How do you define "Athesim"?

[AmbiguousGuy]

Then you are reading my words too narrowly, and not my intent.

Oh yes. I knew that. But I viewed this as a thread about proper definitions, so I was critiquing your definition rather than what you might actually believe about things. I don't know you well enough yet to do that.

I didn't mean to give you an ambiguous definition, AmbiguousGuy, so let me revise it to more accurately reflect what I meant:

Hey, in the world of AmbiguousGuy, unambiguous definitions do not exist.

An atheist is a person who rejects belief in any and all gods, as we usually understand the word "god".

It seems fine, such a definition. Full of holes, as they all necessarily are, but solid enough as definitions go. Workable for some purposes.

By my definition, Christians are not atheists because there is some conventionally understood "god" that they believe in.

Of course they believe in some god. But they also reject some gods.

Your definition says that atheism = the rejection of some gods.
But Christianity = the rejection of some gods.
Therefore, Christianity fits your definition of atheism.

At least according to my reading of your definition.

[Edit: You can ignore this part of my message. I somehow missed that you had changed 'some gods' to 'all' gods.]

Theists are not people who believe in every conceivable god. They believe in some specific god or gods. They are not atheists just because they reject belief in some particular god. If that were the case, then every theist would actually be an atheist, which is nonsensical.

Ah. So you believe in the categories. In their exclusiveness. If a guy is a theist, then he can't be an atheist. How interesting. You think of atheists and Christians as necessarily exclusive to one another, yes? In your world, a guy can't be an atheistic Christian? How about an atheistic Jew?

Anyway, if that's how you see things, I certainly disagree. I am happy to argue that every theist is an atheist. In fact, my stance on groupism (I hate it) inspires me to argue that case. There are no such things as theists and atheists. To believe in such categories is to do an injustice to humanity. And here comes Huxley working to alienate people from one another even further by concocting that 'agnostic' nonsense -- making folks believe even moreso that people can be categorized by belief!

(Sorry. I got carried away by a wave of political righteousness for a moment.)

Anyway, here's a question for those who seem to believe in exclusive categories: Is it possible for me to be both a liberal and a conservative at the same time?

I look forward to hearing your opinion about that.

The problem with your approach to definitions is that words can mean anything individual speakers of a language choose them to mean.

That's not a problem. It's reality. So long as you know what my words mean to me, you can understand me. Think of twins. They can communicate just fine even while operating wholly outside of any known dictionary. There's a speaker and a listener. So long as they're on the same page, all is fine with the communicative event.

That would make it easy on dictionary makers, since they could give every word in English the same definition--"whatever a speaker wants it to mean".

Lexicographers can only attempt to inform us of what the majority of speakers in a certain language pool usually mean by various words during a certain time period. That's all they can do. Personally I find that boring. If I didn't have an ear for language, I might use a dictionary, but I do have that ear and I trust it more than I trust the committee which writes dictionary definitions. I'll scan a thesaurus now and again when I want a peppier word, but otherwise it's all just the ear. If the dictionary disagrees with my ear, hey, somebody's SOL.

Theologians, philosophers, poets, creative writers and sundry other wordsmiths are always pushing the limits of words and even radically changing those meanings. If Jesus had made himself abide by 'god' as it appeared as the first defintion of an official Jewish dictionary, it would be a different world now. (Of course, it wasn't Jesus. It was the theologians who wrote about Jesus, but you get my point.)

Dictionary makers can create whatever definitions they like. We should learn how to see them as vague suggestions, not as holy and literal truth.

However, there would be no need to buy dictionaries, in that case. We buy dictionaries in order to look up definitions of how people conventionally use words, and there are conventional meanings for words like "atheist" and "god".

There are conventional definitions for all sorts of words, that's true. But a dictionary can become as evil as a scriptural work if we let it. They both lull us into thinking that truth can be handed down from above, rather than needing to be built from within.

But that isn't necessarily what the word "Christian" means in English. It means what people usually think it means.

What can I say. We seem of entirely different minds. If you want to match your language as closely as possible to standard dictionary definitions, that's what you want. For myself, I go in a different direction. I'm certainly not interested in writing technical manuals, nor do I believe that words mean what a majority of people think they mean. For me, it's simple. Words mean what the individual speaker and listener think they mean.

The question that a lexicographer attempts to answer is "What do people usually mean by the word Christian?"

Of course. That's why I preach against using dictionaries if one wants to engage seriously in building an integrated worldview.

