grounds to believe what you believe", but I don't have the evidence to say "I think your beliefs are wrong."

This gets back to the whole question of the map vs. the territory. To me, "rejecting" gods is akin to saying "there are no gods in this territory", but all the criticisms I can have of god-beliefs are really only akin to saying "this map sucks."

The only way I've been able to see to get around this problem is with the part of the definition that I mentioned a few pages back: that a god is an object of worship. IOW, for a territory to be validly called "god", it must be mapped. This means that if I can say "all the maps suck", then I can conclusively say that there is no god.

... however, as I mentioned before, I know that this take on things gets a fair bit of resistance.

So, it's not that I am making an issue about it; I am not forcing people to come up with some god concept and make a decision about it. People who define themselves as atheists already have a concept of what god means, and they have already formed an opinion about it. They have a belief that gods don't exist. I just think that "belief" has become a dirty word in atheist circles, and a widely successful campaign is being waged to irradicate it from the definition.

I think it's important to point out something in what you said here: "people who define themselves as atheists". When we're looking at these people, we're not talking about people who are simply atheists; we're talking about people who have engaged in self-examination and recognized their own atheism. This isn't necessary to be an atheist. Just as I was male before I came to know what "male" means and realize that it describes me, I was also an atheist before I came to know what "atheist" means and realize that it describes me.

I guess what I'm saying is that if we base things only on people who describe themselves as atheists, then we'll get a distorted picture of atheism.

 

[Willamena]

I'm still unhappy about this.

I agree that what informed my beliefs have changed, but my belief changed too.

For instance, someone could believe that God exists because:
a) her mother told her so
and when she gets older, it could change to
b) she had personal experiences that cannot, in her worldview, be interpreted as anything other than God existing.

What informed her belief changed, but her belief stayed the same.

Now, say the same girl suddenly decides that God doesn't exist after all because her cat dies. What informed her belief has changed-- the death of her cat is apparently not consistent with the existence of God-- and her belief changed as well.

Don't let my descriptions phase you. A lot of it has to do with how we each picture consciousness/conscious being. Whether consciousness is like a 'spark,' however immaterial, inside or (as with me) a mirror reflecting the world, or something else, it is going trickle through and influence how everything else gets placed. Knowing, truth, belief, the entire epistemological model will all depend on that one image.

You're doing fine without my pictures.

 

[Willamena]

There's no difference between not rejecting anything and rejecting nothing.

The result is identical.

If "the things you have encountered" is nothing more than "nothing", then there's no difference between rejecting the things you have encountered and not rejecting anything.

Yes, there is. If nothing is encountered, then implying that "something is encountered" is misleading--some would say false.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The result is identical.


Yes, there is. If nothing is encountered, then implying that "something is encountered" is misleading--some would say false.

... unless the "something" has been defined as nothing, which it was in the premises of that scenario.

 

[Willamena]

... unless the "something" has been defined as nothing, which it was in the premises of that scenario.

Yeah, most people hold "nothing" to be the opposite of "something."

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Just a minor quibble: He said that atheism is a rejection of one or more gods. I'm inclined to believe that statement. Rejecting belief in god(s) is what atheism is.

I always appreciate language quibbles, especially when I'm paraphrasing another debater and may be getting it wrong. But I have to say that it still seems to read as I previously thought. Christianity is a rejection of one or more gods, so it seems to me.

Anyway, your belief about the nature of atheism is fine with me. I see problems with any attempt to define a person by his beliefs, but your definition doesn't seem confused or out of line or such.

In normal modern-day speech, the label atheist is usually reserved only for those who have rejected the general concept of gods and/or all the god concepts they have encountered. But historically, people who didn't believe in the god or gods of the culture in which they found themselves were labeled as atheists, regardless of other god concepts they may believe.

Sure. People use language as they use it. But I don't see threads like this one as arguments over the most common usage. Instead, they look to me like arguments over the most correct definition.

Great fun. A great intellectual workout. But of course unresolvable.

 

[idav]

I'm still unhappy about this.

I agree that what informed my beliefs have changed, but my belief changed too.

For instance, someone could believe that God exists because:
a) her mother told her so
and when she gets older, it could change to
b) she had personal experiences that cannot, in her worldview, be interpreted as anything other than God existing.

What informed her belief changed, but her belief stayed the same.

Now, say the same girl suddenly decides that God doesn't exist after all because her cat dies. What informed her belief has changed-- the death of her cat is apparently not consistent with the existence of God-- and her belief changed as well.

Yet reality never changes, just our knowledge of it. The philosophy that its based on doesn't really have to change. Life changing events change perspective and people tend to to take it out on god.