Unless one is very young. It's OK to read the dictionary when one is young, I think, but then it's best to set it aside except for emergencies.

If someone claims to be an atheist and seems sincere, but really isn't, then that person is not an atheist.

So you really do believe that there are such physical objects as atheists? When you walk into a room and see three people sitting there, you can tell the atheist from the theist from the agnostic? I'll give you a day to question each of them. At the end of the day you'll know each one's label?

Not me. I could question them for weeks and still not be sure how to label them. I wouldn't even be thinking of such labels. I find it mentally corrupting to label people by their thought and especially to think of those labels in a serious way. That kind of thing tends to make us see others with certain assumptions and expectations, and I'd rather just see them as individuals.

If someone sincerely claims to be an atheist, but doesn't understand what the word means and believes in a god, then that person is not an atheist. (And please note that you earlier said we couldn't define atheists by their "thought", but you do just the
same thing by appealing to the "sincerity" of people calling themselves Christian.)

No, you misunderstand me. I don't believe in atheists and Christians in the same way as you seem to do. For me it's just a labeling game usually done for political reasons. Hutus and Tutsis. Muslims and Christians. Atheists and theists.

You'll never hear me insisting that "Mr. X is a theist -- not an atheist!" Not without giggling. I'll likelier call him a theist one day and an atheist the next.

We can always choose to give words any meaning we want. It's just that you can't have a conversation in any language if you make no attempt to use words with the same meanings. A conversation would become nothing more than a collection of
soliloquies under that circumstance.

I can't imagine any writer or speaker rejecting all influence in word-meaning from his surrounding culture. Such a person would have to be insane, I think. A babbling idiot?

 

[NIX]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but neither does theism require 'belief' in a/any gods.

It can have (wholly) more to do with a chosen experience of life/the universe/the self/being than it does with 'belief' in something 'other'/'existing'.

Boiling either atheism or theism down to the notion of 'belief', I think 'one dimentionalizes' what has more to do with an experience of life, or a general 'life view'. And by that, I mean more the (many potential) lenses (and lense combinations) we (each) choose/prefer to see the world through.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but neither does theism require 'belief' in a/any gods.

It can have (wholly) more to do with a chosen experience of life/the universe/the self/being than it does with 'belief' in something 'other'/'existing'.

Boiling either atheism or theism down to the notion of 'belief', I think 'one dimentionalizes' what has more to do with an experience of life, or a general 'life view'. And by that, I mean more the (many potential) lenses (and lense combinations) we (each) choose/prefer to see the world through.

This is an interesting point.

I've always said that the whole God-is-God-ain't business oversimplifies the entire matter of belief. However, I do think there's a relevant distinction to be made between people who feel that there's a will or an intention behind natural phenomena, and those who don't ascribe agency to everything that happens. Anyone who believes that everything happens for a reason or that it's all part of some cosmic plan is essentially making a religious claim, whether or not they consider themselves religious.

-Nato

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but neither does theism require 'belief' in a/any gods.

It can have (wholly) more to do with a chosen experience of life/the universe/the self/being than it does with 'belief' in something 'other'/'existing'.

Excellent point. I often think of myself as 'religious', even though most people will view me as the most severe of atheists, belief-wise.

You should contact the dictionary makers. If it's important to you, lobby them toward your view of theism based on communion with life rather than on assent to a particular string of words.

 

[Willamena]

People do begin as a "blank slate," a default position, but that in itself isn't atheism. Atheism is something that is written on that slate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

People do begin as a "blank slate," a default position, but that in itself isn't atheism. Atheism is something that is written on that slate.

I disagree on both counts. We aren't born as "blank slates" (though nothing on our "slates" at birth would qualify as a belief in a god, IMO). And if atheism is simply not accepting any god-beliefs, it's not "written" on a person's "slate" at all.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I disagree on both counts. We aren't born as "blank slates" (though nothing on our "slates" at birth would qualify as a belief in a god, IMO)*. And if atheism is simply not accepting any god-beliefs, it's not "written" on a person's "slate" at all.

*Emphasis mine.

Care to expand on the bolded portion? Specifically, why do you think that nothing on our "slates" would equate to a belief in a god even though such belief is usually contingent on the knowledge one has about a given god concept(s)?

 

[Willamena]

And if atheism is simply not accepting any god-beliefs, it's not "written" on a person's "slate" at all.

That's the distinction, then, between people who think atheism is something, and those who think it is nothing.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

*Emphasis mine.

Care to expand on the bolded portion? Specifically, why do you think that nothing on our "slates" would equate to a belief in a god even though such belief is usually contingent on the knowledge one has about a given god concept(s)?

It's something I've picked up from stuff from Michael Shermer and others: basically, as soon as we're able to measure it, kids have a tendency to infer agency and purpose in just about everything even if they haven't been taught to do so. I like an example that one psychologist used: when he asked his toddler-aged daughter why a particular pointy rock was the way it was, she said "so bears won't sit on it."

I think the best way to describe this is as a very rudimentary version of animism, but I don't think that it's developed enough to be considered god-belief... more just a matter of trying to learn about the world without having learned enough to know what's reasonable and what's not: "this bottle is here because I'm supposed to drink from it"; "the sun is shining because I'm supposed to be warm."

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

kids have a tendency to infer agency and purpose in just about everything even if they haven't been taught to do so. I like an example that one psychologist used: when he asked his toddler-aged daughter why a particular pointy rock was the way it was, she said "so bears won't sit on it."

I think the best way to describe this is as a very rudimentary version of animism, but I don't think that it's developed enough to be considered god-belief...

It sure looks like it to me. At its core, that's what all religious belief is: the assertion that things are the way they are because of some grand will, intention, or design.

Whether it's a toddler looking at a pointy rock or the religious pondering the suffering of the innocent, though, we notice that the phenomenon always gets defined as the end result of purposeful activity (or purposeful inactivity). By definition, there can never be any set of circumstances that constitutes disconfirmation of the religious perspective.

-Nato

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It sure looks like it to me. At its core, that's what all religious belief is: the assertion that things are the way they are because of some grand will, intention, or design.

Whether it's a toddler looking at a pointy rock or the religious pondering the suffering of the innocent, though, we notice that the phenomenon always gets defined as the end result of purposeful activity (or purposeful inactivity). By definition, there can never be any set of circumstances that constitutes disconfirmation of the religious perspective.

-Nato

I never said that it can't be the basis for a religious point of view; I said it's not god-belief.

However, I don't think that it's "religious" in the case of a newborn, since it's missing one important component that makes religion religion: community. A religion is a community of shared belief; religious things are the expressions of such a community.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

I never said that it can't be the basis for a religious point of view; I said it's not god-belief.

However, I don't think that it's "religious" in the case of a newborn, since it's missing one important component that makes religion religion: community. A religion is a community of shared belief; religious things are the expressions of such a community.

Sure, that's part of the phenomenon. But like language, religion has a whole lot of features that can be assessed independently of the community that uses it.

That's why I said that the notion of a God-concept is sort of a red herring. The belief that phenomena need to be explained in terms of agency is itself a religious belief. Whether the agent is God, or many gods, or the universe itself, is irrelevant.

-Nato

 

[Copernicus]

...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.

Grice's "rules" are really just assumptions that we all make when we engage in conversation. They describe behavior, not prescribe it. When you violate them, you undermine the basis of linguistic conversation. You may find the discussion boring, but interested folks can read Grice's very influential paper Logic and Conversation.

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

Poetry is not itself a speech act any more than prose is. Those are just styles of language that are comprised of speech acts. But wordplay describes speech acts that may involve intentional violations of Grice's maxims.

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 is important to look at how and why people violate Gricean maxims intentionally. You can't actually understand how wordplay works without taking them into account.

Your definition says that atheism = the rejection of some gods.
But Christianity = the rejection of some gods.
Therefore, Christianity fits your definition of atheism.

Your first premise is false. My definition says that atheism = the rejection of any and all gods (as we conventionally understand the word "god"). If a person believes in the existence of any god, that person cannot be an atheist by my definition.

Ah. So you believe in the categories. In their exclusiveness. If a guy is a theist, then he can't be an atheist. How interesting. You think of atheists and Christians as necessarily exclusive to one another, yes? In your world, a guy can't be an atheistic Christian? How about an atheistic Jew?

What do you think those expressions mean?

Anyway, here's a question for those who seem to believe in exclusive categories: Is it possible for me to be both a liberal and a conservative at the same time?

Are you talking about Mitt Romney? It is certainly reasonable for a person to take both liberal and conservative positions on different issues at the same time.

That's not a problem. It's reality. So long as you know what my words mean to me, you can understand me. Think of twins. They can communicate just fine even while operating wholly outside of any known dictionary. There's a speaker and a listener. So long as they're on the same page, all is fine with the communicative event.

Exactly so. That is why usage determines word meanings. If you use meanings that nobody else subscribes to, then they cannot be on the "same page" as you, and communication breaks down. Here, at least, you seem to agree with my point. You just don't see that it is inconsistent with your apparent earlier position that you alone can determine what words mean.

Lexicographers can only attempt to inform us of what the majority of speakers in a certain language pool usually mean by various words during a certain time period. That's all they can do. Personally I find that boring. If I didn't have an ear for language, I might use a dictionary, but I do have that ear and I trust it more than I trust the committee which writes dictionary definitions. I'll scan a thesaurus now and again when I want a peppier word, but otherwise it's all just the ear. If the dictionary disagrees with my ear, hey, somebody's SOL.

Most of us still find dictionaries useful tools in understanding what words mean, however boring and tedious that may appear to you. If you want to be "on the same page" with other people and be sure that "all is fine with the communicative event," then you must put up with conventional usage. Otherwise, it is others who may find you tedious and boring.

Theologians, philosophers, poets, creative writers and sundry other wordsmiths are always pushing the limits of words and even radically changing those meanings. If Jesus had made himself abide by 'god' as it appeared as the first defintion of an official Jewish dictionary, it would be a different world now. (Of course, it wasn't Jesus. It was the theologians who wrote about Jesus, but you get my point.)

How is it that you can say "words have limits" in one breath and then deny the fact that conventional usage determines those limits in another? I am not claiming that word meanings are static, only that wordplay and language change would be impossible if nobody acknowledged those limits. Grice defined some fundamental limitations on conversational interactions, and then he went on to describe the interesting things that happened when people violated those limitations. At first blush, what he says appears obvious, but you cannot understand what isn't obvious until you know what is.

Dictionary makers can create whatever definitions they like. We should learn how to see them as vague suggestions, not as holy and literal truth.

You completely misunderstand lexicography. It is not about prescribing word usage. It is about describing it. Lexicographers come up with poor definitions all the time, and they get into heated arguments with each other over how to define words. When you disagree with lexicographers, you may have a case, but you can only make that case on the basis of conventional usage.

There are conventional definitions for all sorts of words, that's true. But a dictionary can become as evil as a scriptural work if we let it. They both lull us into thinking that truth can be handed down from above, rather than needing to be built from within.

Lexicographers don't encourage people to misuse dictionaries. People do that all on their own. They misuse dictionaries when they think of them as prescribing or dictating usage. That isn't their purpose. It is to inform readers about conventional usage. They help people improve their ability to communicate with language.

What can I say. We seem of entirely different minds. If you want to match your language as closely as possible to standard dictionary definitions, that's what you want. For myself, I go in a different direction. I'm certainly not interested in writing technical manuals, nor do I believe that words mean what a majority of people think they mean. For me, it's simple. Words mean what the individual speaker and listener think they mean.

Well, that is exactly the problem with your approach. You can speak for yourself, but you cannot speak for the listener. In the end, we come back to your point about being "on the same page" in order to make sure that "all is fine with the communicative event." I'm not just making this stuff up. Those were your words. Language is a social phenomenon, not just an individual one, but you want to treat words as if they meant just what the speaker wanted them to mean, not the language community that the speaker is part of.

Of course. That's why I preach against using dictionaries if one wants to engage seriously in building an integrated worldview.

Your worldview will make no difference to anyone else if you can't use conventional language to describe it.

Unless one is very young. It's OK to read the dictionary when one is young, I think, but then it's best to set it aside except for emergencies.

Actually, a dictionary is usually the last thing you need in most real emergencies. You might think of using one as a reference tool, however.

So you really do believe that there are such physical objects as atheists? When you walk into a room and see three people sitting there, you can tell the atheist from the theist from the agnostic? I'll give you a day to question each of them. At the end of the day you'll know each one's label?

What is this, a Turing Test for atheism? I don't define atheists in terms of their physical appearance or performance under interrogation.

No, you misunderstand me. I don't believe in atheists and Christians in the same way as you seem to do. For me it's just a labeling game usually done for political reasons. Hutus and Tutsis. Muslims and Christians. Atheists and theists.

The use of language involves "labeling games," as you put it, and sometimes politics is involved. When you use language to communicate ideas, that is rather the point, isn't it?

 

[Copernicus]

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.

One cannot understand unconventional usage without first understanding what conventional usage is.

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.

I think that both your examples speak to the same issue--the use of conventional word meanings in special contexts to create an effect.

You can call a baby an atheist to make a point, and that point is ultimately that babies have no faith in gods. So they can't literally be called theists, despite what their parents might wish to call them. That would be a good example of how one could subtly violate Grice's Maxim of Quality--"be truthful." What is going on in such situations is what I would describe as a conversational duel over word usage, each side insisting on a slightly deviant usage of words to make a point.

My point is that they can't literally be called atheists for the same reason that they can't be called theists. We conventionally use those words to describe classes of people who have a belief with respect to gods. Hence, it is technically inaccurate to call a baby an atheist. That is our basic difference. You have settled on a definition that isn't quite accurate, and you are letting that definition drive your usage.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, I'm not; I'm looking at how I actually use the term: I reject a few god-concepts, don't reject (but don't accept) others, and I'm fairly sure that there are other god-concepts out there that I've never heard of.

Whatever test we use to decide whether I'm an atheist, if so much as one god gets through, I'm not an atheist. So what test should we use?

- is it "rejecting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "rejecting the gods I'm familiar with"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "considering and not accepting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "not accepting any gods"? Then I am an atheist, but babies meet this test, too.

So... which is it? Do you agree that I'm an atheist? If so, what is it that you think makes me an atheist?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And BTW, you're begging the question by arguing that calling babies atheists violates the maxim "be truthful".

 

[Willamena]

No, I'm not; I'm looking at how I actually use the term: I reject a few god-concepts, don't reject (but don't accept) others, and I'm fairly sure that there are other god-concepts out there that I've never heard of.

Whatever test we use to decide whether I'm an atheist, if so much as one god gets through, I'm not an atheist. So what test should we use?

- is it "rejecting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "rejecting the gods I'm familiar with"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "considering and not accepting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "not accepting any gods"? Then I am an atheist, but babies meet this test, too.

So... which is it? Do you agree that I'm an atheist? If so, what is it that you think makes me an atheist?

The "tests" are fallacious. The definition of "atheist" isn't about the quantity of gods, nor the quantity rejected, nor is it about concepts of "god." It's just a negation of theism.

The proper test is, where theism is, "I believe in god," atheism is, "I don't."

 

[Copernicus]

No, I'm not; I'm looking at how I actually use the term: I reject a few god-concepts, don't reject (but don't accept) others, and I'm fairly sure that there are other god-concepts out there that I've never heard of.

It doesn't matter whether people have definitions you haven't heard of. We are working with the definition that the language community defines by its usage, not people's private definitions. If you like, you can think of it as a set whose members are generated by a function rather than merely exhaustively enumerated.

Whatever test we use to decide whether I'm an atheist, if so much as one god gets through, I'm not an atheist. So what test should we use?

- is it "rejecting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "rejecting the gods I'm familiar with"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "considering and not accepting all gods"? Then I'm not an atheist.
- is it "not accepting any gods"? Then I am an atheist, but babies meet this test, too.

It is rejecting all gods as they are conventionally defined by English usage. You don't want to accept the view that the meaning of "god" is a normative concept, so you won't include that stipulation in your list.

So... which is it? Do you agree that I'm an atheist? If so, what is it that you think makes me an atheist?

It depends on what you actually believe about gods as they are conventionally understood. As far as I can tell, you are no more nor less an atheist than I am. You just don't accept my account of what counts as a valid definition.

And BTW, you're begging the question by arguing that calling babies atheists violates the maxim "be truthful".

It does if "rejection" is a key part of the definition, because rejection implies the existence of something to be rejected. Under that definition, babies do not qualify as either theists or atheists, which is, I think, the most accurate perception of where babies fit on the theist-atheist scale. That is, they don't fit on it at all.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The "tests" are fallacious. The definition of "atheist" isn't about the quantity of gods, nor the quantity rejected, nor is it about concepts of "god." It's just a negation of theism.

Theism - and its negation - are dependent on the concept of god. Since a theist is someone who believes in at least one god, the quantity of gods matters I this discussion.

The proper test is, where theism is, "I believe in god," atheism is, "I don't."

First off, I noticed the monotheistic baggage on how you formulated that statement. Personally, I'm trying to be a bit more inclusive.

Second, as I touched on earlier with falv, there's a difference between being an atheist and recognizing onesself as an atheist.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm in favor of allowing people to define their terms as they see fit. I see no reason to impose on them my idea of what I think they ought to mean by a term. So, if an atheist wants to define his or her atheism as "a lack of belief in deity", then so be it.